This was a fun read! I liked the friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trajectory and the messiness along the way. Saine had so much growing up to do, and I enjoyed following that journey as well as Holden’s with his family and complicated feelings. I also liked the fat rep without it being a plot point.

I personally didn't care for this book. There was no glaring reason I just felt it was very dragged on, the main characters was really unlikable to me, and the ending felt incomplete. Overall, not a bad story, but a pretty common one, and just didn't impress me.

It's hard to know exactly what to say about this book. It blurbs really well, and sounds like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't like up to expectations.

I have a really hard time getting into books with characters I don't like, and the MC of this book, Saine, is wholly unlikeable. Just the literal worst. And so it's completely unrealistic that Holden, the love interest, would be secretly pining for her unless he also secretly loves being miserable.

Sorry, but it's a no from me.

An interesting YA Rom com filled with more than it's fair share of teen drama. While it was good it was not for me.

Saine and Holden are officially my new favorite bookish couple!! This book is so cute and absolutely perfect for fans of Elise Bryant and Rachel Lynn Solomon.

In my completely honest opinion, A Disaster in Three Acts was...well, a disaster. The protagonist is extremely selfish, rude, and obnoxious; the pace is slow; there are subplots and characters introduced that are very much not needed; the emotional tension falls flat because of reasoning that doesn't make a lot of sense... I could go on and on. The only thing I actually sort of liked was the banter between the protagonist and the love interest. I hope others can find enjoyment in this book, but it most definitely was not for me.

(Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change upon final publication.)

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for the digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I will admit that it took me a while to read this book, partly due to life, partly due to reading other books at the same time. I am sure that this did not help my ability to keep track of the characters and the storyline.

There were quite a few characters…and a lot going on. I sometimes felt as though I needed a scorecard—I couldn’t always remember whom I was supposed to like, or not. I’m not going to call them a nice bunch of kids, but they were certainly interesting. Saine, our protagonist, is hoping to get into a documentary filmmaking program, but when her planned subject falls through, she’s left scrambling. Almost before she realizes it, she’s working with her childhood best friend, who is her current best friend’s ex. And keeping a lot of secrets.

There are some wonderful moments, some heartbreaking moments, and some truly obnoxious moments. But high school is like that, and so are friends and family. This book has loss, love, and more. How parts make you feel may depend on which side of a secret you’re usually on, and how you feel when someone isn’t totally honest with you. Definitely a lot going on. I didn’t love it, but I did care enough about the characters to find out how it ended.

I understand the enemies to lovers vibe here but you just can't make a main character completely insufferable. They have to both be likable to the reader and this just wasn't it for me.

OVERALL
I think that this book is so engaging and relatable and I had a really surprisingly strong connection to it almost instantly. Would definitely recommend so much to anyone who likes YA. Especially should be required reading for childhood best friends to strangers to lovers stans like me. I had a few things that bothered me on a personal level, but nothing objective with the writing.

WHAT I LIKED
I loved the act titles- they were very apt and set a good tone without giving too much away. I also think tha tthi sstructure was really good for what the story calls for
I LOVE the beginning- it immediately gives us who the mc is, while also throwing us right into a moment. I adore the narration so much and the writing style is perfect and it's also hilarious.
Saine is genuinely one of my new favorite protagonists.
I like the dynamic between Saine and Corrine. And Corrine as a character is so great. Especially how she is accepting of the miscommunication with Saine and Holden, even though I hate that plot point
Holden has a great introduction and his relationship with Saine makes so much sense. They treat each other in the logical way that one would in the situation.
I like how things are explained, but not in an info-dumpy way, like how Saine starts out with a camera in her hand.
I adore the relationship between Saine and her mom.
All of Holden and Saine's interactions are so good, especially since Saine's documentary sort of mirrors their story and whatnot.
I like how Saine pretends to be sort of cynical, but she's actually a true romantic.
The banter between Holden and Mara is so, so good and it made me giggle a lot AND HIM REMEMBERING WHERE SAINE LIVES MADE ME SO SO HAPPY. I was literally cackling so hard I cried during the conversation where he asks to take pictures of her. And all the other scenes??? YES
The car ride scene is so well written and it reminds me why I love this trope so much.
The fact that Mara is casually queer is AWESOME
The pacing is excellent. And how Holden and Saine immediately fall back into their old friendship??? YES YES YES
I love Kayla and Juniper and how supportive the whole group is
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I do wish that there had been more of a flashback to Corrine and Saine meeting or Saine and Holden's dynamic instead of just hearing about it.
I want Saine to tell Corrine immediately about Holden because I hate the tension there, even if I understand conflict is necessary. I don't kmow, it made me uncomfortable and seemed out of character for Saine not to say it. As a personal pet peeve, I hate this as a plot point in any scenario and it especially didn't make sense here.

