Perfect on Paper is practically perfect. It's YA with brain and heart - so refreshing!

Darcy is a high school junior with a secret: she has been answering all the relationship questions sent to locker 89, an anonymous service for which she charges $10, refunds if not satisfied. She also is in love with her best friend, Brooke. She is a member of the Q&Q club (queer and questioning) at school and has a transgender sister, so there is a healthy dose of LGBTQIA+ energy throughout.

One afternoon, while Darcy is gathering the letters at locker 89, she is discovered by Brougham. He wanted to know who was behind the relationship advice because he really needs some help getting back together with his ex-girlfriend and is willing to hire by the hour. It's hard to say no to easy money, so Darcy takes on the task.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. There is so much to love: Darcy is trying to help people with their love problems (while never quite accepting her own), be a good friend, and get through high school. The characters were really good. And when the fall from grace inevitably comes, there is a mature response and maybe even a solution.

My thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Darcy Phillips runs a secret relationship advice business out of the unused locker 89 in her high school. She is very good at giving advice to others, even though her own love life is non-existent. Darcy has had a crush on her best friend Brooke for years. Brooke has had other girlfriends but looks at Darcy as bff material, not gf material. Not even Brooke knows about Darcy's business - no one does, until Alexander Brougham confronts her as she's picking up the locker 89 letters after school. The annoying Brougham blackmails Darcy into helping him win back his girlfriend. Darcy has no choice but to consent, especially when he sweetens the pot with a generous hourly fee. She needs to keep her Locker 89 identity secret - because if her identity is leaked things will be discovered that will ruin her chances with Brooke forever. Forced to spend time with Brougham, she learns that everyone has secrets they'd like to keep, even hunky, annoying athletes with Australian accents. As Darcy begins to fall for straight Brougham, she learns more about her own biphobia and her fear of losing touch with her friends if she's no longer considered "queer enough."
Gonzales does a fabulous job writing about teens involved in the LGBTQ+ culture. Darcy has a great relationship with her mother (although she feels neglected) and her trans older sister who founded the Queer and Questioning Club when she was in high school. There is plenty of cultural and sexual diversity in Perfect on Paper and the characters are well-developed and relatable. Perfect on Paper would be a great book for discussion - especially with young adults. Also an excellent jumping off point for discussion between teens and their families. I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more from Sophie Gonzales. Many thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.

This was a lovely young adult romance novel. A real feel good book that has me smiling and having hope during this difficult time we are all living in. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales is a young adult romance novel, that I enjoyed reading. Darcy has been answering relationship questions anonymously for a couple of years, until she is caught by a senior boy, Brougham. Darcy agrees to help him win back his ex girlfriend, and he agrees to keep her secret. This book also address LBTQIA population at the school, Darcy is Bi and in love with her best friend. I am far from an expert on this subject, but it could be helpful for both young adults and adults to understand. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys young adult romance. I am looking forward to reading more books by Ms. Gonzales.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Who wouldn't want to gain some advice about your high school love when you need it? Darcy Philips runs a dating advice service out of an abandoned locker at school and has been able to do it anonymously until one day Brougham catches her collecting the letters from the locker. In order to keep her anonymity she's agreed to help him get his ex-girlfriend back.

This is book has such a fun premise. I enjoyed the way Darcy researched different relationship resources to ensure she gave the best advice she could when answering all the letters she receives in Locker 89. The only thing she can't seem to get right is getting up the courage to tell her IRL crush and best friend Brooke that she's in love with her. As time goes by the threat of her identity being revealed gets closer and closer. The more she helps Brougham the more she starts developing feelings for him as well. As her own love life gets complicated the secrets she's kept due to the advice she's given and what she's revealed about certain people may leave her alone in the end.

This LGBTQA+ YA RomCom was really well done. My favorite relationship was between Darcy and her sister. She's always been the most supportive of Darcy. This book addresses family dynamics for both Darcy and Brougham, gender identity, and friendship. I recommend it to anyone looking ffor their next YA Contemporary!

Realistic YA Fiction. Darcy has been the secret relationship expert for a while; she answers letters from schoolmates for a fee. So far, her advice is 95% spot-on. So, when her secret identity is compromised, she has to make a deal. This deal seems to be working out, but then Darcy is thrown an unexpected curve. Hopefully, she can regain her footing and make some smart decisions about her own relationships. Overall, a simple but complex tale of love and friendship.

I loved this so so much!! I've been in a little bit of a slump where getting through thigns felt like a chore and this was the first book in at least 6 weeks that had me actually grinning and crying and staying up way later than I should because I couldn't put it down.

