Another hit by Talia Hibbert! This YA romance was sweet and such a great example of healthy relationships for teens. The development and growth of the characters is what kept me reading since it was a refreshing take on a teen romance.

3.75 stars

This book was very wholesome and endearing. I love that Bradley's character had OCD and she showed how he managed it and also didn't manage it well always. It felt real. Bradley was nerdy and cute and I loved getting a look at how his mind worked. Celine reminded me a lot of a young Eve from her adult fiction series. Dramatic and fabulous but also guarded. I appreciated the storyline about Celine's father and the journey that was.

I will say I expected more of this book to take place during the expedition/camping. I feel like based on the cover and the description more of the book would have taken place in that setting. I think I would have liked to see their friendship/situationship blossom more from those days instead of jumping back into school. I feel like only 30% of the book took place in the woods.

All in all it was a cute read and I will always read anything Talia Hibbert writes. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of Highlight Suspicious and Unfairly Cute in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t really know where it went wrong for me with this book. Talia Hibbert’s writing is great and her banter is as entertaining as ever. However, I went into this one without knowing its YA so maybe I wasn’t just in the mood for that? Or maybe I wasn’t just feeling it? Im not really sure, but I’ll say its a me thing, maybe.

Talia Hibbert, I still love your stories and your sense of humour, this one just didn’t work for me.

Huge Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this copy.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

I am a huge fan of Talia Hibbert's adult books and "Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute" is everything and more that you could hope for in a YA novel from Hibbert. It has the same bones as the Brown Girls series (hilarious women of color, disability rep, cinnamon roll male main characters) but dialed to just the right level for a YA audience.

Celine and Brad are so adorable in their friends to enemies to "lovers" relationship, doing their best to hold the most high school of grudges while denying that they were probably always more than friends and just never could admit it. Packed off on this bizarre scholarship program, they trade barbs and slowly come back to where they should have always been: together.

The side cast of friends and characters are fantastic, but its really Celine and Brad together that makes this book special. Reading how they handle themselves, their complicated lives, and their feelings was so heartwarming and wonderful and I loved how Hibbert wove in complicated relationships with parents, teenage sex (not on the page), and the stress of figuring out what to do after high school.

I'll read anything HIbbert writes and this book is just one more reason to love her, her characters, and her stores.

Oh my GOSH. This is the cutest thing I’ve ever read. Perfect grumpy/sunshine, friends to enemies to lovers goodness!! I’m writing this at 1:40 am when I am almost always asleep, but Talia did not allow me that luxury—I had to stay up to finish Cel and Brad’s story. It’s a good one. Recommend to all people everywhere.

THIS IS ALL I WVER WANTED ALL I WVER NEEDED OMG TALIA HIBBERT WHO ARE YOU HOW DARE I LOVE, truly Can write anything wow.

THEMES 🎭: academic enemies-to-lovers/friends-to-lovers, competition, older young adult romance, man v. nature

I know I would have loved this back in high school! This was deeper than an academic enemies-to-lovers; it was far more complicated in my opinion! I loved how diverse Celine and Brad’s personalities and familial situations were. Growing up, I was rarely aware of books that featured a Black, bisexual athlete with OCD, so seeing that pop up in this novel was so refreshing 💕 I loved Celine as a character but Brad was absolutely excellent 😭 He is such an emotionally intelligent main character. I loved how he tried to help Celine through her own emotional dissonance. Celine’s character voice kind of dwindled as time went on, but her sense of humor really set the tone for the whole novel.

I felt like some storylines were just dropped, but overall, the story was really enjoyable!

This was a cute read that I think my high school students would really enjoy! I liked the representation in the book and I felt like it was perfectly YA!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely heart stopping-ly adorable. I should have never doubted that Talia Hibbert would be able to capture my heart with YA just like she did with her adult romance. I am absolutely obsessed with these two little lovebirds and in my cannon they are together forever.

The childhood friends to academic rivals to friends to lovers was *chefs kiss*. I couldn't put this one down and managed to binge read most of it over the course of an afternoon with Studio Ghibli films playing in the background, aka Saturday afternoon perfection.

