What a fun book! Halle, a bookstagrammer who has risen through the ranks with her page OTP (One True Pastry), is living a double life. Secrets, white lies, and ghosting cause her world to be turned upside down.
The characters in this book are fun and genuine. The struggles they go through are plausible, and the time spent on social media (as well as the representation of online relationships) are reflective of real life.
It’s actually quite interesting as an Instagrammer to be an outsider looking in on this online world so many of us are a part of! I love the pastry aspect of Halle’s bookstagram account and the view of where your account can take you! The family aspect of this story is also enjoyable and to see the character development (of both young and old) is appreciated!!
If you are looking for a fun, heart-warning, and quick read about friendships both online and in real life, give this story a try! I have no doubt you will finish with a smile!!!

I will say that I didn't enjoy this as much as I was expecting but I still enjoyed so many aspects of it. I really loved ho the main characters were book geeks, I loved the idea of cupcakes and books together. I loved how they explored grief and the different ways that we grieve and the different ways that we heal. I loved all the characters in this book. There was no one that I didn't like which I find is rare in books. I did feel like the book did get repetitive in some parts especially when the main is talking herself out of telling the truth. I also felt that the ending was a bit rushed, I wish that there was an epilogue at the end to clear up more things.

*Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for providing me a copy for an honest review!*

Seriously cute and relatable in this social media obsessed would we live in. What do you do when you come face to face with your online bestie but he has no idea who are you? For Halle Levitt, she pretends they’ve never met before-and really they haven’t, not in person anyway. But then things get maga-complicated when she starts to fall for her online bestie IRL but her tells her he’s in love with his online bestie he’s never met... cue the drama!

A heartwarming, cute, and thoughtful story that left me craving cupcakes and more the whole way along! Truly kept me on my toes and left me giddy with the adorable young love.

4.5/ 5 stars

What I Like About You is a debut Young Adult contemporary romance.

This is such a cute YA read! I really enjoyed this book. The girl in this book writes a blog where she combines her love for reading Young Adult books with her love for making cupcakes. She designs cupcakes to go with her favorite YA books.

This book takes place in Middleton, Connecticut. The narrator is Halle (senior in high school - 1st person POV).

Halle loves books and she loves baking. Online she is known as Kels, a YA book blogger and founder of One True Pastry. She bakes cupcakes to match YA book covers.

There was so much to like about this book. I absolutely adored her family. Her gramps and brother Ollie are both major supporting characters in this book. I liked how we got to see her grandfather deal with the loss of his wife. And I really liked how close she was with her brother.

Her parents are Academy Award nominated documentary directors. So this was an interesting and different part of the story. Especially since they were out of the country travelling.

Even though her grandmother has recently died. She was such a big part of this story. Her grandmother was such a big part of her life, as she worked in publishing. I loved everything to do with her grandmother. But it was definitely very sad.

I really liked how Judaism played such an important part in the book. Halle and her family are Jewish. And there are a bunch of other Jewish characters and customs featured throughout this book.

The book also dealt a lot with anxiety and panic attacks, which I thought added a lot to this story.

The book also looked at Friendships (in real life and online), college acceptances, Loss/Grieving and keeping secrets.

Halle is two people. Online she is known as Kels. She is best friends with Nash. And she has a lot of blogger friends. In person she is shy and anxious. She loves books but hates crowds. She is obsessed with getting into NYU.

I feel like this book had everything that I could want: a Jewish family, a narrator who is a book blogger, cupcakes matching YA book covers, books being made into movies, book cover reveals, book conventions. It was just full of so much that I love.

Also the romance was really cute. Yes the story was at times a bit bizarre and not overly unpredictable. But I still liked it so much.

Overall I really liked this book. But the end left me wanting more. I feel like the book could have used an epilogue or a sequel, as I really wanted to see what happened after the last scene. But I would definitely recommend this book as it was such a charming read!

I found this book to be so cute! I love that it covers friendships (online and in real life), grief, anxiety and so much more. I found this book to be very relatable with so many people having an online presence in one way or another. I loved all the characters and friendships in this book and I found myself laughing out loud! I read this book in two sittings because I just did not want to put it down! I do feel like it ended a bit abruptly. I would've liked it to have an epilogue or one more chapter but overall I really enjoyed it!!