Firstly, the teens in this are so good? They're insufferable at times, have problems that could so easily be avoided through communication, and do really awful things sometimes because they think it's good and other times just to be petty. In other words, they are very much like real teens. I've been seeing a pretty good trend of this lately among YA releases and it's all so *chef's kiss* I really loved all the characters too and I think it did a great job of not villainizing any one person too much, because at the end of the day, they're a bunch of teenagers making mistakes that hurt each other, but learning and doing better in the process. Even people who at times I was like hmm I don't see how I could possibly forgive this character I wound up genuinely rooting for by the end.

The premise is also just so fun and a little goofy. What teenager these days doesn't watch like 3 YouTube videos on something and go hey! I can do this better! Darcy is such a mess. I mean she pulls it off a lot of the times somehow, but she is such a mess. I loved the snippets of her advice at the beginnings of chapters and seeing how her judgments (particularly on herself and Alex) changed throughout the story the more she actually reflected on what she was doing.

Lastly, I loved how very queer this whole thing was. There was rep from all across the board (trans, ace, bi, lesbian, gay) that all felt really natural. Biphobia - both internalized and not - is a big part of Darcy's arc and I thought it was handled really well. I'm not bi myself so of course take this with a grain of salt and listen to bi reviewers, but I know this story partly came out as a result of Sophie Gonzales' personal experience with biphobia and the unique issues that come from being bi in a m/f relationship. There is one particular scene that was just so heartwarming and cathartic and had me grinning and hugging my phone very close.

I went in with high expectations already from my experience with Only Mostly Devastated and the early reviews and somehow they were still exceeded. An absolutely sweet and wonderful YA romance that is queer in ways we haven't explored much before and will have you gushing.

BOOK REPORT for Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

Cover Story: In the Middle
BFF Charm: Meh
Swoonworthy Scale: 5
Talky Talk: Contempt(orary)
Bonus Factors: LGBTQ+, Accents
Relationship Status: Two Roads Diverged

Cover Story: In the Middle
I'm a fan of the move toward illustrated covers, but it definitely feels like it's a bubble that's going to burst before too long—so many covers are similarly illustrated right now! This one's cute, and I like the emphasis on the characters while also having a background. A lot of these types of covers have characters only. The characters themselves aren't how I pictured them, at least two of the three, but I could have just misread.

The Deal:
Darcy Phillips is a relationship genius. She's been running an anonymous advice line through locker 89 since she was a freshman, and prides herself on her 95% success rate. She doesn't just make her advice up, either; she reads/watches/listens to a lot of older relationship experts and then distills their opinions down for her high school audience.

But then Alexander Brougham sees her getting letters out of the locker and makes her a deal: he won't tell anyone who she is if she helps him get his ex-girlfriend back.

BFF Charm: Meh
Darcy's the daughter of a teacher, she doesn't quite fit in at her fancy private school, she's in love with her best friend—her only friend?—and she prides herself on giving really good relationship advice. But she's also extremely naive and doesn't quite see the bigger picture. She's also extremely defensive when it comes to someone second-guessing her or trying to get her to turn her critical eye toward herself. I related to parts of Darcy, but they were, unfortunately, the less attractive ones. I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from being honest with Darcy about certain faults, and she 100% would not take that well.

Swoonworthy Scale: 5
Darcy's been in love with Brooke, her best friend, for ever. To the point where she's named their future twins. (Austin and Ally, which does get called out for being a bad idea, thankfully.) But Brooke's never really shown any sign of having reciprocating feelings … and Darcy has maybe used her gig with Locker 89 in a really sketchy way in the past, and isn't exactly past doing so again.

On the other hand, there's something about Brougham that Darcy finds appealing, even if he is standoffish and rude and not interested in Darcy at all.

Talky Talk: Contempt(orary)
Perfect on Paper, while inclusive and entertaining, doesn't break too far from the standard contemporary mold—and, sadly, doesn't do anything to move the genre forward, either. It's predictable, surface-level, and frequently Roger Murtaugh-y. The inclusionary aspects (see Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+ below) felt a little flat and or token-y, and the consequences for certain character's actions were overly lax. The relationships were devoid of chemistry, and it was hard to root for Darcy when she's so oblivious about her own thoughts and feelings. I found it hard to connect with any of the secondary characters, too; they popped in and out when convenient for the story rather than feeling like they were really a part of things. Additionally, there were mentions of drug and alcohol use that, while possibly super accurate, felt like something out of a CW show rather than an honest portrayal of teens.

Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
Darcy is bisexual, and part of the Queer & Questioning Club at her high school, along with a bunch of other folks who fall in various places along the queer spectrum. Ainsely, Darcy's sister, is trans. There's a lot of great inclusion of the sexual and gender spectrum in Perfect on Paper, as well as a discussion about internalized biphobia, which I think is an important conversation to have. (On the flip side, I'd be curious to know what queer folks think about the queer depictions in this book. Or if Gonzales had sensitivity readers. I'm not the right person to judge how correctly these folks were depicted.)

Bonus Factor: Accents
Gonzales speaks the truth about people with accents in Perfect on Paper:

"Today was apparently the first time I'd heard Alexander Brougham speak, because until now I'd had no idea he had a British accent. I understood his wide appeal now: Oriella, my favorite relationship YouTuber, once dedicated a whole video to the topic. People with perfectly good taste in partners historically had their senses addled in the presence of an accent."

Please note: I pulled this quote from an advance review copy; the final text might be different.

Relationship Status: Two Roads Diverged
We had fun together, Book, but we're at different places in our lives, and I fear we're walking in very different directions. Let's call it now before we get in too deep and things get messy.

This was a great novel that really hits on what makes high school such a rough emotional time. I loved our MC, Darcy and her sister Ainsley, who navigate new territory. Darcy is bi and trying to navigate the waters of what that means. Darcy’s journey isn’t easy. I liked that we could see her make mistake after mistake, what’s high school if not a series of mistakes. However, Darcy genuinely learns from each and every experience. She has her own modern take on a love advice column that involves an abandoned locker and an anonymous email. I had great trepidation waiting for it to all unravel and it was every high school nightmare I imagined. This book delivers a lot of lessons without delving into too much of an after school schedule. I genuinely learned something new after this and feel like everyone should read if not just for the enjoyment of reading about first love.

Ok, this was really cute and so queer WE STAN

This one kicks off right away and I gotta say, I was starting to think this book was a little too smart for me. Who gave Darcy THE RIGHT to be so damn insightful like that?? And in high school?? I could never

Anyway, I loved the care and attention that the author gave this relationship advice business that Darcy ran from her high school locker, as well as all of the conversations around queerness — specifically bisexuality. I didn’t realize how many questions and fears I had about my own bisexuality until Darcy (+ friends) made me feel a little less alone

I also loved seeing Darcy and Brougham go on this path to friendship and eventual relationship. Again, SO CUTE! Darcy’s careful consideration of Brougham’s upbringing and current familial situation just made my heart melt.

However, so much was left up in the air at the end there. Not that everything needs a nice little tied-up bow, but there was so much to unpack. I wish I knew more about Darcy’s no-longer-in-love situation (too casually thrown away, imo) and honestly, at times I didn’t even really believe Darcy and Brougham’s relationship. I honestly just thought they were good friends and simply that.

ANYWAY, I reaaaally enjoyed this author’s writing and I was so glued to this audiobook that I will DEFINITELY be coming back for the next one!!!


*TW: biphobia, internalized biphobia, infidelity, toxic parents

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review. I loved this book SO much. I loved the diversity of genders and orientations! Darcy is so much fun and I loved her realness. I honestly LOL'd many different times during this book, and I didn't actually expect to learn so much about relationships and attachment styles! I would totally read a sequel about Darcy's new website and to hear how the characters are doing. I will definitely be checking out more books by this author!

This book was great! I think I’m starting to grow away from some YA especially YA contemporary, but I really enjoyed this. The advice she gives on relationships are just perfection. And the discussions about queerness as well was just so good. They were the highlights of the book for sure. Other than that everything else was good, but what really stood out to me was the advice and the discussions.

I had so much fun reading this book! It was exactly the kind of YA book I love. It was fun, emotional, had loveable characters, and was incredibly diverse. Darcy was our main character and I thought she was fantastic. I loved the letter answering/advice giving aspect of the story so much. I wasn't sure who the love interest would be at first. She has a massive crush on her best friend, Brooke, but there is also this guy, Alexander... I absolutely love who she ended up with and how this one turned out. This is one of those books that would make a fantastic film!

