Cover Image: Down With This Ship

Down With This Ship

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Member Reviews

Rating: 3.5 stars

I wanted to love this book. I really did. Unfortunately it fell really short of greatness for me. So, it was a book about fandom and about fanfiction writing…but it legitimately read like bad fanfiction throughout.

I didn’t believe that Kole was a great fanfic writer. I didn’t understand why so many guys were seemingly interested in here… except for the fact that it fit the YA trope of protagonist who thinks she’s plain because she doesn’t realize she’s pretty or whatever.

Most of the characters were stereotypes or fit trope roles as well, with no extra expansion or depth to their characterization. It was unfortunate.

I also found Kole to be a rather unlikeable protagonist. She was mostly a loner, with just one friend, and she describes her separation with the rest of her friend group as a disagreement about ships within the fandom of their favorite show.

Plus the relationships were weird and problematic and some of them felt forced just to add drama or flair to the story.

Oh, and the inclusion of “chapters” of Kole’s popular fanfic didn’t really add much either, unless they were there to emphasize Kole’s immaturity and poor writing and her judgmental perception of the other ships within the fandom.

At least I can say that I read the entire book, so it was at least entertaining enough to continue reading instead of DNFing.

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One of my favourite parts of the book was how unique the storyline and plot were! I loved the entire focus on fan fiction as well as how unapologetically geeky the story was. I’ve read, and loved tons of contemporaries recently, and honestly none of them were as distinctive as this. Although I wish some parts were executed differently, I found the whole thought process behind it very original, and fresh.

Along with that, I loved the focus on mental health, and the toll it can take on you. The anxiety wasn’t sugar coated, and just being able to see the effects of the main characters anxiety onto her character made the story all the more impactful. The anxiety representation was portrayed so honestly, and unflinchingly, that was something I appreciated as well, because you don’t see it very often in YA!

Realistic interactions between teens in a book also affects my enjoyment, and I’m so happy to say I found that in Down With This Ship! The conversations between the main character and her best friend were also definitely super relatable (we stan supportive friendships hehe), and they never felt fake, or pretentious at any point of time!

Although I liked so much of the book, a lot also fell flat for me. One of the things that bothered me most, though, was the pacing. This novel dragged on for wayyy too long. It was under 400 pages – but it felt so long, and practically nothing happened for SO long somewhere in the first half. Sure, it sped up later, but I just couldn’t get through the slow bits!

The love triangle in the beginning also annoyed me so much! At this point, it’s no secret how much I dislike love triangles, and I’m sorry to say this book didn’t change my opinion of that.

Overall, Down With This Ship, was a fun, geeky novel, that was ultimately about finding yourself, and tuning out the hate alongside people you love. Although the idea for the novel was fresh and unique, it adequately covered mental health issues, and featured genuine interactions a lot of aspects fell short for me. The pacing was way too slow in some parts, and trudging through was a problem for me. Along with that, there was also a love triangle, which I don’t normally vibe with – and this was no exception.

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I honed a lot of my editing, reading, and reviewing skills in the world of fanzines and online fanfiction around TV SF fandoms especially, so I was very taken with the premise of this book. The fictional show this story revolves around feels very close to my favourite fandom, Blakes 7, with a bit of a nod also to Andromeda, which I loved for its first season and a half. There are also mentions within the book of some of my other fandoms, which makes the reading experience that bit more immersive. The characters are even of a similar age to that at which I started swapping stories with a classmate, although their fiction feels more polished than mine was at that point.

Kole Miller is in the top class for creative writing at her high-performing school, but she’s always nervous about sharing her work by reading it aloud to her fellows. This is not so true of her fanfiction for the popular show, The Space Game, which she shares in nightly instalments with thousands of readers on a popular blogging site. When Kole’s fic wins a major award, her readership suddenly shoots up. However, a lot of these new commenters are highly critical of her writing style and the relationship she favours in the show and her fic. Some of them are even local to her. No one at Kole’s school knows she is an author, but that may be about to change, because the school newspaper runs an article about the fic’s award and the fact that its writer is not only a local, but also one of the students.

