3.5 Stars!!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off - its not everyday I read a debut YA romance book by a male author told from a male POV. I think for that alone-Moore gets major props. As a reader- I feel we need to see more of this!!



This book is what you would expect from a teen/young adult realistic romance book. Secondly- can we talk about the cover??? Its Gorgeous!!



In The Bet Between Us, we follow Donald - AKA Don Juan. He gets the nickname by basically being a player and going from one girl to the next. He is very competitive and likes to make wagers for fun and of course, for the money. His friends convince him to take a bet to get the girl- Alaina, who despises him- to fall in love with him. What he is not expecting, is the feelings he's always secretly had for her, to show.

For a debut, I thought this was great. It was fun, and entertaining. I liked the authors writing style and the dialogue. I absolutely did not like DJ in the beginning of this book! He was basically a manwhore and all about himself. BUT- I am a huge fan of redeemable characters, those that start off so horrible that totally make you feel like you are reading a totally different character when they begin to change. We see a lot of character growth from him over the course of the book - that in turn-makes him redeemable.



The only issues I had with it was the chemistry between the two main characters, while I liked Alaina, I didn't feel like I got to know her very well, so the connection between her and DJ fell a little short for me. It also was a little predictable but it did not take away from my overall feelings of the book as a whole. I would love to see Moore continue to write more stories like this in this genre! I thought it was a fantastic debut- and I look forward to more books by this author!!

Just how is this labeled as a YA contemporary book?? I received an e-galley of this book through netgalley in exchange for an honest review and after seeing the cover, I immediately thought I would fall in love with it.

From the initial first meeting of Donald the main character.. I could not believe how absolutely self-centered and narcissistic this character was. All he cares about is gambling (underage gambling that no adult around him does anything about btw— THAT in itself makes it super unrealistic) and sleeping around yet somehow does a complete 180 when he “falls in love” with a girl who supposedly hated his guts.

The summary of this book made me believe that this would be a cute romantic contemporary but the fact of the matter was that this was a depiction of overtly sexualized high school students behaving and talking like they’re years beyond their actual age which just made me more than a bit uncomfortable.

Not one of my favorite books to be totally honest. I really had no idea what to expect going into this book as I have never read anything by this author before. The synopsis sound great, the cover was amazing and just everything about this book from the outside looked right up my alley. As I really got a good few chapters in the book, the way the characters were portrayed by the author just fell short for me. It's not that I disliked them per say, but I did not like how they interacted with each other (especially the boys)! And the plot either moved fast or seemed to slow way down for things that you wouldn't expect it to. Now I'm not say this was worst book that I've read, but it was also not the best either. Now that's not to say that someone else won't enjoy it. It was just not my cup of tea!
........
Thank you to Netgally and B. L Moore for a review copy!

Everything about this book was so good and felt so real. I liked everything. Could get in easily. It was a slow start but loved it.

The Bet Between Us by Brandon Moore is a young adult love story that I really wanted to like. I did not dislike it, but I found it drawn out and boring at times. I did enjoy this book from the young man's perspective. If you enjoy young adult romances with poker playing and football, give this book a try.

I reviewed a digital arc provided by NetGalley and the Publisher. Thank you.

MY OPINION: ****

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up liking this book. I read it via the Kindle app on my phone (that's a first for me!) and found that it went by much faster than I thought it would.

For a little book, I was slightly confused by what was going on in the book but once I sat down and concentrated on it, I understood the basic premises.

Donald "DJ" Cerlino is known for his Don Juan-playboy-manwhore ways. He's had a crush on the same girl since kindergarten, Alaina Pizzo. They started a friendship in freshman and sophomore year but he reverted to his bad boy ways and Alaina didn't like who he was becoming. DJ's friends make a bet with him that he can't sleep with Alaina before December. They make it worth 200 bucks, which slightly angered me because girls are not worth money. THEY ARE PRICELESS.

Tee Pee, DJ's best friend, was the most annoying and awful character I have ever had to deal with. He made everything into such a big deal, ruined his best friend's relationship and life, and claimed it was because he was jealous of DJ's life. Rell (I think his name was Rell), DJ's other best friend, was a lot nicer and definitely the decent guy that Tee Pee should have been.

Donald and Alaina form a sort of tacit friendship through their anatomy class and the sneaky teacher who pairs them up together because he knows that there's definitely something going on there. (I need a teacher like that lol). After a lot of confusion and longing and awkward conversations, they start to date. Alaina admits that she's liked him since kindergarten and it's unsatisfying to realize how much sooner they could have gotten together.

I ended up loving this book. The characters were hilarious and had honest dialogue that I could imagine being real. I didn't like the slut-shaming/fat-shaming that was going on in here but it wasn't made as prominent as it could be and nobody got hurt. The writing was simple and easy to understand, making it quicker and a lot more interesting.

I didn't see the amount of chemistry between Alaina and Donald that I was hoping for, but Donald's speeches about how much he loves her (especially at the end) made my heart break and my stomach ache for them.

Something I liked about this book was the fact that it was told from Donald's point of view. I don't know if it's just me but I feel as if the protagonists in straight romance novels are never told from the guy's perspective so that was interesting for me.

This felt vaguely like a cliche Wattpad story but that's fine with me because I eat those up every day. I loved how it felt so easy and almost cheesy because I was looking for one of those light easy reads. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a quick and interesting romance novel about two similar but different characters and an unlikely relationship.

Main Character: Donald
Sidekick(s): Alaina, Rell, etc
Villain(s): Tee Pee (let's be real, he was not a sidekick), etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was very real to life.

also found on www.iread2016.blogspot.com

I received this book from net gallery for my honest review.

All opinions are my own.

