4.5⭐️

“Always and forever.”

I really enjoyed They Hate Each Other, so I knew I wanted to pick up Amanda Woody’s latest release. Thanks so much to Netgalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for the chance to read this one early.

When two ex-best friends both want to romance the new girl, they suddenly have to deal with being around each other again. Caleb and Emma are two grumps fighting over the sunshine character, Juliet. Obviously, bisexual chaos ensues!

What I loved the most about this book were the wholesome friendship vibes. I loved how, in pursuing Juliet, Caleb and Emma always ended up in the same places, and always dragged their friends along with them. It created so many great opportunities for friendships to bloom and I always love a story where friendship is at the centre (and yes, it is a romance, so romantic feelings grow as well). I also really liked the flashbacks where we got to see moments when Caleb and Emma were best friends. They were so sweet!

Amanda Woody’s stories always seem to have a deeper theme of parental neglect and I think they do such a great job of exploring the different aspects of this theme. As someone who works with young adults on a daily basis, seeing the way Emma’s mum or Caleb’s dad behaved made me so pissed off and sad. The reality is that lots of teens experience this, and I like how Woody talks about it in such a real way.

In short, if you want a super wholesome queer book to read this summer, pre-order this immediately! Exes and Foes is out on 23rd of July.

- highly recommend if you’re looking for a coming of age angsty romance with a queer cast!
- this is dual POV and i love both caleb and emma 🥹 caleb is so sweet and i also relate to him with his type A personality 😩 i was stressed out for emma and just wanted to give her a hug 😭 their relationship felt very sweet and genuine to me 🥹
- emma and caleb’s attraction to juliet felt a little insta-love to me but you don’t really need a strong reason to have a crush on someone so it still felt believable for the most part
- i don’t think i’ll ever like the premise of 2 people treating a potential love interest like a competition it feels icky and caleb and emma even acknowledge that (i love that both their friends call them out for it too) but i do like the way everything was resolved
- i really like all the side characters and their little friend group—it’s nice that friendship is also an important theme in this story, especially for juliet’s storyline since she wasn’t treated very well by her old “friends”

While I didn’t love this quite as much as THEO, I still thoroughly enjoyed it! I was constantly finding things I was able to relate to, from the parental issues to Juliet being nonbinary and using she/they pronouns and also being aroace. The story felt real and had depth.

An auto buy author now for sure!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

DNF at 23%

I love a bi for bi romance, and the premise sounded really good. I could not get into this, though. I don't know if it was just the wrong time or the wrong vibe, just wasn't for me.

I'm usually not a fan of love triangle stuff but this one ended in a way that I appreciated. This was a very easy read, the plot flowed, and I felt satisfied by the ending.

i don't know if amanda woody is for me. their writing is over-the-top ridiculous in a way i don't enjoy. in "they hate each other," i could look past this because there were other aspects of the book i did appreciate. i can't really say the same about "exes & foes." i couldn't overlook how unrealistic i found the plot or how heavy-handed its themes were. it also doesn't help that i much preferred caleb and emma as friends than as romantic partners. though! i do love the inclusion of juliet being aroace, as i am aroace myself. that being the outcome of their dumb competition was a bit funny, i admit.

I loved Woody's first book and was excited for this one, but it disappointed me. I thought the characters were all pretty one note, and I don't think this should have been marketed as a romance when it is such a heavy book - the cover definitely gives you a different vibe than the story inside!