Meanwhile, Kole has new neighbours: Noah, a slightly older boy, who soon befriends Kole and also her sporty big brother, along with Noah’s father, and Noah’s much younger twin sisters. Kole also gains increased attention from two other boys, the star pupil in most of her classes, with whom she fell out some years before after he critiqued her work a little too harshly, and one of the team writing for the school newspaper, who threatens to out Kole as the author of the award-winning fic, if she doesn’t fulfil a series of challenges set by him and his friend – a girl that Kole fell out with some years earlier due to their differing opinions on The Space Game.

Things come to a head, when Kole has to accompany the boy blackmailer to a school dance, and then has to allow the girl blackmailer to pass off one of Kole’s poems as her own for a school competition. Kole soon realises that not only is she compromising her integrity, but she will never get to attend the fan convention to which she has been invited or achieve her dream of becoming a screenwriter, if she can’t own her work. But admitting her misdeeds may mean she is barred from attending the convention anyway.

I enjoyed this book, although there were some aspects of the US high school experience that felt very alien to me as a Brit. Kole is an engaging character, and her friends and rivals have their own distinct personalities. I liked that Kole worked out which boy was genuinely interested in her with minimal angst, and enjoyed her easy friendship with one of the other girls. Also, she’s a bit of a klutz with relatable fears and anxieties. All in all, an author I want to read more from in the future.

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Down With This Ship by Katie Kingman appears to offer a similar style of story as Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Radio Silence by Alice Oseman, however it never quite lives up to their successes. The characters read incredibly two dimensional and plot points feel underdeveloped and weak. The exaggerated success of Kole's title - which appears to be written without any plotting, planning or technique - makes the concept seem ridiculous and it is difficult to root for them as a writer.

The pacing is skewed and makes the title difficult to read, while the main character is so difficult to relate to that it is impossible to enjoy what little promise it holds.

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I think it's safe to say we all have 'ships that we've had to fight to defend. *cough Reylo cough* Anyway. This book is all about those ship wars. And I totally ship it.

Okay so let's just kick this off by saying, I adore the shit out of Kole. Like ADORE!!! She is exactly who I would want to be friends with in High School. And now, actually. Now that I think about it, maybe Kole is me in an alternate universe. So much about what she struggles with is so similar yet so different than what I experienced. Obviously, I didn't have the internet. Or a blog. Or have the confidence as my girl. But wanting to write and not feeling good enough. Or that my parents wouldn't approve. Bingo bango yes.

So maybe I'm biased, but right from the start, Kole just felt so real to me. And I loved being on this journey with her.

That's not to say the rest of the cast was lacking. Because wow did every character just pop off the page. I swear I know every single one of them in real life. I mean, who hasn't been dazzled by the hot new guy, or had a complicated enemy-maybe-friend, along with outright enemies that just make life miserable. High School aside, I swear these dynamics happen everywhere all the time no matter what.

And that's what makes this book so freaking good. It's relatable on so many levels. You don't have to be a teenager, or a writer of fan fiction to really understand Kole and what she's going through. We've all had times when we don't feel good enough, even when we have actual evidence that's not true. Or have been confused over what we want, or who we want, or how to even deal with either option.

Anyway. Outside of the personal dynamics and Kole's struggle, I think this book did a marvelous job at showing the ups and downs of fandoms and social media. It can be such a rush to find fans to connect with, who share the same opinions as you. But man, when you crash into other teams, things can get intense.

In all, this is such a sweet book that will make you release the breath you didn't know you were holding. It's funny and quirky in all the best ways. Anyone into geek culture, particularly fan fiction, will love all the nerdy facets that Kingman weaves throughout the story. It has the best ending, I swear the glasses. THE GLASSES!!! When you know, you'll know. And then you'll ship it too.

If you're looking for a fun read this summer, I'd highly recommend Down With This Ship.

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Okay okay okay this book was sooo stinking cute! I can't get over how cute it is and just love it!