Kelsey Rodkey writes high schoolers with humor and heart -- A Disaster in Three Acts is a window into family, friendship, career and love in your teens. The romance takes a bit to build up, but each of the leads holds their own.

Saine Sinclair know how to tell a story. How to get the angles right, and to craft the pitch perfect emotional range to bring audiences to tears and their feet.

What Saine doesn’t know how to navigate are all the changes in her life. Her beloved grandmother is gone, her mom works all the time and is struggling financially, oh, and her ex-childhood best friend and her CURRENT best friend dated and broke up. D-R-A-M-A!

However, when Saine and Holden are unceremoniously thrown together for a project that could change both their lives, old resentments rear their ugly heads and shoved down feelings of longing and resentment rise as well. The only thing that’s certain is that this will all spell DISASTER.

Final thoughts: what I loved and loathed in equal measure is how blindly selfish Saine can be. She claims to love and cherish her nearest dearest but constantly belittles their abilities to handle their emotions for themselves. She’s very “what they don’t know what hurt them” and it’s frustrating watching her make the same mistakes repeatedly with the same disastrous results. However, being so flawed carves out remarkable space for this character to GROW AND LEARN, and that she does. THANKFULLY.

This story was relatable and real. Saine is a frustrating character but she so accurately portrays a teenage girl. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and it’s happy ending

This was my first book by this author and it definitely won’t be my last. The banter and the snark, along with the flawed characters had me totally into the book. As we go along with Saine and all that her life is dealing with from her relationships with her ex boyfriends and best friends and her desire to achieve her goals at any cost, you will root for this second chance rom-com friends to enemies book.

High school senior Saine needs to make a documentary to apply to a university program. She ropes her ex-best-friend Holden into helping her. When she catches feelings for him, things get complicated. After a series of bad choices, will she lose the most important people in her life?

This was compelling and entertaining from the start. Saine is snarky and fun but full of angst, dealing (badly) with the loss of her grandmother, and her conflicted feelings for Holden. The audio narration was amazing. Don't miss it!

CW: casual hookup

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Eighteen-year-old Saine Sinclair prides herself on her ability to shape a narrative on film. Her eye for storytelling is why she knows her friendship with Holden Michaels has been over for some time now. As if him publicly rejecting her during a middle school game of spin-the-bottle wasn't enough, Holden has also dated and broken up with Saine's current best friend Corinne. In other words, both loyalty and pride dictate that Saine never speak to Holden again.

Which is what makes it so awkward when Saine needs Holden's help to complete her documentary for a prestigious filmmaking program at Temple University after her original subject drops out. Her preliminary application has already been submitted and approved which means that Saine has to stick to her original topic--following a contestant through a series of live action gaming competitions to win a prototype virtual reality headset--which is where Holden comes in.

Following her ex-best-friend around to film everything he does while thinking she's telling a familiar tale about a white boy getting what he wants is hard. Doing that while worrying if her current best friend is jealous is even harder.

Saine's fixation on the success of her film makes it easy to put her growing feelings for Holden and crumbling relationships on hold while she tries to figure out how to shape real life to make sure her documentary wins a spot at Temple by inventing financial problems as motivation and even resorting to sabotage. As her lies and manipulations grow, Saine faces a reality check when she realizes that sometimes narrative growth hurts--especially when it comes to facing the consequences her actions in A Disaster in Three Acts (2022) by Kelsey Rodkey.

Saine and Holden, like most main characters, are white with some secondary characters cued as BIPOC based on names/skin tones including Saine's other best friend Kelsey and Holden's best friend Taj. The cast also includes characters across the LGBTQ+ spectrum and a cute side plot romance between two girls in Saine's friend group. Saine is self-described as fat and she and her mother are lower income both of which play into the plot.

While A Disaster in Three Acts has a well-rounded and nuanced cast of supporting characters, Saine remains deeply flawed throughout the story. Her fixation on the documentary seems to be excused by her grief over her grandmother's sudden death and the confusing process of moving on alongside her divorced mother as they process the loss and try to move on. Unfortunately that's a poor excuse for Saine's choices to make up numerous plots for her documentary (notably manipulating footage and interviews to imply that Holden's family is struggling financially and that he wants to win the competition to sell the prize), interview subjects without their consent while pretending her camera is turned off, and even outright sabotage when Holden needs her help during a competition.

As the story progresses Saine does have to contend with the consequences of her manipulative, self-centered behavior and her multiple lies to all of her friends. Unfortunately her contrition--even at the end of the book--seems to stem more from being caught behaving badly than from her actual bad behavior.

