I thought this book was so cute. It was an easy listen and something new to gear into summer reading! I loved the summer camp setting and it’s normally not something I love but this one was different! I loved how much of the camp felt like a being and how important it was to the characters. You could feel the atmosphere of being somewhere special and how the characters shifted from being their home selves to their camp selves. I also really enjoyed the frenemies to lovers trope! It’s not something you see too often but this one was so cute and I ate it up! Overall it’s a great sapphic read and one i’ll continue to recommend for summer reading!

Thank you for the e-arc of Wish You Weren't Here by Erin Baldwin. Although a fun summer read, I felt that the main character held too many grudges and that made reading feel insufferable. I ended up dnf'ing it around forty percent because I just kept setting it back down and not reading anything.

Okay, first things first: if you're on the fence about this one—admiring that cute cover, thinking a summer camp novel sounds fun, that frenemies-to-lovers is obviously the best trope, but... just read it. It's 100% as cute as it looks. Is the set up contrived as all get out? Sure, but it's a summer camp novel. Every other scene is an activity. Literally contrived. By adults. For fun. Activities are fun! So is sharing a cabin with your sworn enemy / hot crush. Whose butt is just like right there. Not that you’re staring at it. (“‘Right … you were looking with it. Near it.’”) Also, said crush has so much more emotional intelligence than you that you think it's a fair fight but it's not. She has your number, babe. Anyway, read it. Great literature it is not (what was that? YA is for kids? wha?), but treat yourself.

I loved this fun enemies to lovers book, and the environment and atmosphere! I need to read more from Baldwin, I enjoyed these characters so much!

I wish I loved this.

I decided to request an advanced copy of Wish You Weren’t Here because enemies-to-lovers is a trope I want to read more of. That said, after reading this book, I am confident in saying that this should not be labeled as enemies-to-lovers.

The “enemies” element is one-sided. Juliette is bothered by Priya’s mere existence. In my opinion, Priya’s disinterest in playing this game with Juliette is what causes the tension. That’s not enemies. That’s just a teenager who found an outlet for her negative emotions in another person.

Now that I have gotten my main issue out of the way, these are the elements I enjoyed.

- The in-depth camp world-building - Wish You Weren’t Here truly captures an American summer camp experience. It's a very specific setting that worked well for me because of how detailed it is.

- The discourse about doing things simply because they are fun - Juliette mentions multiple times that teenagers should be able to do things simply for the sake of enjoyment and that really resonated with me. I appreciated that plot detail.

Bottom line: I didn't love Wish You Weren't Here, but I would still recommend it.

I solely requested this arc based on the books cover and not even reading what it was about. This book was cute, as someone who never went to summer camp as a kid it made me really wish that I did and it made me feel as if I was also experiencing camp for the first and last time. I think this book has some nice fun elements to it but it also has a bunch of underlying lessons to takeaway from that are perfect for a younger audience that might be trying to figure themselves and their life out. Although I don’t think this book is specifically for me, I can think of a few friends who I think would enjoy this!

Dnf 20% in

I found this book really hard to read, I don’t know if it’s because i though the characters were adults & the i found out that it was a ya, which honestly was mostly likely told & i just didn’t realize. I was really excited to read this book when i started it & when i found out it was ya i was a little disappointed but i continued on because i do love ya book especially sapphic ya book. At the beginning i found it was a little hard to read but i decided to just push through, i originally wanted to get 50% in before deciding to dnf since i don’t like dnfing my arcs but i just couldn’t do that with this book. I don’t know if it was the writing, my mood, or just my chaotic life making it hard to connect to the story but i just could not get myself to pick up the book. Honestly i think it’s also the cover, as pretty as it is, the characters look older than they are.

Wow. I loved this! I was never really a camp person but that didn’t take away from how much I enjoyed this book.

Priya and Juliette were so fun, I loved their journey from indifference to being in love. Lucy and Gia were amazing side characters and I would read more just about them!

The ending was adorable and a perfect way to wrap up the story.

Erin Baldwin has written a beautiful, funny love letter to the summer camp experience. The addition of a enemies to lovers romance really sealed the deal for me. Thoroughly entertained.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

"Wish You Weren't Here" by Erin Baldwin is a delightful and engaging read. Baldwin's storytelling is witty and charming, drawing readers into a world filled with humor, unexpected twists, and heartfelt moments. The characters are relatable and endearing, making it easy to become invested in their journeys. This novel is perfect for anyone looking for a light-hearted and enjoyable summertime escape into a well-crafted story.

