This young adult romance was so good and the characters we well written. I think the story was very good and I highly enjoyed it.
I just reviewed You Bet Your Heart by Danielle Parker. #YouBetYourHeart #NetGalley
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I think the main reason why I didn't like this is because of who I am. I am currently a high school senior. I'm also in the running for Valedictorian. I'm in the same situations as the characters, so the unrealistic aspects drove me crazy.

I'll acknowledge that I go to a small school in an area that isn't academically competitive. When compared to Bay Area schools, my school sucks. So obviously the academic expectations and Valedictorian competition isn't the same. But it still drove me crazy. At my school, nobody works as hard as these kids. The Valedictorians aren't fighting to the death in classes to ensure their rank. Class rank is determined almost solely by Dual Enrollment, which was never even mentioned here. Our characters placed such a huge emphasis on being Valedictorian which isn't even something people at my school talk about.

This was even more irritating to me because of the scholarship involved. Seriously, you're trying to tell me this school awards 30K to its valedictorian??? My school gives us a special cord and maybe a commendation. Being Valedictorian doesn't matter. The 30K felt so ridiculous and unrealistic to me. Maybe it applies in other parts of the US, but I've never seen it done in my personal experience.

Other than that, I didn't really care about the characters. I liked Sasha's mom, she was cool. And Ezra was kinda neat. Sasha was just too much of a bitch for me. The way she treated her family and friends drove me crazy.

If I had read this two years ago, or even two years from now, I might've loved it. Over the past year, I've learned that I can't enjoy things set in the same stage of life as me. The discrepancies between reality and this book bugged me, and although they may not bug everyone, they still ruined this book for me.

This was a charming debut from Danielle Parker! I'm a sucker for academic rivals romances, especially if the two characters were previously best friends before they started competing with each other to become the top student in their class. I also especially love when the two students are ruthless with each other when competing, just to show how high the stakes are. Ezra and Sasha showed just that as they made several bets to determine who would win valedictorian at their high school. I admired how committed Ezra was to reconciling with Sasha. I do wish that we got more flashback scenes or descriptions of how the two were friends in elementary and middle school so that we would feel the full effect of their relationship, which felt lacking at times. For this reason, I would give the novel 3.75 stars rounded up.

One of the aspects of this novel I enjoyed the most was definitely the discussions of class and gentrification, especially among Black and non Black POCs and their white classmates. As someone who grew up close to Monterey, the depictions of the class divide among residents was very accurate. Both Sasha and Ezra's heritages as a Black and Korean American and a Black Jewish American student were super cool to see, as well.

Overall this was a sweet romance! Fans of academic rivals romances like Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute will definitely love You Bet Your Heart.