Thank you Penguin Teen and NetGalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. So Amanda Woody had me in my feels last night, crying all over myself. The thing I love about Amanda’s stories are they’re funny and romantic but the characters often have trauma, difficulties, and/or disabilities that impact them, that make the stories so deep and complex!! Caleb doesn’t fight but he will stand up for the new girl in school. But in typical fashion when the bully turns to tear down Caleb’s mom he freezes. Enter his ex-best friend Emma. She’s never been one to shy away from fighting back for people. She’s also know as feisty and a troublemaker. The two haven’t spoken in 4 years, each harboring their own feelings about their friend break up. But when the two both find themselves interested in the new student, Juliet, they decide to compete. The first one to get Juliet to kiss them gets to date her. However as they are forced into each other’s orbits feelings they thought they had buried begin to resurface. But is that what they want? Hurt runs deep between the two. Emma’s also struggling with a difficult home situation which has worsened since Caleb was last around. And Caleb’s trying to rebuild a relationship with his father, which Emma wouldn’t approve of. Can they keep their distance while competing? Or is their need to help and protect each other too ingrained? And what about Juliet? If they find out what Caleb and Emma have been doing will they ever forgive the two? A story that will pull at your heartstrings in all kinds of ways! Sweet, charming, funny, romantic, deep, and add some trauma in there! Once again the mcs chemistry is so explosive and it just gives all the feels!!! I loved Juliet’s journey, I related so much to her feelings on gender! As a non binary person myself I also often struggle with not meeting others expectation of what non binary means. Amanda Woody is such a fantastic author and one readers should not miss out on!!

DNF @ 60%

Just not the book for me. The book was extremely immature, but tried to cover serious topics.

The idea was cute, but it tried to span the entire young adult age group rather than focusing on one portion.

This was a highly anticipated read for me but unfortunately I just really could not get into it. I found some of the prose pretty jarring (I'm not one to be bothered by profanity, and I absolutely think profanity has a place in YA but some of it in this book really just felt like it was there for shock value... but in internal monologues, so it felt like the author using it for shock value, not the characters, which could have landed better).

I also just... don't think the author was fully equipped to handle the diversity of the cast they created. The white MCs are fighting over a Black girl* who really just feels like a romanticized/fetishized vehicle for the two of them to get together. Both the MCs have Asian best friends who are both the wise friends who talk sense into them. There were lots of things that built up to just generally make me pretty uncomfortable. I don't think it was intentionally malicious but I do genuinely think I might have been more likely to finish reading if the cast were whiter because the author just really was not equipped to write the diversity they added to the story and that was probably my biggest issue with the book.

Spoiler:
*I have since looked at other reviews, which all use they/them for Jasmine so I'm assuming that Jasmine comes out as nonbinary at some point. I DNF'd at 35% of the way through and that had not happened yet, so on top of the other issues, I just... don't really love a (I think white but definitely not Black) author writing a Black character who is just a vehicle to move the main romance along while also creating a situation where people will be using the wrong pronouns for said Black character.

4.5 stars

After a pretty bad friend breakup in 8th grade, Caleb and Emma haven’t gotten along. According to Caleb, Emma has gotten in the way of every single one of his romantic relationships since then. But really, Emma has just been trying to get by since their 8th grade break up.

When both Caleb and Emma set their sights on the new girl, they decide to hold a competition for her. Whoever gets a kiss first wins. But as they start spending more time together again, they both realize maybe their feelings from 8th grade haven’t completely gone away.

Thanks to Viking Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of Exes & Foes by Amanda Woody to review! Foody’s debut, They Hate Each Other, was one of my favorite books of 2023, so I was super excited to pick this one up! They definitely didn’t disappoint with this one, either.

Hands down, Foody excels at writing characters you will connect to right from the beginning. Caleb and Emma might be polar opposites, but it’s clear they have good chemistry together. Even when they’re fighting. The book is split between their points of view, and each of their voices were distinct enough that they don’t blur together.

The plot does follow some typical romance tropes, but I found that didn’t matter because I was so invested in the characters. The love interest Emma and Caleb are competing for, Juliet, has her own identity revelations throughout the book, and it felt so natural for the rest of the book. In general, the side characters were just as engaging as the main characters.

There’s great queer representation in this book, too, which we always love to see. It will definitely be a perfect romance to read on the beach when it comes out in July!

A cute, quirky YA romance between ex-best friends who are competing for the new girl’s heart.

Caleb is an adorably nerdy character with daddy issues who still isn’t sure why his best friend stopped talking to him in eight grade. A few years later and he’s still nursing that hurt - especially when it seems like every time he likes someone, she swoops in and woos them before he had the chance to. But that won’t happen this time if he has anything to say about it!
I enjoyed the diverse representation, the demisexual rep, the bisexual chaos, and trans rep!

I wish I liked this book more. It's a fun love triangle between two ex-best friends, Emma and Caleb, and a race to see who can woo Juliet.

