Thank you Net Galley and WattPad Books for this arc.

Lara Dela Cruz comes home from summer vacation expecting a great senior year with her three best friends. What she finds is that they are all in relationships. Making her the third wheel. To make matters worse all her friends’ boyfriends are best friends with her mother’s best friend son James. James who even though she grew up with him all they do now is bicker and pull pranks on each other. In addition she is ask by his mother to tutor James this semester. In this book you go on a journey with Lara to learn about, friendship, love, family and figuring out how to accept the changes in life.

I have a hard time rating this and while the beginning and end where average for me. The middle of this book I can honestly say I never related more to a book in my life. It’s not just the Filipino main characters like me. But it’s some many of the things Lara and James went thru. I was in tears a good 40% of the book because I related to it so much.

Firstly I love seeing Filipino rep in books. Growing up with so few of that and seeing it proudly shown here was fabulous. Next, Lara’s journey with everything just pulled at my heart strings. With her friends and feeling left behind to thinking of her future to her family it just was a great to read. I related so much to James as well especially with the dynamic he had with his grandfathers. I honest really liked all the characters in this. The story of Lara and James I thought was a special young love story that I really liked. They had good banter, love their romantic scenes, and I was just pulling for them. But I can’t help be a little disappointed at their ending, I completely understood why it happen that way but wish it didn’t end like that. Although I thought the end scene was gorgeous..

The beginning was a little to chaotic for my liking. I also feel like I want to know what happen to these character after the ending. Not sure if a sequel is plan but it just felt a little incomplete. But I thought this was a good book that I related to very much. I would definitely recommend this one for people want to read a young adult book.

I am giving it 3.75 stars (upgrading to 4 on the rating system here).

3.25 🍭🍭🍭

I loved the blurb and the characters are great. The situation is really relatable and I enjoyed the group of friends, the boyfriends and the MCs.

I hated Eliza and also, the no epilogue thing. I mean, why?
Are we getting another book about Lara and James? I love their love.

It would be amazing to have the other part of their romance!

This sweet YA story about friendship and first loves was both heartbreaking and adorable. The author did a beautiful job of describing what it is like to be the third wheel in a situation you were always a part of. There were a few parallel stories that carried equal importance the friendship between Lara and the LKJC and the relationship Lara had with James.

When Lara returns from summer vacation to find all of her friends paired up. It was interesting and sometimes heartbreaking to see how she navigated her new normal. Change is a fact of life. Given that they are all teenagers in their first relationships it was expected that they didn't know quite how to navigate big life changes and big feelings. Friendship bonds are so important so seeing those fray was emotional to read.

Lara and James were a fun couple. I loved that their relationship was so intense and full of quick banter and fun pranks and that they made some very big strides in short time. Given how their story plays out I would not call this a romance but more a YA fiction. There was heartbreak and there was reconciliation but not in the way one might find in a romance with a traditional HEA or HFN. With that said, I would recommend this book! I am so glad I read it and look forward to more from the author!

I also love that the cast was so diverse and that the author gave us so much Tagalog and Philippine culture!

Not much to write because not much stuck with me. A fin story overall, but something special was missing which made it feel lackluster.

This one just wasn't for me. I ended up having to basically skim it because the second hand embarrassment I was getting was overwhelming. I can 100% see the appeal of this if you're younger than I am and if you are someone who reads a lot of YA and think you'll like it I think you should still go ahead and read it!! It's pretty well written - which was one of my main concerns going into this Wattpad book - it was just the content I did not vibe with here. Maybe 10 years ago this would've been my book of the year but it's just not the type of plot I vibe with anymore!

Thank you NetGalley for a early opportunity to read this book. This book felt like a slow read either that or I’ve been in a slump but a cute read nonetheless. I was glad that Lara was finally able to reveal her true feelings to James but I was also annoyed that he continuously did her wrong. I was also particularly disturbed that Lara would never speak up for herself. When her friends started to ditch her for their boyfriends, when her cousin came back in town, and when she didn’t tell James her true feelings. A lot of the “problems” Lara felt like she was having could have been avoided in my opinion if she just spoke up. I wish my cousin would move back into town, hang super close to my man every chance she got, and get on national tv and kiss him. Yea I would’ve been on board with my friend using the bat on the both of them. It was nice to see that Lara and James came to a mutual decision about being friends until they worked on themselves. It would be nice to have a follow up story on what happened after they separated and came back together.