Donald has been in love with Alaina practically his whole life. But she refuses to give him the attention he seeks because of his reputation as Don Juan. Enter the bet, Donald must make Alaina fall in love with him by Christmas break. What will happen when Alaina finds out?

There were bits and pieces of this book that I liked, but the bad out weighed the good.

There were a lot of toxic relationships portrayed in this book. Especially the relationship between Donald and TeePee, if you ask me neither one of them will win best friend of the year. Both of them are self-centered and don't understand how thier action effect others. Not only are they self-centered but their behavior is highly self-destructive.

There was also quite a bit of body shaming. Two of the nicknames that stood out to me were flab-boy and pencil-man. Donald grew up overweight till he lost all the weight too fast which led to the nickname flab-boy. Years later Alaina starts calling Donald flab-boy like it's some kind of pet name and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Some of the good things:
Alaina's relationship with her mom.
Donald's family restaurant on the beach.
Rell and Judy, enough said.

First of all I have to say that I absolutely loved this book! It was such a fun and easy read, the characters are fun and kept me hooked to the story the whole way through.

This YA novel has drama, romance, friendship, team effort, family bonding and much more. It reminded me a lot of those classic early 2000’s romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You, and that made me enjoy it even more.

The story centres around Donald Cerlino, a teenage boy known as the Don Juan of the school, the one who gets all the ladies but soon Donald starts showing that he’s much so more than a heartbreaker and the reader gets to know the true DJ throughout the book. I really appreciated the character development, especially because it was possible to see how each person in his life influenced that same development.
The romance part of the story, between Donald and Alaina, was sweet and had a fun dynamic to it. Truly enjoyed the sweet puppy love!

Thank you B. L. Moore and Xpresso Book Tours for providing me a copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Absolutely amazing, just what I need to get out of my reading slump. Such an awesome cliche YA novel in a good way. Plot and characters are amazing

The synopsis of this book instantly made me think of She's All That, so I thought it would be good one to read.

I wanted to like this book, but just couldn't. It felt all over the place to me. Too much going on with this person, then that person, etc. The characters are high school seniors, but acted like little 8th graders sometimes. I know high school has a lot of immature moments, but some of these were ridiculous. Maybe I'm getting too old for YA high school novels, I don't know.

On a positive note, I really like the book cover!!!

This was a very sweet contemporary novel that intrigued me from the start! I love having a male perspective and this is a really quick read!

3.5 stars!

I was gifted this book by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review - all thoughts & opinions are my own.

Such a sweet contemporary - the plot had me intrigued instantly & it didn’t disappoint. I really enjoyed reading a YA contemporary from a male POV as that’s something you never see!

If you’re after a really fast pace, cute characters & a quick read that you can really get lost in, then I’d definitely recommend this book!

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

First of all, I loved the premise of the book, I don't know why but for some reason the whole aspect of a guy initially using a girl to then actually fall in love with her appeals to me. I also liked that the book was solely from DJ's perspective, I don't read many romances from the guys POV so this was a nice change.

I found the book quite fast paced, it was very early on where the concept of the bet was introduced so much so that initially I was concerned I'd been given a sample rather than a full book. However, despite the fast pace a lot of the story seemed to lack any description, rather the author simply wrote what was necessary without bulking it up. In some cases, I think it's good, not everything needs a description, but in this case, I felt it was needed.

On the other hand there seemed to be the opposite whenever the characters were in a sports game, then it felt like we got a play by play commentary, which for sports fans would be great but for me personally it was a bit much, during the last game in the book I will admit I skim through some of the descriptions.

I really liked the characters, DJ wasn't what I was anticipating and neither was Alaina. I liked that they had interests, I liked that they both weren't your typical sporty students who aren't that great in academics.

Overall I enjoyed the book, I'd give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. I would have liked it to be longer and maybe a little fewer details on the sports.

This book was definitely for young adults/teens. I typically enjoy those books but I ended up finding this one boring at times. The story itself was fairly interesting, but I think we were introduced to too many characters at once in the beginning. This would be a good read for high school aged youth.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed above are solely those of my own.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This book almost sounded like "She's All That" which is kinda what I thought it would be like.
Nope
Nada
UGH

My eyes glazed over when they talked about football and gave the play by plays. I wasn't a fan of all the slut shaming, fat shaming, bullying etc. I know this happens a LOT but it made the book so harsh to read. I forced myself to finish it in hopes that there would be some redeeming quality, but I couldn't find one. Perhaps it was my expecation that it would be like "She's all that " that ruined it for me, but either way, I didn't like this one.

DNF'd at page 5, the language was so harsh and the plot wasn't apparent at all. Sorry but I can't review this properly.

He can get every girl into bed and then leave her. Except one. But he still makes a bet that he can get her. Silly boy. Girls know what guys are up to, we just act sometimes like we don't. Poor Donald. Even some of his friends are against him. Girls especially are. The book is written like a true to life story. The characters act real that you might think they're people you know. Donald sure does seem like a guy I know. I found out facts about card games that I didn't know. And more about football. Such a cute story

I loved the cover work so much, I thought for sure was going to love this book. It was a total miss for me.
I barely could get through the book .

Despite being one of those books which deal with a bad boy falling in love, I really liked reading "The bet between us", as I like Brandon Moore's writing style and the way he describes Donald and his way of changing. A nice romance novel, especially for a young audience as it's set in a high school.

I somewhat enjoyed this book. The character development was present throughout and I guess the romance aspect was cute enough.

HOWEVER, I thought that the story had some major topics that weren't dealt with correctly. Donald came off as an immature and degrading narrator. There was also the problem with gambling, bullying, sex ate.

The plot was SO cliche as well. Bad boy falls for good girl that needs the boy to prove himself worthy. Also, the bet aspect has been executed once too many times in YA books. Of course the story was greatly predictable.

Thank you for this ARC for an honest review.