Saine spends a lot of the documentary lamenting that if Holden wins the competition his success in her documentary will not feel "earned" because he's just another white boy succeeding. The irony of this is that, by the end of the novel, Saine's own redemption arc feels similarly unearned and--compared to her egregious behavior--unjustified.

A Disaster in Three Acts is a fast paced story that is often humorous albeit with a main character whose singular focus often works against her character development.

Possible Pairings: A Show For Two by Tashie Bhuiyan, Lucky Caller by Emma Mills, Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen, My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma, Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith, It's Not Like It's a Secret by Misa Sugiura

Disaster in Three Acts focuses on documentarian Saine Sinclair, who hopes to be accepted into a documentary pilot program at Temple University. She plans to submit a documentary short about a woman competing in the Vice and Virtual video game competition. When she drops out, Saine, in desperation, asks another competitor, Holden Michaels, her childhood best friend and now nemesis to take her place. Complicating matters, Holden is her best friend Corrine Baker's ex. As Saine and Holden spend hours togerther filming his every move, they rekindle their friendship. Saine's focus on filmmaking leads her to make some questionable decisions about manipulating the truth for a better movie and learning some valuable lessons in the process. Although the reader knows where the story is going, getting there is a delightful ride.

Definitely a cute story, though I will say the beginning felt choppy to me. But that also could've just been me and the mood I was in while reading. I enjoyed the characters and the story overall - plus I'm a sucker for film aspects in a book. It's definitely a book I think would do well at my library.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Saine Sinclair has a lot going on. From cheerleading with her best friend to the documentary she's creating to get into Temple, Saine has a lot on her plate. But when her documentary subject falls through, she has to find a replacement. Her ex-friend and her current best friend's ex-boyfriend Holden might be her only chance. Holden is more than just an old friend, he's the one who crushed her during a game of spin the bottle that ended their friendship. Now with Holden on board to help her create a documentary to get her into her dream school's program, the past might come sneaking into the present. With Saine being the filmmaker who always sees the best story, she might not see the one that needs to be told.

There were things that I enjoyed about this book. Saine was one of them. She was a character that was easy to feel something toward. She's driven, is fiercely loyal to her friends, and has difficulty with the death of her grandmother. This is something I feel like I can understand. Saine's development was one of my favorite parts of the book. However, I did struggle with a few things. The idea that her mother is gone a majority of the time and is only briefly mentioned and then comes in at the end to guide Saine's struggle felt very off. I also couldn't come to grips with the many times that there's drinking and very few mention of adults questioning it. However, this could come from the fact that I am not the intended audience for the book. While I did enjoy parts of it, I struggled personally to finish the book. I do know of some students that would enjoy it, however.

It was really difficult to get past the dialogue in this book. It just felt forced and not realistic. I did enjoy the enemies-to-lovers trope in the story. While cliche (and often overdone), it was cheese in a good way. I wasn’t disappointed nor was I super impressed. Middle-of-the-road feelings for me.

Y’all, this book is so messy. But, like, in a good way.

We focus on Saine, a girl trying to get into a college filmmaking program, who is making a documentary on a woman competing in a video game tournament. But when things go awry and her documentary is failing before it’s even really begun, Saine meets her ex-friend (who is also her best friend’s ex-boyfriend) and enters a deal with him: a documentary in return for some portraits for his portfolio.

And yet somehow, we get messier.

This is definitely one of those “the main character is an asshole but still has a support system” books I really love. Saine makes a lot of mistakes in going behind her friends’ backs in order to better help herself. The plot definitely focuses on miscommunication, but its out of love for Saine’s friends as she wants to protect their feelings and just keeps digging herself deeper and deeper into a pit she can’t get out of.

One thing I didn’t like about this book, however, was Saine’s best friend, Corrine. Throughout the entirety of this book, we read all about Corrine’s negative aspects. I was actually certain that I was going to be reading Saine learning to drop Corrine as a friend, as Corrine is never really painted in a positive light. She refuses to talk about things that make her uncomfortable, isn’t there for her friends when they need her emotional support, and does what she wants to, even when her friends would rather she do the opposite.

……… Y’know, I’ve just realized how similar Corrine and Saine are. Right here in the middle of my review. If Corrine was the main character, I would probably love her “the main character is an asshole but still has a support system” plot…

Interesting. Even the reviewer gets character development.

The writing style of this book was my absolute favorite thing about it. I have so many highlights in my ebook copy of lines I absolutely adored. The characters are extremely funny and have some good banter, which we all know I love in books.

Asshole main characters and banter? Sign me up.

If you’re a reader with similar tastes in books to me, I’d definitely recommend picking this book up!