Wish You Weren't Here is a great book for the summer! I've never been to sleepaway camp, but it's clear that the author has that experience and a ton of love for it, so much so that it had me wishing I was going off to a summer camp soon. I loved how this centered on the BIG FEELINGS of being a teenager, the romance a soft supplement to a little summer-y slice of life, though certain aspects of the plot/execution left me wanting for more. Specifically, Juliette's intense nature is a big part of her character, and there are moments where we get a glimpse of her chaotic family life with five siblings that makes you understand her better, but I wish we delved into that a bit more at times, but I also appreciated that it is unresolved because this book IS just a summer camp story and that kind of struggle is, realistically, not overcome so quickly. I will say, that although I understood (and to some extent related to) Juliette's insecurity and intensity and WHY she was this way, she could be rather rude and standoffish, almost a bully. This, again, was something I felt personally, but I'm on the fence about whether Juliette fully understood how mean she was being. Priya, the love interest, on the other hand, was a particularly compelling character, and I loved getting to know all the different sides of her throughout the book alongside the main character. I also really loved how much personality each of the side characters (campers, counselors, friends, etc.)

Overall, a heartwarming, fun, summer-y read that I would recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review <3 All opinions are my own! (This book officially came out 4 June!)

A lighthearted sapphic YA romance set at a summer camp - what isn't there to love, not to mention the "I hate you but not really" vibes that were going on between the two main characters.

I loved watched the dynamic shift and grow between Juliette and Priya, especially as they navigated the summer camp life together.

Overall, I had a love/hate relationship with the first person perspective the book was written in, and think there was some over the top pop culture references throughout the book, with some feeling natural and others feeling forced. However, I would definitely recommend this book, and enjoyed it as a light and fun summer themed read with a touch of queer romance.

Oh — what a perfect Pride Month read! I've been in a weird place where I keep wanting to enjoy reading YA and keep being let down; I have been wondering if I simply have outgrown the genre or if I'm just not reading the right novels. Wish You Weren't Here reaffirmed my love for the genre and was such a delightful read.

Erin Baldwin perfectly encapsulated that senior year/everything is changing feeling, wrapped up in the joy and warmth of summer camp. Sometimes authors struggle to capture teenage banter—it either feels too overdone or too cheesy—but the interactions between Baldwin's characters felt seamless. It felt like we were just getting a peak into Juliette's relationship with her friends + camp vs. Baldwin feeling the need to overexplain everything.

I also thought the romance was so cute. The build-up was delicious and I was giggling and kicking my feet between the interactions! I cried at the end, not going to lie. It's such a perfect summer read and really burrowed itself into my heart. Loved it!

There were some slight pacing issues and little minor issues that dropped it to a real rating of 4.5 stars but I enjoyed it so much that I'll bump it to 5 stars.

This was very cute.

As a romance, I had mixed feelings, in part because it's another book that's billed as "enemies to lovers" (not just in the blurbs, but also in the setup of them being... frenemies? Rivals? Unclear) but doesn't really follow though on that. There's also a weird just-for-plot-reasons fight at the end that came out of nowhere and didn't make sense OR add much of anything, IMO.

That said, I love the banter, the quirkiness, and most of all, the love letter to summer camp, growing up, and bringing the best parts of yourself into adulthood. I never went to camp quite like THIS, but I think the goal of Fogridge was to be the best parts of summer camp turned up to maximum chaos settings. I enjoyed that quite a bit.

I did have a good time with this one, even if I was a bit tepid on certain elements of the plot and execution. Would recommend for a lighthearted summer read. :3

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A perfect read for anyone who ever felt more like themself at summer camp than they did the rest of the year! WISH YOU WEREN'T HERE is such a fun, joyful, heartwarming story with relatable characters and a delightful setting. And that cover! My god!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. It was definitely worth the time, a heartwarming read about the intense feelings long forgotten by most adults.

I was in a major book slump, and this book broke it for me. I couldn’t put it down. This is one of the freshest and most fun books I’ve read in a long time!

I could wax poetic about this novel for hours. How this is everything the sapphic romance genre is for. How these characters are so dimensional, the plot so fun, the romance so sweet, the chapter titles timely and hilarious & that the book has so so much heart.

I say I could talk about it forever, but I think that's all you really need to know. 'I wish you weren't here' is gorgeous, sweet, funny and everything you should be looking for in the romance genre. It has such a fun setting with so many fun characters and events and I already can't wait to reread this over and over again. Sapphic summer, anyone?

The sapphic novel of my dreams. If you're a fan of angst, tension, and undeniable chemistry, you're gonna want to pick this one up. If you're not a fan of those things, you should pick it up anyways

This was a hilarious YA romcom with messy, chaotic characters, and it's sapphic!! I would definitely recommend this book to romance lovers.