I highly recommend this to anyone who calls themselves a romance lover and it's going to be a tough one to beat when it comes to favorite romance of the year.

Thank you to #NETGALLEY and #joyrevolution for the advanced audiobook. This book just like the title suggests is "unfairly cute." The main characters are likable and smart. This is an enemies to lovers trope. Hibbert does a good of writing for young adults. This is a quick easy read that is also delightful.

I loooved this author's other novels, so when I saw this I knew I had to pick it up. I was not disappointed! It was very much living up to its title of being unfairly cute. I think that it was a good-paced book that I was able to read in one sitting. Would recommend!

I have long been a fan of Talia Hibbert, as she is so good at sensitively handling disability representation and reminding readers that everyone deserves a happy ending no matter their circumstance. Her first foray into YA literature is no exception, as we get a peek at the struggles of OCD through our main character Bradley. Soft and sweet, Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is slow to start, but once you’re out in the woods with Celine and Brad, you just have to know how it ends (happily, of course)!

Talia Hibbert’s YA debut…. Need I say more?

Talia Hibbert always delivers with her writing, the banter between characters, and the development of those characters. The OCD and Bisexual rep was really great to read here.

The characters, however, gave off friends only and not really lovers. Again this is a YA book so that could have been the reason I was getting those feelings. Some parts of the story felt like it dragged and I didn’t see much of a point to things.

Celine had this confidence about her that I really liked. I think I just would have loved her and Brad more if this was maybe college and written more adult.

I love Talia Hibbert so I will for certain reading everything and anything from her.

3 stars.

I must admit, when I heard that Talia Hibbert was coming out with a YA romance I was a bit jealous… but only because I selfishly wanted another adult romance from her since I loved her Brown Sisters series so much!

YA romance is very hit or miss for me. This is largely in part due to the fact that as a 30-something adult, I am not the target reading audience. Despite my reservations with YA romance, I was confident that Talia Hibbert was going to knock it out of the park, and I was right!

Celine is an amazing main character. While she is strong, driven, and ambitious, she also experiences trauma from an absent parent that causes her unrealized issues in her daily life. Celine goes through a lot of growth throughout the story, which was a joy to watch.

Bradley, my dear sweet boy! What a wonderful love interest that breaks the traditional YA leading male stereotype. Bradley is sweet, perceptive, and sensitive. I really loved seeing their evolving dynamic.

One thing that Talia Hibbert does so well is character dialogue. I often find myself laughing out loud at the clever repartee. I was entertained from start to finish.

Talia Hibbert does a wonderful job balancing heavy themes such as parental abandonment, mental health, parental pressures, and more with lightheartedness. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is just the right mix of depth and fluff.

Overall, this was a heartwarming YA romance with standout characters. I would recommend this to fans of the rivals-to-lovers trope, Becky Albertalli, and witty dialogue.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review***

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute, Talia Hibbert's YA debut, has all the same quirky charm as her adult romances (with, admittedly, a lot less kissing, etc). I didn’t want to put it down because I loved Celine and Brad so much. And the OCD rep is incredible.

It’s enemies to lover and also childhood best friend and somehow it’s absolute perfection. It’s the incredible alchemy of snark and grumpiness and side eye and pining and perfect knowing and the feeling of home that makes this book so absolutely delightful and unputdownable. (Which is now officially a word. I have made it so.)

They’re both complete goners for each other from the very beginning. It just takes them awhile to realize it. 💕

Thank you to Joy Revolution Books and Netgalley for my advance review copy.

I really loved Talia Hibberts romance novels so was excited for her debut YA. However it just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t connect to any character or the plot. I never rooted for them to be together or even care if they won the explorers scholarship. I still don’t even know why they’re friends again or like each other.

However all it just dragged some, had a few holes where I was like how did we get here. I didn’t feel the adventure of their (only two) explorations; I was certainly led to believe there would be more. We just don’t get enough of the school, their friends, their adventures. It’s just too much for one book. But I did really appreciate Bradley as a character though and his OCD was written well but we definitely needed more of how he functions and how he god to where he is now.