DNF. The writing style is a little too teen and unpolished for me. The story is also Just too cliche.

Thank you Netgalley and Wattpad books for the ARC copy. This is my first wattpad book. It wad actually okay. It was nicely written, fast paced and I liked the ending. I also liked the format. The problem I had with it was the cliche plot. I've read this all before. I also did not like how over exaggerated some of the characters are. I guess because they were teens? I guess I was not the audience this books was intended for.

The following review will be posted on Thursday, April 28th, 5 days before publication. It will be shared on Twitter and Instagram between that Thursday, and the publication date (Tuesday, May 3rd), but the review has already been posted on Goodreads. The blog post includes links to pre-order the books and to its Goodreads page, so readers can add it to their to-be-read books.

Genre: Romance, Comedy, YA
Actual Rating: 3 stars
Content Warning: As provided by the author… “WARNING: This book may cause a loss of brain cells from facepalms, premature wrinkles from periodic cringing, irregular and rapid heartbeat from character ships, occasional uncontrollable swooning, and many relatable moments. The author takes no responsibility for damage to books or electronic devices if you hurl yours across the room.” Which I found hilarious.

“How to Be the Best Third Wheel” follows Lara as she comes to the realization that she’ll be the biggest third wheel this year: all 3 of her best friends at school are in relationships now. She compiles a useful guide with funny rules (stated at the beginning of each chapter) about how to survive just this: being the third wheel. As her school and social dynamics change, and she’s forced to tutor her archnemesis, she goes through all the typical teenage crises—including falling in love herself.

So, I have to set the record straight. I gave this book 3 stars as a YA romance book, but as a YA fanfic or Wattpad novel? I’d probably give it 5 stars. This fic is quirky, funny in a childish way, and plagued with clichés—but that’s something the author warns us about in the very first page.

I would recommend this book as a gift to a very young reader. If you’re looking for a book that’s a romance but is completely clean, only a few innocent kisses here and there, then look no further: “How to Be the Best Third Wheel” is for you.

If you click here, you’ll be redirected to Goodreads, so you can add the book to your TBR list.

Or you could click here, and be redirected to Amazon, so you can order the book.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: May 03, 2022

If you know me, you know that I love myself a good romance, right? I love romantic books, movies and music. Needless to say, I’ve read and, as a writer, have also written ton of romance, and I would actually pride myself as a self-described romance genius. BUT this…This book was different, and in a good way.

It’s been a while since I’ve been last active on Wattpad and read or even written anything there. I used to be addicted to Wattpad but let’s just say that it’s not an addiction anymore. I haven’t been writing or reading anything at all over there ever since I learned that I must write my stories on Word docs first hand before finally publishing it on Wattpad. (I used to write on Wattpad earlier but after losing my stories again and again to my habit of never having to click “save” and app glitches, I finally switched to Word and haven’t looked back since). So, when I saw this book published through Wattpad books on Netgalley, I felt a plunge of nostalgia and quickly requested it.

Another thing you might notice about me if you knew me is that I have a love hate relationship with the romance genre. There are months when I love this genre and I think and feel and breathe romance books and movies but then there are also days, and sometimes, months that makes me hate this genre with all my heart, because mostly a lot of these things that we see in movies and books doesn’t really happen in real life, and I hate the latter kind of months because it pushes me away from my favourite genre.

When I finally got approved of this ARC through Netgalley (thanks to netgalley), I was experiencing my dreadful hate for the romance genre (I still am in that phase currently), so I was a little hesitant before picking this up but then I gave in and finally started reading this book….and boy, did I make the right decision?

Let’s find out.

