Member Reviews

This books begins with the author saying that this book isn’t for adults. I, af first, disagreed but after reading it, I’ve changed my mind. It’s the story of a teenage girl who is awkward and self conscious (werent we all?) but it was hard to connect with as an adult.

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This felt very long and boring... too much babbling and unessesary things happening... I ended up being bored and by 50% i was skimming through it.

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A sweet YA/high school story about a very familiar young girl Mia, slightly nerdy, unpopular, trying to find her place in the world while crushing on a very popular boy who happens to be her mom’s best friend’s son. Circumstances end up bringing the two close snd suddenly everything our heroine is changes, she revamps her life to conform to the norms she thinks are necessary to be cool.
This is not a standard She’s All That style romance, it deals with more serious topics like self acceptance, bullying and even a bit about being self centred. A lot of people might end up relating to some or the other struggle the heroine has, but at the same time want to shake her for some unhealthy choices she makes in life. The heroine is not someone you always want to root for, but that’s okay, we are here to witness her journey even if it doesn’t lead to as much progress as we would like. I found it interesting that the title of the book is the name of the boy, Mia had a crush one, maybe it’s a signal that such obsession with a person or wanting to please them distorts your own identity, so the book is not so much about Mia as about the lessons she needs to learn.

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i wasnt able to finish this before it was archived!!! however i really like the cover and the blurb sounded really good, so i would probably recommend to people because i havent heard of this before

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This book is DEFINITELY a book for teenagers. But, that is not a bad thing considering it’s YA. I’d say 13-17 is the ideal age range.

Mia was okay. She was a little immature in the beginning. But I mean, she’s 15. What do we expect, ya know? She grew on me quite a bit as the book went on.

Rob… yuck. Just yuck. I hated him.

Jake on the other hand— 😻

Overall, it was a cutesy little YA book. Kinda want my daughter to read it!

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I didn't really connect with this book and it wasn't really for me. Others may have different opinions but I DNF.

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Unfortunately this book was not for me. Other readers may enjoy it more, but I could not get into it and ultimately did not finish it.

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This book is about a nerdy teenager Mia, who has a huge crush on high school heart throb Rob Starr
After an accident, they started to live together and Mia's world started to change! And by change: I mean both good and bad!
Mia soon realised that changing herself for someone else wasn't the best idea.

This was a really fun and amazing read!
So many things were relatable and real life inspired!

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This book should come with a lot of trigger warnings. I did not connect with any of the characters. The plot was not what I expected from the synopsis.
Dnf.

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I did not like at all the main character: Mia. Even if the entire book is a journal of her experience and how she got herself into trouble and then all finished with some cyberbullying and the end is all fluffy and nice and everyone received the deserved “punishment” I had the impression throughout each chapter that she complained a lot, her character could have been more structured. The outcome and what will happen next is very intuitive. I would have liked to know more on how she managed to overcome the trauma because the short mention about a therapist and that all of the sudden she was recovering is not credible.
In the context in which both children and adults spend more and more time connected to the internet, the risk of becoming a victim also increases. Thus, cyberbullying is occurring more and more frequently and refers to any act of harassment on the Internet, which negatively affects a person or a group. Mia is the victim here and how the entire situation is described; it does not offer the real amount of trauma with which an adolescent can deal with when talking about cyberbullying.
Aggressive children do not have the opportunity to immediately see the suffering that their behavior causes in the lives of other children - the victims. This makes the cyberbullying be out of the empathy, regret, and compassion that children often feel when they realize they have hurt a classmate since they are seeing in front of them the emotions they caused and the damage.
Even "witness" children who voluntarily witness a cyberbullying behavior do not necessarily consider that they are doing something wrong or that they are becoming part of the problem, when through a trivial "like" or "share" they contribute to the "rolling" of a harassment message.
As for the child victim, he/she experiences an intense feeling of loneliness, fear, sadness, sometimes despair that comes from the inability to get out of this situation.

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Rob Starr is the most popular boy in school, he's the basketball star and all around good guy. Or is he? After a tragic accident Rob, Jake and Rachel Starr come to stay with the Morgan's while their mom recovers. This leads to a tangled of sticky situation for Mia Morgan because the hottest guy at school now lives in her house, even though their families have been friends for years. Unfortunately, Rob leads Mia down a dark rabbit hole from the very beginning and like most high school girls she fell hard. This book had so many high school truths in it that I shudder at how accurate it was. It's an amazing story but the HEA is more truth than fiction. I think this book need to be on every high schoolers TBR list! J.A. Howard told a true story of how people just want to be accepted whether your a guy or girl and how tough high school can can be.