Thank you Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

I requested and received an advanced reading copy of this book from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t want to put What I Like About You down! I love how relevant this book is; everyone today has an online persona and that persona can vary greatly from the person we are in real life. In person conversations, cause anxiety in Halle because there is no backspace button in real life. However, as Kels she is confident, her blog is popular, and she has friends. I liked watching the drama unfold as Kels and Halle’s lives collided.

This book was fun to read, and I would like to see more of these characters in future books, maybe even an OTP cookbook.

#WhatILikeAboutYou #NetGalley

This was a bit too convoluted teen movie plot for me, and I feel like it skewed younger than intended, but I think for the right audience it will be great!

I struggled with this book from the beginning - the writing was hard to follow, the identity thing with Halle vs Kels was difficult to understand at first, and Halle's attitude as a whole was fairly off-putting. I understand that the author was trying to make this book about teens being happy about loving teen stuff, but in doing so she alienated a large chunk of her audience.

"Because engaging with adults who think YA is for them? It’s exhausting."

That line is 10% into the book and it immediately made me want to close the book. I skimmed through the rest of it, but this attitude doesn't improve or change and that bothered me. There's an implication there that we as readers are to be pinholed into genres that society deems acceptable for us to read. As an adult who loves YA, I don't believe this is true and I don't believe this is a message that should be passed along to young readers who already feel judged enough. It's this same mentally that says men shouldn't read romance, and women shouldn't read fantasy/sci-fi. I think this mentality that Halle maintains throughout the book was its biggest downfall.

That being said, I loved the book nerdiness of the story - the social media aspect, normalizing book blogging, etc. It's a fun subject, but the book as a whole missed the mark for me.

I enjoyed this story, it was a very quick read and I found it cute. I did have some issues with Halle’s attitude. I understand that the book was to highlight anxiety and how difficult it is for people but it was hard to see, I felt like it was not consistent throughout the story. I will say though that I loved the blogging aspect of the story, I can associate with that because I met some great friends through blogging.

This is definitely a YA book meant for teens. I never rate a book low for the reason that, heaven forbid, a YA book be meant for YA readers.

I’ve always been an advocate that reading doesn’t have an age limit. A book may be be marketed as YA, but that doesn’t mean ONLY YA can read it. It just means that YA CAN read it.

The reason why I would say adult YA readers may not want to pick this up, is the constant (and I mean constant), bashing of adult YA readers. It wasn’t necessary and it felt insulting. An author can target a teen audience and still be happy that adults get to enjoy their books too.

On a personal note, I am a woman in my thirties. I’ve been a reader since childhood, and one of the greatest joys in my life has been buddy reading books with my mom. Or just having us recommend books to each other. So if I was a teen while reading this, I would be heartbroken if I had chosen this to be a buddy read with my mom. She should never have to read a story that is full on insulting her because the author decided to push that only teens should read and review YA. So as an adult myself now, this really didn’t sit well with me. Every time it was mentioned it was a slap in the face.

It’s not a good thing to teach YA readers either. Basically it’s saying, “you have a small window in your life where you’re allowed to enjoy my books”, and then “see ya! Never read my books again.” It’s like because you’re not on the lowest side of the age spectrum of readers, your opinions are no longer valid.

Anyway. Moving on to the actual story. If that whole rant had been my only issue with this book, I would have rated it a four. Because as I said, I’m not going to fault a YA book for being written for YA readers.

This just got so repetitive. The kind of identity crisis she was having “am I Halle, am I Kels?” it got exhausting. There were a lot of other repetitive points as well. I just think they could have been handled better.

The main character was also not enjoyable. The whole story felt a bit superficial, and Halle just wasn’t a likeable narrator and a fair bit selfish.

If you are a teen reader who wants a book with Jewish rep, you might enjoy this.