Kole and Collin are literally adorable in every way. Rather than feeling ashamed or embarrassed by their nerdiness they embrace. It's such a breath of fresh air to see people who love being smart or liking nerdy things! Something I wish everyone did!!

Kole really gowns as a person throughout the book! Her ability to take embarrassment, rejection, and pain in stride in high school is admirable as makes her so strong.

If you like enemies to lovers, or have been the nerd this is for you and you will love!

Thank you NetGalley for my eARC!!

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Pretty cute and fun! Just what I expected and needed!

Quirky, relatable characters add to the likability factor.

I realize this won’t be for everyone, but it’s adorable and light.

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Down With This Ship combined elements of all my favorite tropes — enemies to lovers, fan culture, and unapologetic geekiness! It was a light, fun read that I enjoyed on a long flight.

The characters themselves were a little underdeveloped; it felt like Kole’s defining characteristic was fangirl. And while, lol #mood, it got a bit repetitive to read. The high school antagonists were unrealistic in how far they’d go and the response of the school (if I did half of the stuff the kids got away with, I would’ve been suspended or expelled quicker than you can say “but I-“).

However, all this being said, it was a sweet book to read and find out what happens. I love, love, love the addition of fanfic excerpts and how much fan culture is woven into the book. Reading it felt like a love letter to the geek community!

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Due to personal reasons I'm behind on my reading so went to go and read this one to find it missing on my kindle (I think I need to invest in a new kindle soon as this is not the first time this has happened!)

The file has now been archived so will try and purchase in the future.

Sorry!

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Down with this Ship is pretty enjoyable. Kole, a fanfiction writer, sees her life change really fast when she wins a writing contest and she is faced with new criticism from the increased traffic. On top of that, she is invited to speak to a huge con, and may or may not start to like a boy.

Plots featuring blogs, fanfiction etc. always have a special place for me. It always makes me happy to read about this, it's exactly the same feeling as when I read cute romances. It was nice to read about the evolution of Kole's work. If you enjoy reading fiction in fiction, you'll also be satisfied, as we get some content from Kole's blog in the book. Every 2-3 chapter, we get to read some entries. I'm not too into that, but I know it is very important to many readers to have that.

Kole herself is also cute. She is definitely struggling with a lot of mental charge, she needs to take crucial decisions for her future. That's very relatable, especially for teens. Lots of expectations, an online personnality, and decisions to make. Who wouldn't understand Kole ? That being said, I thought she was a pretty shallow character. It felt like EVERYTHING in the book was only about her. Her friends are basically tools for her to complain to, and nothing else. I would have loved for Kole to be a little less self-centered. This is why I sometimes had trouble sympathetizing with her. I was like "Well, yes, you kind of deserve that for being a horrible friend". I'm a little conflicted about Kole !

Overall, it was still an entertaining book. Summer is here, and it is definitely the best season to read Down with this Ship. You will get fluff, nerdiness, blogging, reading and a coming-of-age plot. Maybe it won't stick with you forever, but it is a good read to have in your free time !

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*I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review

This book is a great romantic comedy for anyone who loves to write stories or fan fiction. When I was in high school, I liked to write a lot and wrote fanfics, mainly Star Wars, so I really could connect to Kole. I didn’t keep it a secret, since everyone already knew I was a big nerd, but I couldn’t imagine what Kole went through when other people found out and she started getting bullied online with comments when her fanfic won.


I loved watching Kole figure out her demons and become a stronger person. I also loved the romantic elements and love triangle. Kingman does a great job of making you connect with the MC and rooting for her the entire time. I recommend this to anyone who loves romance, coming of age stories, and people who write fanfics!

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a e-copy of this book to review.
I wanted to like this book. The storyline is usually right up my alley. But it just fell a little flat. I found the majority of the characters to be very whiny and superficial. But I understand that makes good drama. I get the appeal and I know the right reader will love this story. I just don’t feel that reader is me.

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loved this book so cute not something I usually but I love it the characters were so great it was such a fun quick read

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ARC provided for review by NetGalley and Simon and Flux Books for an honest review of the book.