When I picked this up and requested it, I really did want something easy breezy and something to break up the mystery and bloody reading sprees. I was enchanted by the story. There were times I laughed and flipped through it and got lost in the cuteness. I liked Brougham. He was all big heart and grumpy brute and it was great. The way he opened up to Darcy as the pages turned it was great. His family life added to the story for me and when things rough and he opened up to Darcy and showed us his inner silly I was sold,


Darcy however was a tougher sell for me. While I felt like she had a generosity of spirit and a big heart, some of her actions were just...really off-putting. But also, Probably true to her age. And in the end, I was happy with the way it was all resolved. And I loved her with Brougham. There were sweetness and honesty to their relationship that felt so heartfelt to me. But I also appreciated the honesty in the inner-conflict Darcy felt while sorting through her own feelings for him. In this, I felt like everything was basically perfection.

I enjoyed this book but this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. That is why it is getting three stars. I liked the writing style of the author. It took a bit for me to settle into the story, and then some parts felt like they dragged - I found most of it engaging and relatable but the pacing of the storytelling felt off to me, or maybe it was just that I wasn't as invested in all storylines? In any case, I enjoyed the LGBTQ+ representation and once I got comfortable in the pages, I was happy to see it through to the end. If you are looking for an easy-breezy diverse read this is a great one to read.

I have not had this much fun reading a book in a while. From beginning to end it had me smiling so wide, and I did not want to put it down.

Darcy was a character I could relate to in many ways—not that I'd ever started an anonymous dating advice service at my high school—when it came to her personality. Her thoughts just felt like ones I've had before. And Brougham was such a sweetheart. And the LGBTQ+ representation all throughout this book made my heart soar!

The writing style was everything I could have asked for. It was fast-paced, the dialogue felt so real, and I couldn't stop reading.

If you're looking for a cute and entertaining YA book to get your mind off of the world for a bit, this one's for you!

I will definitely keep Sophie Gonzales on my radar, and I am looking forward to future books from the author!

Ultimately I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did, which is also how I felt about Gonzales' other book, ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED, so I think this is a case of personal preference, and not so much because of any fault with the book.

What I did enjoy and want to highlight was the LGBTQ rep in the book, how inclusive it is, and the focus it books on internalized biphobia as something Darcy, our main character, finds herself dealing with. I found those portions of the book to be incredibly important and valuable. This book definitely gets an A+ for inclusivity and representation and it handles it in a way that feels authentic and not in an after school PBS special kind of way.

Overall, I give this book a 3/5 stars.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I am sorry I delayed leaving a review because it deserved HYPE before the release.
This has everything from romance, letters, friendship, and QUEERNESS. Queerness that comes in all types. I loved what this book touched on. How your story is only yours and all we can do as a community is support each other. The conversation about being queer in a relationship with a man was everything. I identify as a lesbian now but I was in a relationship with a man for eight years. I just used the term Queer during this because I knew he was the only man I would ever. I felt like I did not belong anywhere during this. This relationship ended in 2020 and putting myself back out there with women was scary because of biphobia. I wish I had had a club like this at a young age.


PROTECT Brougham at all costs. I loved his snarky rudeness and how great of a friend he turned out to be.

My only issues was Brooke. What Dracy did to her was not cool, however I never felt like Brooke was a Steller friend. She brushed her feelings aside a lot and I felt like she should have known Darcy was in love with her. They were both in the wrong. I just wish they had talked it through in the end. I am happy they mended fences.


The romance was lovely and THAT IS ALL I WILL SAY! Go buy this book and all her other ones. You will not be disappointed. EASY FIVE STARS.

I think the author has learned a lot since her debut novel, and you can see that in the way Darcy and Brougham's friendship develops, as well as in the way that Darcy's actions affect her and the people around her. The fact that Darcy is a teenager who makes money by giving advice does not go unnoticed, and the consequences of this secret are explored when everything comes up.
With many queer characters, there are some discussions about issues of sexuality and identity, especially involving bisexuality. Darcy is bi and worries about how she will be treated if dating a boy, fears that her identity will be discarded and that people will think that she is "posing as straight." they were supportive.
My little problem with this book is actually the same thing that bothered me with Only Mostly Devastated: the romantic interest is just too perfect. Cute, sweet, smart, funny, romantic, romantic interest is what everyone wants in a partner, and that is a little forced.
Still, it wasn't a problem enough to keep me from having fun reading this lovely romantic comedy, perfect for anyone who likes books like With Love, Simon and His Royal Highness.

Perfect of Paper earns that moniker page after page after page. Our protagonist is clever authentic, quirky, sassy, and lovable—even when she’s being certifiable.

Darcy, our way-too-in-her-head main character has a secret so big she’s willing to endure being blackmailed by Alexander Brougham “pronounced Bro-uhm, not Broom,” arguable the school’s hottest senior.