This book started off really strong for me. I didn’t want to put it down. I kept thinking “wow apparently YA that talks about food is my new favourite kind of YA!” I also was half tempted to put the book down and search if the books that were being mentioned were actually real. But the ending kind of lost it for me. I wanted Halle to get her OTP but it just feel flat to me. I found the arc hard to read to distinguish the different tweets as well, but that might have been me reading the entire thing off my phone which I never do. It is a very sweet story full of lots of possible mini stories, prequels and further life adventures.

I liked Halle's blog "One True Pastry" and how Kanter brought the Bookstagram/Booktube community to life in this book, but that's about it. I found the writing clunky, especially the text and "teen-speak." There wasn't much in the ways of a plot, besides the fact that Halle had to reveal herself to Nash before BookCon (but then never did), but I also couldn't connect with any of the characters. I could not feel a spark between Nash and Halle at all, which is definitely a miss for a romance book. Lastly, this might be a bit of a personal bias, but Halle's perspective on adults reading YA rubbed me the wrong way, as it might for other YA-loving adults.

So much utterly delightful drama! I loved this wonderful and fast-paced read.
As someone who has a day job in the YA book world this was such a wonderful view into that world. The author clearly knows her stuff and gives a little peek behind the curtain.
I loved Halle. Her journey to combine Kels and Halle was wonderful. Her awkward moments, her passion and love for YA books, and finding her feet with her real and online world kept me glued to the page. Well, that and all the drama😉.
I am curious to see what Marisa Kanter brings us next.

So maybe I’m a little biased because why wouldn’t a book blogger love a book about a book blogger? I adored seeing the world of book blogging through Halle’s eyes, and she’s honestly living probably every book blogger’s dream being noticed by her favourite authors and invited to public events.

Kanter has created the perfect blend of fluffy romance, comedy, tragedy and Harry Potter references. I loved every second of this book. Every character is full and likeable. Nash is a fantastic romantic lead. I loved Halle navigating her romance, friendships and family relationships. It’s so wonderful to see a YA romance where the family and friends play a huge role. I loved her interactions with Ollie particularly. Sibling relationships make my heart melt.

Halle dealing with losing her grandmother, and her grandfather’s reaction to it as well was absolutely heartbreaking. There were scenes in this book, which I won’t mention because of spoilers but it won’t be the ones you think, that actually made me tear up. I can’t tell you how rare that is for me, I am not a crier outside of Disney/Pixar movies. Books have to touch me exactly the right way to make me cry and Kanter managed it MORE THAN ONCE.

There were parts of the story told through text threads/twitter threads which, as I’ve mentioned a million times, is something I adore. It gives the book a nice break in pacing, and lets you see Kels’s world a little more. I wish we would have seen some of the blog posts, but the twitter stuff was great. It actually inspired me to make my own twitter!

I did have a few qualms with this book but they were all so nit picky I didn’t feel like I could knock off a star. I felt that the book was a little preachy at points about how YA is for teens and adults should let teens have it. At one point an author saying she wants her work to be for all ages becomes a scandal? Which I think is a little ridiculous. Every artist wants their work to be for all ages. The main character even acknowledges that she won’t be a teen soon but she’ll still love YA and advocate for teen voice in it…which is nice but she’ll still be an adult voice in a space where the book makes it feel like they should be unwelcome.

The way the Kels’s book blog was presented also broke my immersion a little. One True Pastry isn’t monetized, but it has it’s own domain and an e-mail on that domain. It’s never explained who is paying for this, and the cost of running a blog is never examined at all. Halle does not have a job until halfway through the book so are her parents paying the bills here?

It also feels like Halle has SO much time. She bakes, spends whole days with friends/family, is in AP classes, working on applications for NYU, working part-time, studying like crazy and STILL also running a blog/twitter/instagram with a large enough amount of followers that publishers reach out with unique opportunities. Even a small time book blog can take as much time as a part-time job to run. It seems wild that Halle can do so much in a day.

At the end of all three of those massive paragraphs, I recognize these are relatively small problems. The experience of this book brought so much joy to my heart. I know I’m a little blinded by love here. I adore books about any sort of fandom but if you talk about the book fandom and mention Harry Potter you’ve pretty much got me.