This story revolves around this teenager, Lara de la Cruz who belongs to the best girl gang. She has a group of 3 amazing best friends who geek around sci-fi fantasy books and movies. It’s the best High school group you’d ever see! Like in any other high school girl gang, there’s Kiera- the girly girl kind of friend who is obsessed with instagram photos and fashion trends, there’s Carol- the weird friend of the group who is mostly just chaotic, clumsy and violently…weird. Then there’s the shy introvert girl who comes from a very reserved family- Jasmine. It’s a closed knit group, they’re all slightly cracked from upstairs but they are always there for each other and their only main goal is to get good grades and then go on their cool last trip together before they enter college life and terror rises. It’s all pretty planned out, plus none of these girls have boyfriends, or as they like to call it- Boy-Fries, so there aren’t any distractions either. Life is good.

But that is until Lara comes back from her summer holiday and finds out that all three of her bestfriends have made Boy-fries, and what’s worse, the boy-fries they are committed to are best friends with Lara’s mortal enemy slash childhood family friend slash first crush, James. Suddenly, life is not so good, things are not the same anymore and Lara feels left out. So, when James’ mother asks Lara to tutor James, she can’t help but accept the offer because…at least she won’t be on her own.

Gradually as Lara spends more time with James, she realises that James has never left her side. That maybe she doesn’t hate James. Maybe he doesn’t hate her either.

I loved, loved, loved this book so much. Oh my God, hell yeah, I made the best decision. Although the blurb may sound a little cliche, trust me, the book was anything but cliche. This one is not your usual girl meets boy, they fall in love and happily ever after kind of book. This is different and God, I wish I could tell you how….but I can’t. I don’t want to spoil anything.

I want to start by saying that the characters were very relatable and very, very realistic. I loved the girl gang that’s in this book because it kept reminding me of my very own girl gang. It was the four of us against the world as well. None of us had boy-fries, either, lol and it was just fun goofing and geeking around with them. I missed my school so much while reading this book, it was sick and my school bestfriends, if you are reading this, please get this book. I bet the feeling for this book will be mutual.

One thing that I have always admired about writers on Wattpad is the way they sprinkle sass all over their characters, and so, obviously you’ll get a taste of that in this book as well. The level of sass that these characters had was *chef’s kiss* and makes me wish I had the kind of confidence to say such things to people in real life cause damnn…

The prose was pretty good but I have a complaint here. There are points during dialogues where the language switches to that of Philippine’s with the english translation of it in the brackets next to the original text. This kind of made the reading experience hard but I guess if you are a native, you wouldn’t have a problem with the language. It was interesting and many people may like that but I just kept getting distracted, so I guess I would have preferred if the whole thing was in english only.

I loved the pacing of the book as well and one reason why is the name of the chapters- there are actual tips of being a third wheel given in the titles and it was so funny and so informative at the same time that it kept me on my toes throughout the book. Just classic! One thing that did hinder the pacing here and there was the unnecessary info dump. Like there are dialogues and then big chunks of backstory that isn’t even that relevant to what is going on with the dialogues. This kind of interrupted the flow of the narration in my opinion, the rest was great.

My favourite part was the end BUT oh God, I can’t tell you why. The end was so unprecedented. There are not many books that take the turn this book did at the end, and I’m so proud that this book did that. One reason why I hate romance is because it gets very unrealistic in the books and the movies, and it’s always shown that if the two people are together, then that’s the final victory because apparently romance is the main goal, right? But this book took a different path and it stood out to me as a book of self discovery, something that every teen and adult should read. This book teaches you that you are enough, even if you don’t have romance in your life and honestly, the thought is so beautiful and something that I’ve always wanted to read a book about. It teaches you about trust, about family, about friendship and mostly about self love.

I just have one more complaint with this book and that is that the book did not really wrap the loose ends of how Lara’s journey of academic self discovery went. Like did her application gets accepted or not? Does she finally go to her cool trip with her friends? I just needed answers for this but those weren’t there.