This book tries to be a story about every teenager but it feels much more like everyone is a stereotype, in a usually negative way. Kole, a fanfiction obsessed teen writer, is living through high school where she gets along with very few classmates, who are mostly described in negative ways, and is very focused on her writing, to a negative degree. While Kole is focused on her writing and becoming the best, she also gets a bit of a predictable romance arc, and sort of triangle, in the book as well.

I really had a hard time connecting with Kole, even though I found the story mostly engaging. Kole came of a bit self centered and pretentious. This made it really hard to root for her in any situation. The focus on fanfiction, an often derided topic, was interesting, especially because it was generally portrayed in a positive light but eventually the focus on this fell by the wayside and felt like a tool used to introduce other aspects of the story.

I can very much see the appeal of this book but it just wasn’t for me.

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Title: Down with This Ship
Author: Katie Kingman
Genre: YA
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Kole Miller does one thing really well: write fanfiction for the show The Space Game. Everything else is a struggle: like managing her anxiety, frequent crushes, and plans after high school. But when her blog, Spacer, wins a major fanfiction contest, her traffic soars.

With massive readership comes criticism Kole isn’t prepared for, including getting stuck in the heated ship wars surrounding the show. And then an invitation to speak at The Space Game’s official convention arrives in her inbox.

When the most competitive kids in her Creative Writing class discover Kole’s writing Spacer, her blog is taken hostage and she risks them hitting ctrl+A+del on Spacer. To win it back, Kole must face both her inner demons and the ones at Crystal Lake High before they make the drama not just about The Space Game, but about Kole herself.

I love to read YA fiction. I do. But I think maybe this wasn’t the best fit for me. I’m not knocking her being obsessed with a TV show or writing fanfiction at all, but she just didn’t make sense to me. Why is she hiding her identity so hard? Why does she not want anyone to know she writes a hugely popular blog? Why does she even care what her ex-friends think of her? And why does she care about all of those things so much she lets herself be blackmailed? Multiple times, no less. If you care that much about something, own it. Don’t let someone make you feel less-than because of it.

Bits of this were pretty cliched (the boy next door crush) or blown out of proportion (Are you telling me someone with such a successful online presence doesn’t know how to protect her own blog?), and it felt like that stuff happened just to add drama—without being believable. In the end, this tried just a little bit too hard, without fully delivering a believable story or characters.

Katie Kingman lives in Phoenix. Down with This Ship is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Flux in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 6/26.)

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It’s sad to see in other reviews, readers describing the way a 17-year-old girl behaves as ‘immature’. It makes me feel a certain way about who is actually the target audience for a book that is very explicitly YA. Spoiler; if you think a teenager worrying about what her friends will think of her, agonising over whether a boy likes her, or having anxiety about not living up to her parents’ expectations is immature… you’re not the intended audience for this book.

Yes, there were moments when I thought “Oh, honey, you should have just done this…” but I’ve seen 17 nearly three times now. When I was 17, I’d have made exactly the same mistakes as Kole. I DID make some of the same mistakes, including caving to bullies because I thought they had the power to affect me. Like Kole, though, I discovered I had people in my corner, and that shining light on cockroaches makes them scuttle for cover. That’s the real story in this book, Kole hitting the end of her rope and finding a well of strength inside herself. Being pushed into a corner and coming out swinging - at one point, literally - and realising that doing so is taking back her own power.

The end might be a bit wish-fulfilment, but you know what? Seanan McGuire got her start writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic, so Kole’s dreams coming true aren’t all that far-fetched.

Katie Kingman has obviously spent plenty of time in fandom. She’s also put in the work to create a proper fake fandom for this book; it was one of my pet peeves about Spoiler Alert, another recent book with a fanfic-author heroine, that the fandom hadn’t had the serial numbers filed off thoroughly enough. Kingman’s done the job well enough that I, who also spend a lot of time in fandom, really don’t know what ship the main couple was based on (though I can make an educated guess, considering only a few ships have really attracted anti-fandoms). The fandom isn’t the important part about this book, though. It’s the message to the intended readers, the teenagers who love fandom and want to dream big. Don’t let the haters get you down. If you’re pushed into a corner, come out swinging and let the truth set you free. And; there will always be someone on your side. Find your fellow shippers and you’re gonna be just fine.