What’s great about this book:
-incredible character development
-tropes that are compellingly developed and executed without feeling overdone
-excellent trans representation (about time!)
-harrowing and realistic families with complex problems and dire consequences
-the whole premise had me hooked (Darcy is just dang delightful) from page one
-Darcy’s VOICE is clearer than a bell in my head; Gonzales just wrote her so, so well
-the best friend breakup is definitely worse than any romantic relationship and it’s written with an air of authenticity that HAD to have been earned

From beginning to end, I couldn’t get enough of Darcy and Brougham and I 100% need Sophie Gonzales to give me a playlist of Brougham’s favorite jams ASAP!

With humor, wit, romance, a down-to-earth relatability, interesting characters, and a touch or two of angst, Perfect on Paper charmingly explores the ups and downs of first love and friendship, the discovery and acceptance of teen sexuality and identity within the LGBTQ+ spectrum and community, and how first impressions almost never give the full picture of who we are or what our lives are really like against the backdrop of an enemies-to-lovers vs. friends-to-lovers story. Which trope wins? That’s a pleasant surprise. Darcy Phillips is mostly your average teenage girl. She’s in love with her best friend Brooke, who’s in love with someone else. Oh, and she earns extra cash by charging for relationship advice in her private high school under a secret identity. No one at school knows about it, including her friends, until Alexander Brougham – who she cannot stand – catches her retrieving letters from locker 89 that were placed there for her anonymously by students. Let’s just say that Darcy may have done some not so nice things with the information she has available to her as the school’s resident relationship expert. So, she needs to keep her secret identity from getting out, especially to Brooke. She agrees to be Brougham’s dating coach and help him get his ex-girlfriend back in exchange for him keeping her secret.

I love that while the characters are likeable and relatable, they are by no means perfect. Intelligent, insightful, caring, and generous, Darcy is well-meaning, but like most teens – and adults – she can be self-involved. She genuinely likes helping people and puts in the work to offer students helpful advice. But when it comes to her BFF Brooke, who she has on a pedestal and worships fully believing that if she can just have all her undivided attention, she will see her as more than just her friend, she makes the worst choices with motives that are not pure. Brougham is handsome, serious, smart, intense, and a loyal and supporting friend. While he is rich, popular, and appears to want for nothing, there is a lot more going on behind his somber façade. However, he can be a bit of a know-it-all, argumentative, rude, and pushy jerk. He challenges Darcy at every turn, questioning her methods and motives for offering advice to students, making her genuinely think about what she is doing and why for possibly the first time. Being his dating coach pushes her outside of her comfort zone, leading her to question herself and deal with some revelations about her sexual identity she had never before been comfortable accepting or speaking about. She reluctantly discovers that she may not have all the right answers after all, no matter how much research she does, to fix her own life or mistakes. Their partnership leads to some positive changes in Brougham as well, bringing out his personality and providing someone with whom he can talk about the personal/family issues he’s dealing with who understands what he’s going through. Their partnership brings out the best in each of them, changing them and their lives for the better in ways they may not even be aware of themselves at the time.

The best things about Perfect on Paper are its description, pacing, tone, characters and their development and interactions, and the sex positive way that the teens are given the freedom and opportunity to freely talk about and express their sexuality and gender identities (bi, lesbian, gay, trans, aero, ace, etc.) in the novel by both peers and adults. In talking about such things as sexual and gender identity erasure, phobia, and acceptance among peers, adults, and society at large, the novel’s tone is neither preachy nor condescending. The tone is so down-to-earth as it approaches these topics with respect and sensitivity like the natural and fundamental aspect of teen lives that they are. Perfect on Paper is a quick read because the description, characters, and story immediately grab your attention, sucking you into the story and keeping you invested until the very end. The novel is nicely paced, flowing from one scene to the other without any lag. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. There are so many more things I loved about the novel, but I don't want to spoil the experience by talking about them.

One down-side of the novel is that I don't think we really get to see enough of Brooke's character or her current interactions with Darcy when she's not lonely or heartbroken to understand why Darcy is so obsessively in love with her. I am saying this from seeing their friendship and a basis for a romantic relationship. Perhaps it's an intentional decision that shows that their relationship has changed and that Darcy has been unaware or unable to see the truth of where it stands.

Perfect on Paper is a surprisingly sweet, humorous, witty, and slightly angsty YA romance about self-discovery, acceptance, fitting in, and learning that some of the most important friendships and relationships in life are the unexpected ones and can sometimes be with the last people you might expect. But it does require willingness to take the risk. Readers who like sweet and funny LGBTQ+ rom coms in a high school setting should love this one.