Overall, I would like to give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. I think that this book would be paired beautifully for fans of Legally Blonde and Princess Diaries. Highly recommend it!

I would like to thank the author Loridee De Villa, Wattpad Books and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in return for an honest opinion.

Thank you for reading!

If I were 13 - 18 I would have loved this. "How to Be the Best Third Wheel" is a really important book for those entering / leaving high school, as it highlights the way friendships change and shift, especially when dating is introduced.

The main character, Lara, is kind of misguided, but often times does have the best of intentions. Lara started out a little annoying in the beginning, but throughout the book we see her mature, and I appreciated that. I also loved the focus on Lara's culture, and that there is a lot of conversation that takes place in Tagalog. Representation is always a big selling point for me.

I will say that the first half of the book was a struggle for me. I'm not sure if it was the immaturity or the overly simple writing, but I had a hard time engaging. After that though, I didn't feel like I was forcing myself to read, but rather I wanted to in order to see how everything panned out. There were also a few plots / sub-plots that I could have done without, as they did bog down the storytelling a bit.

Overall, I believe that this will be a huge hit for a younger teen audience, and even with me rating it 3-stars, I did find most of the book to be enjoyable and an easy read once I was invested.

I received a ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted my review.
How to Be the Best Third Wheel by Loridee De Villa is a classic high school coming of age rom-com story! This book includes a romance with the rivals to lovers trope full of funny banter, diverse characters, and classic high school drama! Here's my thoughts on How to Be the Best Third Wheel.

Anyone who loves the Childhood best friends to Enemies to Lovers trope would love this book. How to Be the Best Third Wheel has Wattpad story cheesy vibes but in a good way because it’s well written.

I found the Main Character, Lara, relatable with all the awkward third wheel issues she had. Especially with her complex feelings of being happy for her friends but also feeling left out and like she’s missing out. Even when I was frustrated with her friends for being “too focused” on their new boyfriends instead of Lara, I know that’s a normal thing that happens. I still liked her friends personalities and dynamic together.

My favorite thing about James and Lara’s relationship is their witty banter. Their relationship has good pacing, there is flashback scenes to when Lara and James were childhood friends that helped make their relationship feel more developed and realistic. What I liked most was that I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. Lara and James have a mature discussion about their future after graduating and how that would effect their relationship, which I found unexpected but loved because it’s realistic and not the classic “perfect happily ever after” ending at the end of most YA high school romance stories.

I think I may not be the best audience for this book. I DNF around 20%, however, what I did read featured a young woman dealing with the fact that her friends seem to all be coupling up around her and what exactly to do about it. This definitely took me back to my middle and high school days. Some YA books work for me, but this felt it a little young for my reading pleasure. This is of no fault to the author and I can definitely see this being a hit with others, especially a younger audience. 4/5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wattpad Books for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

How to Be the Best Third Wheel is a fast-paced read about teenager Lara, who is figuring out friendship, love, and her next steps after high school. Lara is Philippino-Canadian and has a group of girlfriends with diverse backgrounds. After summer break, Lara finds herself the Third Wheel as all of her girlfriends now have boyfriends. The friend-group dynamics change, leaving Lara on the outside more and more. While missing her friends, she spends more time with childhood friend James, whom she tutors in math.

The book deals with change and anxiety about the future as well as relationships (romantic, friends, and family). Thinking back to my time as a teenager, I can definitely relate to these themes and the protagonist's struggles.

The target audience, I would say, is teens more than young adults, as the protagonist is moving from finding kissing disgusting to experiencing first kisses herself. The humor is also a bit silly and situational, which I could relate more to as teen than as young adult.

Something that I thought was unfortunate is that James and Lara have this teasing going on that is supposed to be romantic and cute, but that I think normalizes toxic masculinity and violence. For instance, James out of nowhere walks up behind Lara and grabs her around the waist, then explains that he thought he she looked sad and he wanted to give her a hug, not intending to freak her out. He does a lot of these things that I think overstep Lara's boundaries in an attempt to be close to her. It's feeding the narrative of "he's only teasing you because he likes you". I wish that books in 2022 would not reproduce such problematic narratives.

