Okay, this hurts my heart to say because I am a huge Olivie Blake fan, but this one was not my favorite. I found it to be extremely slow and didn't like the FMC if I am being honest. I felt like this book wanted to touch on too many themes that took away from the story. overall, was it cute? yes. but it's not one that i would go out of my way to reccomend, which is such a bummer.

2.5 maybe 3 stars

It was good but not a quick "fluffy" read by any means. Lots of sections of game play and how it works which was interesting but not something I follow particularly closely. Lots of good character building and growth and had some twists I wasn't expecting. But overall an ok read.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Teen for the ARC! I've posted my review on bookstagram!

i’ve returned with a review of one of the cutest ya romance retelling of twelfth night i’ve read in a while. also just LOOK AT HER. she’s so cute!!!

i am first & foremost a shakespeare stan (peep my iambic pentameter tattoo 🤭) & this book brought me back to middle school bc she’s the man was THE blueprint for twelfth night retellings i’m sorry.

in this retelling, viola & duke are rivals on their high school student council & complete opposites of each other: viola is shrewish because she doesn’t feel respected by anyone in her life while duke is the popular kid & captain of the football team. when duke gets badly injured, he resorts to playing an online game called twelfth knight…. which just so happens to be viola’s favorite game. they end up playing together (unbeknownst to duke, who thinks he’s playing with viola’s twin brother, sebastian) & end up connecting in this virtual world. meanwhile, in the real world, duke recruits viola’s help to reunite with his ex-girlfriend olivia, who’s been acting odd.

follmuth puts a fresh spin on this shakespeare comedy—our characters are relatable & the book addresses the type of stress of being a teenager entails. it was nostalgic for me in the best way & i had such a blast reading it!

read this is you like:
👾 shakespeare retellings
👾 she’s the man
👾 rivals to lovers
👾 MMORPGs
👾 so high school by taylor swift

This was super cute! I love the plot, I love the MCs, I love the slow burn, and I also love the contrast between the Viola and Jack.

I will say it was a bit slow for me in the beginning. Alamo’s the online names were kind of a bit funky, but overall, super cute!

“I hope you change me — in fact, I think you already have.”

A really fun, cute, charming coming of age story with enemies to lovers, forced proximity, found family, sibling connection, reverse grumpy to sunshine, and a feisty, strong female lead and a golden retriever jock MMC that turns out to be a lot more than meets the eye.

This was just such a fun read. The building of the nerdcore was in depth and well done. I loved Vi. She’s snarky, strong, feisty in all the ways she has needed to be but has such amazing growth throughout the whole story. I loved her journey, trying to navigate all these relationships.

Jack, I especially connected to because in college I too had a knee injury that could have derailed my whole dance career. I went through many of the things and asked many of the questions Jack did.

Also as a Filipino, I loved reading “Anak” and “Lola” like they were normal. No explanation, just as common as any thing else. I felt like was being seen, just like Vi and Jack. Alexene Farol Fullmuth does an amazing job of writing diversity without tokenizing it. More writers should follow her example. Diversity is the world we live in and see, to have that reflected in books is the direction we all should be striving for

Such a cute read! Both of our lead characters were hateable in their own way, however this reads as intentional and they both get their redemption arcs as the story goes on. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

A sweet story loosely based off of Twelfth Night by Shakespeare with many modern day twists! While it took me a while to get into this book, I ended up really enjoying it. It's been quite a while since I have read YA, I loved how much diversity was in this book. Growing up, most YA books I read were straight, white couples. This book is diverse in race, sexuality and gender orientation, which was wonderful to read.

This enemies to lovers story was heartwarming and charming! I loved it!

I know that so many people will love this, but that just wasn’t the case for me. There was so much left unsaid in this book that it felt undone. BUT the secret identity and the gaming thing kept me hooked to this. It was fun, until it wasn’t.

Ok so the main thing I didn’t care for about this was the way the main character was half Filipino but I didn’t know until the end of the story. And the love interest was Black (?) judging from the cover, and there’s more characters in the story that are so ambiguous. It’s weird. It was like I knew they were a person of color but nothing made them different than the others. And the characters who did have discerning characteristics from others, that was all they had. She doesn’t tell how those things are resolved or anything. Just that they are there or happening within her family and I found that annoying. Because if you’re going to mention it and then leave it as a passing glance, WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF MENTIONING IT?! And like those things aren’t small? There was absolutely no character development and as a character driven reader, I was a bit bored.

I’m usually not a fan of the secret identity trope, but IDK, it HITS DIFFERENT in YA. lol I always end up enjoying them more when they’re in YA. And bonus points if its on a game or a social media. It always turns up with some weird ass drama and I am a sucker for some drama lol But in this one it was a little hurtful? Like she was only doing it because of the way people treated her as a fan of this game. It was painfully familiar as a female sports fan and I hated it for her.

Another way this felt unresolved was all the misogyny that was happening and then that was it. When she finally told the love interest who she was, he said basically yeah this is happening and then was like you did this to me why? I know that this would be a real YA boy’s reaction, but I think it should have had someone there to tell him, yo that’s not ok. Something to show that he learned something throughout this entire book.