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Meet Mia Morgan. The most one dimensional character you will ever read. I apologise for this review in advanced.

This book starts off with one cracker of story line (fair warning - rape, however I am going to be straight up right now, rape did not occur - she was in situations in which students took advantage of her drunken state to take pictures/videos). So, initially I have a predetermined thoughts in which this story then plays out. This rape storyline is sporadically positioned in between chapters in the form of transcripts. Did the author research how counselling sessions are conducted? There was some serious victim shaming happening in these.

The story unfolds with Mia who tells us about herself, but we do not actually meet this Mia. To elaborate, we are told Mia loves Art. We are told Mia completes band practice. Mia has friends. etc you get the point... however, we do not meet this Mia. We do not see Mia attend any Art classes, practice for any band, nor is there any development of friendships. We see one perspective: Mia is obsessed with Rob Starr.

By a random turn of events, Rob Starr finds himself living with Mia. Rob is a basketball player failing Trigonometry. Mia begins tutoring him. Mia also refuses to eat in front of him as some foods are too 'fattening'. Mia changes her appearance. Mia changes her laugh. Mia changes everything about herself because Rob Starr begins to give her some view time. Which mind you. ramps up very quickly.

While the last 3% of the book, I *think* Mia begins to actually realise that she might have gone complete loco with her self, she still finds herself obsessing/thinking/replaying times over the past. I can see what the author was trying to convey, unfortunately the message of literally changing everything about yourself to suit a boy/lover/eye candy was far louder than anything else in the book.

As a teacher to students in middle/high school and having children of my own spread throughout the education system, I would not recommend this book to any of them.

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Started this book thinking that is just another teenage drama. Little did I know that it was actually a story really suitable for the present we live in. Yes, the tragedies, the fears and questions might be the same, no matter the generation. But what I enjoyed the most about this book is that it was not all lovey dovey, but more like down to earth and honest.

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Highly recommend this book! This was my first book to read by this author and I can't wait to read more! The characters and the story stay with you long after you finish the book. One of the best books I have read in a long time.

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I was not very thrilled with the main character, although the book does talk about sensitive topics I felt like the beginning of the book lost me . I wished that there was not so much of an obsession approach from the main character towards the protagonist. The writing to me was a slow burn to read through.

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Thank you to NetGalley for the free copy of Rob Starr in exchange for an honest review!

This book hooked me from the very beginning and I couldn’t stop reading it. The main character’s voice was really unique, because she was a high school student who was really selfish and surface-level for a long time. It was hard to read her point of view sometimes, because she was not a very good person.
However, this was a portrayal of an immature student getting lost until she finally sees some sense (in my opinion). The ending of the book made it a lot better.

The setting was how you’d see high schools in movies like mean girls. I didn’t love that, because it makes character flat and uninteresting. It could be fun every once in a while.

I feel like you should know this isn’t a romance book. It’s a coming of age story. More on Goodreads.

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i love a good high school romance with the total opposites and this one checked a lot of the boxes! but what i wasn’t expecting was the growth and self reflection mia has throughout the book and especially in the end. after a life altering accident, mia finds herself with a hot new boyfriend, new clothes, new friends and her old world left behind. i really enjoyed this book and the characters that howard created! thanks netgalley for an ARC of this book

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The book starts with a letter from the author saying this book is not for adults. I have to disagree with this, now it might be a book about a teenage girl being lead down the wrong paths by a man who everyone loves. I turn 30 this year and related to this book, maybe a little too much. This book has everything you would expect from a YA novel.

Rob Starr is the school hero and he has to move in with his mums friends family after a tragedy I'm his own family. He seems like a nice person for the first 30% of the book and it slowly changes and you release he is not what he seems.

This book feel's like mean girls and 13 reason why combined. Two things I enjoyed watching and the book was an enjoyable read which I read in one go.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC. This review is completely voluntary and my unbiased thoughts of this book.

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This was a tough read. The writing itself was fine, but it was difficult to watch the way Mia fundamentally altered herself just to get the crumbs Rob threw her way. Howard says this is not a book for adults, and I tried to read with that in mind. However, I hope any young readers take it for the cautionary tale it must be.

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This isn’t your typical high school love story. And a few chapters in you kind of know in what direction it’s going. And it fills you with dread.
But it is a very well written story. Mia and the other characters are very believable. The cheerleaders are a bit cliché but everything fits well into the story.
I am quite disappointed with the ending but it can’t always be a happy one.
And even though it’s a fictional story, I believe it can help teenagers reflect on their behaviour because Mia is so believable.

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