For me personally, this was a 2.5-star read.

I have so many thoughts on this one, but the main one being I'm so glad I read this!

I related so much to the main character, Lara. She's smart, she's driven, she's got a great family, but aside from all of that, she's got real fears. Fears about her friendships, fears about her future, fears about her relationships. I even related to the fact that her family is a great cast of immigrant characters. I felt like I was in my own foreign home growing up, even down to the dishes that were mentioned and grandma making delicious food.

I thought the relationship between the MC and the love interest was great because you know what, it doesn't always start of great and it doesn't always start of with love at first sight, even if you grow up together. I like the amount of communication that they had between the two even for a YA novel.

Then, the end. This was a perfect YA ending where it doesn't get all figured out because who does at age 17?

There were a few things that I cringed at. The side characters (the best friends) were okay, eh. It felt like they had no context and I honestly forgot they existed most of the time. They were described but I couldn't keep track of who was who.

Some of the statements from the adults in the book were eye roll worthy! Yikes!

Overall, good read!

This story started off really strong, grabbing your attention and was an enjoyable enough read. However, it felt like it kind of lost it way a bit about midway through the story. Also, the ending was realistic which I know that some will appreciate but I was a bit disappointed as like more of a happily ever after.

Lara comes back from summer break and is surprised when all of her friends are in relationships and she becomes a third wheel. Enter James her nemesis and her senior year of high school is not off to a great start.

This was a cute cheesy romantic coming-of-age story. Lara is a very cynical 17 year old! Not wanting to talk about boys with anyone (even her sister). I understand not wanting a boyfriend but refusing to talk about boys with your friends or family when they are in relationships? I personally did not understand where Lara was coming from at all.

I loved that this story took place in Toronto, Ontario (where I live!) and that it was about a Filipino family! I loved the diversity of her friend group and it really reminded me of my time in high school.

I liked the family dynamics but felt like there was too much going on in Lara and James’ family that we don’t get to know about as the reader. It left me wanting more. I needed to know more about their past and how they intertwined. The bits that we got were just not enough.

Lara and James’ banter was just not the best. I thought it was a little childish - and extremely rude how they would purposely actually hurt each other. There is a big difference between taunts and hurtful comments. I just felt like the stuff they were saying to each other - especially in the beginning was never stuff I could forgive.

Also - if I am picking up a romantic book - I want there to be a happily ever after!! Where was my happily ever after?!?

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

"We grow up among married people, single people, friends, enemies, and family. There are so many people around us that it can’t be helped to be a third wheel, to feel out of place sometimes. Yet there are people out there who welcome us with open arms, accept us despite our flaws, and remind us that we’re more than what we are to others."

This was an utterly fresh, relatable, emotional and amazing book that I've read lately. I devoured it so fast because the way it depicted situations that teenagers usually face so subtly, was very engaging. I could feel all of Laura's emotions and I could relate with her pov the most. I loved the dynamic between her & James a lot! I could never get enough of the childhood best friends to enemies to lovers trope and this book had it all! I loved the humor but I loved how one moment everything is going on fine and the next, circumstances turned pretty serious in the plot, even more. The flow of the story was perfect but it would've been a five star read if a certain annoying character didn't show up. Overall, I loved how the book captured the highs and lows of dating and what happens when suddenly all your friends get entangled into their own relationships then start ditching you for their boyfriend and you find yourself alone. The book had depth and all the characters were really well sketched with some real issues that teens struggle to go through. I'm glad I read this book, it was a special journey for Lara, about discovering herself and finding what makes her happy the most.

Thank you Netgalley & Wattpad books for providing me the ARC

Such a great relatable book on high school eras and all the turmoil, heartache, changes, etc that go with it! I really enjoyed this one!

I was okay with the ending. I wish for her to move on with another guy!


In the beginning, this book was really getting on my nerve. It got better though. I was about to DNF it but changed my mind. It was an okay read. Could've been really better. But it's not.