Five stars for a read I thoroughly enjoyed… even though I’m probably three decades too old for the intended audience.

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Kole Miller is the author of a super popular fanfic about The Space Game, a TV show set in, you guessed it, space. When she wins a fanfic writing contest, the hits on her popular fanfic, Space, skyrocket. Suddenly, everyone at school is talking about her fanfic and she’s getting millions of hits, instead of the thousands she’s used to. A classmate, Damien, learns that Kole is the author of Spacer and threatens to tell everyone at school unless Kole goes to the dance with him and writes his favorite ship into the fic. Kole goes along with it, wrestling with whether or not its worth it and if she should reveal herself to be the author. Not only is her blog in jeopardy, but her personal life is going up in flames, too. Multiple crushes, kisses, and intrigue abound.

I tried to like this book. Really I did. I’ve been reading fanfic since I was twelve. That’s almost two decades, for me. I’ve been on tumblr for over a decade. I know fandom. I know big fandoms and small fandoms and discourse and shipping and toxic behavior in the fandom. And this book just feels like the perfect example of a toxic fandom to me. Too much heavy shipping, not only of fictional characters, but also of real life people (real within the realms of the fictional universe of the novel, at least). There isn’t a mention of this shipping being toxic and divisive until way later in the book, Kole fiercely defending her chosen ship until the end, to the exclusion of another popular ship, without acknowledging that both ships can be valid. And there was no mention of alternative ships, other than these two main extremely hetero ones: Pippa and Byron, and Pippa and Cedric. No Cedric and Byron, or any other side ships.

I found Kole to be annoying in the extreme; she is self centered and focuses only on herself, fandom, and her fic. She has a single friend and her brother, who she’s somewhat close with. And the other characters were just boring and practically nonexistent, overdramatic archetypes with similar modes of speaking. You could put a phrase from any one of them in front of me and I wouldn’t be able to tell you who said it. None of the characters beyond Kole were nearly well developed enough. Everyone seems so desperately immature. I would’ve thought they were at most middle schoolers with the way they spoke. For one thing, they sometimes use swear words in full and sometimes just say ‘eff’ instead of the full word. And there seemed to be no reason why. Either go full on swearing or no swearing at all. Don’t dance around it.

The romance was completely unbelievable, too, especially with Colin. I was absolutely convinced that Colin was messing with Kole the whole time, him being friends with Damien and all. I thought he was trying to get closer to her so he could get information on Spacer and I still didn’t believe in their romance by the end. The switch about from pure enemies to somewhat friends was just way too quick. Then there’s Noah, Kole’s other romantic option. He’s new to town and is Kole’s brother’s new friend, so they have some interactions. They talk a little, maybe twice, before they’re kissing and he’s asking her to the school dance. There’s just no chemistry between them, between any of the characters. And the other relationships! Kole and her mother; Kole and Michaela, her supposed best friend we know next to nothing about. Kole and the mysterious relationships with her ex friends, who had a falling out over The Space Game years ago and still hold a grudge...I could go on and on about the lack of chemistry between any of them.

Aside from the lack of diversity in the dialogue, I found the rest of the writing to be much too descriptive in all the wrong ways. What Kole was eating, when it didn’t relate to anything else that was happening, what she was doing, too many references to the fact that her laptop was old. It had me thinking that there would be a big plot point about the laptop getting broken and Kole having to buy a new one somehow. And for a character who has anxiety, there was a lot of ‘we’ll talk later’ to pass the time. Like, meet me at this location tomorrow afternoon just to jump the timeline ahead a couple days. Then there were the various references to other authors the characters aspired to be. Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, other ‘greats’. But none of these authors are amazing in anything other than the young adult fiction universe. They are very popular, high grossing authors but they aren’t great. I don’t think true writers would aspire to be them. Maybe a couple, because young adult fiction is a great genre, but not everyone. It just really juvenilized the whole novel for me, which is strange because the main character is around seventeen, a junior in high school.