So I don't know what all the acronyms used in Twitter and social media. However, one thing I do know is that not many people know what an ARC is. In the book ARC is used before Advanced Readers Copy, and I know that I am not a fan of having to look things up when I'm reading a book. Thats my only problem with this book.

Other than that it is a great book. Having struggled with anxiety myself it was easy to relate to the main character. The entire time you reading you just want to yell "TELL THE TRUTH", but at the same time I knew why it was such a struggle, and how it got so out of control. At one point in the book her brother says to her "you've read this book" and it hits home!

Great book, easy read, loveable characters.

Ahhhhhhh!!

Okay, not gonna lie I hit a slow patch near the begginning that was hard to get through.
But once I did, I finished this in 2 days.

I'm not gonna say it was perfect, because there was definitely some parts where I was like //whyyyy// but I think that comes with the nature of this type of story.

And though I don't 100% agree with some of the actions of the characters, it's hard to truely say what I'd do if I were put in their situation.

In the end it was good, entertaining and it's probably safe to say that I'll be getting my hand on a finished copy for sure.

What I like about you comes out April 7th, so keep a look out for it!

I lovedlovedlovedlovedLOVED this book!!!!

I had a half-hour lunch break yesterday and spontaneously decided to start reading the first few pages of this book. Well, little did I know that I WOULDN"T BE ABLE TO PUT IT DOWN!

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU is a story that grips you from the very first page and doesn't let you go until the final word. In fact, I was so engrossed by Halle and Nash's story that I... read the entire thing... within a span of nine hours... (#SoWorthIt)!!

Not only is it an incredibly cute, light and fun story, but the plot is so unique (a love triangle with only 2 people in it? SO INTRIGUING) and the characters are beautifully developed. I fell in love with Nash when he first appeared in Kels's DMs, and I wish I had a Molly to be MY best friend too!

The best thing about this book is that it's a story *MADE* for us book-lovers, us bloggers and reviewers, us YA aficionados. It's a love letter to YA fiction, a tribute to the blogging/bookstagramming community, and I LOVED it. Believe me, you'll definitely see yourself reflected in Halle and Kels and their literary adventures, from receiving arcs to dreaming about attending BookCon.

And the DIVERSITY! Jewish representation, LGBTQ+ representation, mixed-race representation, all so well-written and organic throughout the characters, the plots, the storyline. WELL DONE!!

This book is DEFINITELY one of the best YA novels I've read in a long time - DEFINITELY check it out!! (Oh, but have a plate of cupcakes near you while you read. You'll definitely be craving them!) :)

Cuteness overload!!! I adored this book, particularly because it was relatable in some way! Since I'm a book blogger, this book got me excited about the world of blogging and "making it big". The relationship between Halle and Nash was unique and beautifully put together so it felt organic and swoony at the same time. I would have liked to see their relationship progress a little further, but overall it very nicely written!

I loved this book!

The main character Halle runs an instagram reviewing YA books and posting pictures of cupcakes inspired by book covers. She uses a different name on the account, so she doesnt get associated with her famous family members. Everything is going smoothly, she maintains her persona with her online friends, and is hoping to get invited to BookCon.

Then she and brother move in with her grandpa in a new city after her grandma has passed away, where she meets one of her online friends IRL!

She is torn between telling him the truth, or pretending she doesnt know him to maintain her anonymity online. What if she's way cooler online than in person and he doesnt want to be friends anymore?

This was such a good read, although the whole plot is based on misunderstanding and miscommunication which I know can be frustrating for some readers. "JUST TELL THEM!" you yell at the pages. Its futile.

Otherwise the characters are all lovable and supportive. Family and friend relationships are tested, but end happily.

This is the first book I've read (that I'm aware of) that has a Jewish protag and her community is majority Jewish too. She's somewhat disconnected from the practicing part, but she makes an effort for her grandpa while hes mourning the loss of his wife.

Theres also a bit of LGBTQ rep. Her younger brother isn't sure if he likes boys or girls or both yet, and she's totally supportive of his questioning and changing his mind.

I LOVE THIS BOOK❤

I rarely read YA Contemporary but this may have swayed me to read more. Especially if Marisa Kanter comes out with any more!