I mean it’s a cute book but I am not left thinking about it or would read it again.

CW: OCD, PARENTAL ABANDONMENT

I’ve always wanted to read a book by Talia but never got to it until this!

This is the sweetest and cutest YA enemies to lovers romance you’ll ever want to read this year.

Now don’t me wrong, the miscommunication trope wasn’t my favorite, but it gave the story more flesh and Talia did justice — so cringy faces on my end. These were just teenagers acting like teenagers would. You had two kids who don’t like each other, even if they were once best friends, working on a project together. That’s chaos waiting to happen, but as they spend more time together, their connection gets stronger amidst the challenges and miscommunications.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is about to melt me into the floor literally! Celine and Bradley were so wonderful. Talia Hibbert does romance in such a terrific heartwarming way. Bradley was adorably refreshing character with his wit and charm. Celine was driven, cute, and sassy. I think I was gonna explode with happiness at their shared banter and antics. This one is definitely going to be one of my top books of the year, I can feel it. It's a 10/10 for me. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Children's for a chance to read this incredible slice of happiness.

“This thing we have, it's like throwing a tangled chain into a drawer, hoping one day it'll come out untangled again: the knot gets even bigger while you're not looking. I couldn't find the right piece to pull, couldn't get a good grip on the links, even if I wanted to. We're just too . .. done.”

This book is a fantastic best friends to enemies to sorta friends to lovers. Bradley and Celine were best friends, until they weren’t. Years later they have built all this animosity for each other and don’t know how to pull the breaks.

So when they find themselves both at a scholarship retreat in the woods, they have to come to terms with whether they are capable of moving on from the past or accepting it for what it is.

The representation, as always in Talia Hibbert books was perfect. These characters are actually teenagers. I feel like what some YA books miss are the how messy and complex being a teenager is and when you add on mental health it can be a lot. I think this book balanced it perfectly in showing two young adults making decisions for how they want their futures to look.

I am new to reading Talia Hibbert's content, but I have heard nothing but amazing things! It has been an honor to have received, read, and now review an ARC copy of her debut YA novel, Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute.

Bradley Graeme has finally found his place. He is a popular football player with stellar grades and a happy family; he even has his future all planned out. The only person doing better than him is Celine Bangura. Her grades are better, she is TikTok famous, and she doesn’t care what people think of her. Meanwhile, Brad’s OCD won’t let him stop thinking about every little thing. Only a few people know about his disorder, including Celine, his childhood best friend turned enemy. When life pushes them together, Brad has to face some deep seeded feelings he has kept down for years.

Celine Bangura has her sights set high. Growing up, life was not easy, Celine has watched her mother work endlessly to give her and her sister a better life. Celine knew things were different, that she was somehow different. Feeling like an outcast her whole life, she has carved her path and found her niche. It turns out that a lot of people on TikTok like to hear about Celine’s thoughts and the latest conspiracy theories. She has made her name known on the platform, but it is time to make a more significant impact. When Celine signs up for a survival course hosted by her idol, life gets a bit muddy.

Former BFFs Celine and Brad are a spitfire duo with a rocky past; from being attached at the hip, to barely handling being in the same room. Brad and Celine connected and bonded over the fact that they felt different growing up. As time went on, Brad took control of his OCD and decided he didn't want to be seen as different anymore. Celine on the other hand tried to let it shine and was not afraid to show her true colors. This caused a rift and Brad left Celine in the dust, found a new crowd, and kept his past behind him. What will happen when both teens find their way back to each other, sign up for the same survival course, and now have to navigate the woods and some new feelings?

The mental health and absent parent recognition were wonderfully executed. Talia Hibbert made it clear that life goes on, no matter what happens behind the scenes or in our heads. We can be stronger than the things we see as faults, the things we believe make us different can make us stronger and better. The novel is well thought out, with not too much focus on the survival camp and not too much focused on day-to-day school life. Nothing felt repetitive or out of place, every detail had a home.