The plot itself was difficult to believe for me. A fanfic this popular and Kole doesn’t plot or pre-plan or schedule any of her posts? She doesn’t keep detailed outlines about where she might like the story to lead? I know many authors just fly by the seat of their pants in terms of writing but I’d’ve figured that with her anxiety, Kole would want to have some plans. She didn’t even mention a posting schedule and her updates seemed to be a couple hundred words at most, not the thousand or more. Does she post every day? And why doesn’t she respond to comments or otherwise interact with fans? I would have liked to see a little backbone in this somewhat anonymous forum: for Kole to beat back at her more toxic commenters. Or to take their comments to heart and try to improve her writing. She saw every negative comment, even constructive ones, as attacks, when some of them could have been seen as encouragement to do better. Do more research, put a little more effort into the characterization, maybe expand upon this trope a little more. Plus, to have an entire school of nearly a thousand people become so interested in a fanfic and basically having ship wars in the cafeteria would be entirely impossible, even with fandom and internet culture today. And how does a fic get millions of hits anyway, on what seems to be a tumblr like platform? Even in the height of fandom on tumblr, fics didn’t get that many hits, not overnight.

There was also an attempt to be body positive, though that fell flat for me. Kole mentions that she has a tiny roll of fat. So she’s not super skinny, but she just has a tiny roll of fat. That’s it, just a tiny one. It brings up the fact that she’s not skinny but also minimizes how fat she is? It just felt like a poor attempt and I was actually a little offended at this. Her size is mentioned a couple more times, mostly in reference to her love of french fries to exclusion of all else at lunch.

I just couldn’t like this book. I hoped to like it because it sounded like Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and I enjoyed that book immensely. But the characters and poor description of fandom nixed my enjoyment early on. The odd relationships, the lack of a satisfying romance, the writing overall. None of it was enjoyable for me, unfortunately. I kept reading in hopes it would hit its stride and, in the end, to count the book as finished.

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Rating: 2.5 stars

Down With This Ship wasn’t quite my cup of tea–I’ll be sharing my complete thoughts in a later review–but here are a few highlights (pun-intended) of things I did enjoy:

🚢 Fan Fic Appreciation: As someone who is not particularly creative, I know writing is no small feat, so even writers whose work is, shall we say, less than stellar–and a lot of it is–deserve commendation for actually putting themselves out there and writing. (Isn’t there some advice about how the only way to write better is to write more?) Fan fiction tends to get a bad rap, but writing is writing. Besides, it seems like more and more published (some would say real) authors cut their teeth writing fan fiction. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

🚢 Fandom Love: Behind all the pop culture references and geeking out over sci-fi, Down With This Ship is a look at the ways stories bring us together, which is something near and dear to my own heart. The book is a celebration of fandoms which, if you think about it, are just communities of geeks bonded together by a love for a specific story, character, world or ship.

🚢 The Miller Siblings: I love a good fictional sibling relationship, and Kole’s brother, Will, is the big brother I wish I had–teasing, protective and ultimately loyal to his little sis. It’s not an exaggeration to say he stole the show for me.

🚢 Grand Romantic Gestures: Without giving too much away, I’ll just way there are some really cute prom-posals (or whatever the equivalent is for a school dance that’s not prom) that I loved 😍

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DNF'ed at 60%
Really poor exécution
Not that good romance
Slow paced
Really poor in character development
Disappointed 😞

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This book was read thanks to NetGalley.


This is a cute YA story, it has all the details young love, problems that for the protagonist feel like the biggest issue of the world.

I love this kind of stories when the protagonist are so human and feel so sensitive about her issues. Kole has anxiety and she has to deal with it.

There is a sort of a love triangle but at the same time it isn't because she has chemistry with them, so is nice to see. Give this book a chance you won't regret it.

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