This was cute and it had it’s moments where I was like ok, this makes sense. But at the same time, I was very much weirded out that stuff just kept popping up but nothing was solved. It seemed like one big open-ended story. And it was really weird.

Sigh, this was a hard one for me to get through, I found Viola to be really annoying and tbh wanted to DNF this many times because of it, I think the two main characters on their own were decent but together lacked any spark.

While I don't think this was a terrible book at all, I enjoyed the author's other YA romance, My Mechanical Romance, more. Part of it was that for half the book, Viola is just kind of infuriating and definitely in the wrong in some instances. Don't get me wrong, I emphasize with having to cater to men's opinions and deal with their jokes, but I think she took her attitude too far - which I know is the point! It just got to me after a while.

The romance itself also didn't feel super natural to me. At one point, maybe halfway through, I thought that Viola and Olivia actually had a better chemistry and almost hoped that they would get together instead. Viola and Jack are cute together, but I wasn't gushing over them getting together like I was with the characters in My Mechanical Romance.

Some of the pop culture references in this book make sense, but I also think some of them won't age super well. I did like the insights to TV and video game fandoms, and it's clear the author has spent some time in them herself and cares for those environments.

I was glad to see Viola's growth, and I loved Jack's realization that the expectations put on him don't have to define him. The messages there are very important. (I also reeeeally loved Bash and Olivia as supporting characters.) All in all, I didn't have a bad time reading this book, but I also didn't feel as connected with the story beats.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. This review reflects my honest opinions.

I have long been a fan of Olivie Blake but am now just as obsessed with her YA writings!
This one was great! As a gamer myself, I really connected with the characters.
A must read!

Viola Reyes is "Mad Woman" to a T. And as someone who has been called many of the things Viola has, she was exactly the character I needed to read. My blood boiled for her not only objectively - because the sexism she experiences makes your skin crawl - but in the ways it mirrors past experiences of mine. I've experienced plenty of times where I felt unsafe in gaming spaces online and IRL. Where our attention was mistaken as affection. Viola's character made me feel seen in the ways the world asks us to tone it down. To not get so 'upset'.

Loved everything about this book!!! Such a clever retelling. The characters were spot on. A new classic.

Oooooookay I loved this. Normally i hate sporty things but the nerdy rpg aspect had me intruiged. Our fmc is brash, bold, and knows what she’s about. Our mmc is facing the loss of his life and relearning who he is. Viola and Jack deserve the world. I couldn’t tell you about the retelling aspect as I’ve never read much Shakespeare, but the story had me hooked and I couldn’t put it down. A story about overcoming challenges, love, finding yourself, and enjoying the little things.

The writing is a little more flowery than I thought it would be, but this retelling of Twelfth Night stays true to the source without getting bogged down. I enjoy Shakespeare in the real world, and I think this will be a staple for current teens and the ones to come. Follmuth's style may not be for everyone, but they definitely have the pulse of current trends and know how to use those trends to craft an engaging work.

When I got to the 50% mark, I wasn’t really sure how I was going to rate this one; I was debating between 3 or 4 stars. However after the acknowledgements section of the book, everything came full circle to me. I was a major fan of the authors first book, “My Mechanical Romance” and was very excited when I received an arc of “Twelth Knight”. However, the reason why I gave this book four stars instead of five stars was because of the characters. Our two main characters were interesting on their own but when they were together, I didn’t feel any sort of chemistry between them. Also, when they gamed together, it wasn’t really a bonding experience which I thought it would have been so that also fell flat for me. I guess I was expecting more romance from this one for sure. That being said, I still enjoyed this one a lot and look to reading other works by this author. Thank you NetGalley for proving me with an arc of this book in exchange for my honest feedback

Tweflth Knight was a fun and modern Shakespeare retelling that I think can help the themes of his work be far more digestible for the adolescents (and adults!) of today. I love Alexene Farol Follmuth's writing and characters. Whenever I want to see character development and read a good representation of the human experience, I always seek out her work as Follmuth or Olivia Blake. I read her first YA novel as well, and she just knocked it out of the park with these. As a 35 year-old, I don't often read much YA. However, Follmuth's books to bridge the gap seamlessly and put me right back into the emotions, challenges, and triumphs of being a teen. I look forward to continuing to pick up all of her works.

This book was slow for me to get into but I really enjoyed the pacing, the depth of the characters and how the author wove the story together!

"Twelfth Knight" is a delightful, modern interpretation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Knight," that explores the highs and lows of fandom, gaming, cosplay, and conventions. The friendship and romance between the main characters will make it impossible for readers to put the book down.

This was really cute. Jack was adorable and he loved Viola so much. I love that they didn't have a separation at the end, he was upset but he just had a conversation about it with her. Viola just needed someone who wasn't going to let her push them away and Jack was that person. I wish there was an actual epilogue though.

I received an arc through netgalley.