I loved the variety of LGBTQ representation, and the characters have hilarious banter.

Emma and Caleb are more fleshed out compared to Juliet, who primarily acts as a plot device to bring the two main characters together. I would have liked to see her be more developed - she doesn't need a whole character arc, but some more time with her could have helped.

A little trite and too many attempts to be modern, but a sweet message overall that emotionally draws in the reader. Caleb and Emma's relationship is compelling, and their complex relationships with their families feels undeniably real. My main problem with the novel is Juliet's character, which reads very two-dimensional and is largely used as a plot device to bring the two main characters together.

4.5/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @vikingbooks for the ARC!

Exes & Foes is a wacky subversion of a love triangle. Emma and Caleb, ex-best-friends hold a competition to see who can get Juliet, the cute new student, to kiss them first. And, oops, they start falling for each other.
I loved this book. It was a hilarious, adorable romance and I devoured it in a day. The characters were charming and equally awkward. Also, points for everyone in the “triangle” being queer.
The dual POV between Caleb and Emma was done excellently. They had distinctive voices and perspectives, and I found them both to be charming (no grating “can we get back to the other character”).
All of the characters had trauma and relationship issues, and I felt that they were all handled with love. Emma, especially, had a wonderful arc. There were ups and downs, but altogether she had a happy ending. I absolutely cried over her story.

CW: emotional abuse; bullying; queerphobia; toxic friendship (former)

I was excited for this one but it just didn’t do it for me the writing was done poorly and it made the book uninteresting to me

This book just did not work for me. The writing was just not to my liking, and I couldn’t get into the story. The characters were frustrating and very naive when they were supposed to be teenagers.

The only thing that this book had going for it was the LGBTQIA+ rep, but with the story the way it was I couldn’t even appreciate that fully.

(2.5/5) I’d pay exorbitant amounts of money to never hear the phrases “premarital hoo ha” or “unalive me” ever again. This book was okay, but I feel like the premise got old really fast, which dragged the first half of the book. I thought there were a lot of places that could be good exposures to some queer ideology, but this book should definitely be marketed towards younger teens. Some of the foreshadowing was really obvious, and some of the tropes used were predictable as well. Overall, not a bad read, I’m just not the target audience anymore.

I truly cannot express my love for Amanda Woody’s writing enough. They create stories with such amazing depth. This book is somehow lighthearted and funny while also being deeply emotional and handling many tough topics. On the lighthearted side we have Emma and Caleb’s banter and crazy antics that had me in stitches. We also have their incredibly wholesome friends Jas and Alice, and the world’s sweetest character ever in Juliet. But alongside this lighthearted joyful comedy was a lot of emotion that had me teary eyed and even downright sobbing. Emma and Caleb both have complicated relationships with members of their family and with each other. I loved getting glimpses into the past showing the former friendship and the family issues. They helped me understand Emma and Caleb as individuals and as the couple they were meant to be. They have great chemistry and compliment each other so well. I did get slightly annoyed at their inability to communicate, but in the end they worked it out. So overall I highly recommend!

2 stars
——————

I’m not really sure how I feel about this one. I was interested in the premise of two friends competing for someone’s attention, but the way it was ultimately written gave me the ick.

The actual competing was poorly written. I enjoyed that the characters themselves knew their plan was bad. But doing it anyway? I get it’s literally the point of the book, but it could have been handled better. The entire time, I was cringing and smacking my forehead. There needed to be more emotion and anguish between the characters, with their history and plan. The ending had the potential to pull it together, but it was anti-climactic. The entire story was pretty predictable by the 40% mark. I struggled to finish this one because I could see how it was going to end. I pulled through to make sure I was right (I was) and to see how it came together, but it was disappointing.

I loved the queer representation, but is sometimes felt incredibly out of place within the book and the story. There wasn’t any development to the Juliet’s story that made them make sense. They were used to further Caleb and Emma’s relationship, but it could have been handled without the awful competition for their affection. I found the characters were pretty irritating. Despite being teens, they acted like kids. They were about as mature in the book as they were in the flashbacks.

I hate writing negative reviews, but this really was a flop for me.