Here's a young adult contemporary romance with a side of anxiety rep and some grumpy sunshine to boot. If you enjoy reality shows, this one will likely tic all the boxes for you.

First we meet Natalie, who finds herself struggling in her freshman year of college after the death of her grandmother, the person she always felt closest to. On top of that, she loses her scholarship and now faces debt looming far into her future. And the certainty she felt, the confidence she relied on has been replaced by a nagging feeling of stress and anxiety.

Never fear! The popular reality show, Wild Adventures is filming nearby and through this, Natalie sees a way out. Despite not actually being that comfortable in the great outdoors, Natalie can do this, needs to do this, and her will alone, she hopes, will carry her through.

Unfortunately, she is partnered with Finn Markum who is as icy as he is prepared, another obstacle she is determined to overcome.

So over competitions filled with funny antics and the witty banter set against the Appalachian Trail, this one felt like a no brainer for me! With both main characters dealing with loss, there was some heavier stuff to deal with, but it was balanced out with the light hearted fun of reality TV.

This is cute in the way reality tv is cute. I wanted sparks sooner. I wanted the main character to have been in the woods even one time before committing to the show. I wanted the backstabbing competition to feel like drama. It was a fun ride with a lot of references to Dolly Parton, but for 19 yer old characters it felt a little more like YA and “chipper” than I expected.

I received an advance review copy for free from the publisher via Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was a really cute YA romance about a wilderness reality show competition with college students. I'm not a huge fan of competition reality shows but it added a very entertaining element to the story. Meet Natalie and Finn, who are randomly teamed up for the competition. Readers can feel their chemistry from the start, but it takes Finn a while to warm up to Natalie since he is a serious outdoorsman and she's just in it for the college scholarship money. We follow their adventures along the Appalachian Trail, and we watch them grow and become supportive partners along the way. These characters first connect over both navigating anxiety and loss; topics which were well-handled by the author. The story was really enjoyable and flowed well. I look forward to reading future works by this author.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the advanced review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a YA romance and I thought it was a really good read. The story was super sweet and the two characters had a lot of chemistry from the beginning. I really enjoyed the survival reality show aspect because I’m a sucker for a good survival show. I would read more from this author because I really enjoyed the story and how it flowed.

Natalie applies for an outdoorsy reality show to try and win college scholarship prize money, and it randomly assigned to team up with Finn, a grump who is very serious about the great outdoors.

This is such a fun summer read for fans of reality competition shows. We follow Finn and Natalie's adventures as they compete in challenges along the Appalachian Trail. In addition to worrying about bears on the trail, our characters are navigating anxiety and loss, softening to each other over time and becoming supportive partners.

I loved seeing our characters evolve (even if Natalie's overthinking was a bit much in the end) and following their antics along the way.

I ADORED Wild About You. I feel myself drawn to grumpy/sunshine romances, but really felt like this one was done exceptionally well - and not just because I would love to disappear to the wilderness, but because while this was a YA romance, felt like this one had multiple layers and the author wrote the characters unbelievably well. 5 swoon-worthy stars!

I was skeptical that this book was truly YA--the premise definitely sounds more like "new adult," but there's nothing objectionable in it that would worry HS librarians. I actually think it would've worked better as an adult romcom, but heck, I was not the author or editor. :)
Fun for fans of reality shows like The Amazing Race and students looking for books about people in college.

This is a quick, cute story about Finn and Natalie, two college students who find themselves partners on a reality show similar to “Survivor”. The storyline is somewhat predictable, but I really loved watching the story unfold. I appreciate that the author addressed anxiety and how to cope with it in a healthy and mature way. It was refreshing to read a YA book in which the characters dealt with adult problems in an adult manner.

I loved this one so much, I’ve loved all of Kaitlyn’s books and this one is my new favorite! Cute, outdoorsy romance that will have you swooning.

In Wild About You anxiety ridden Natalie Hart loses her college merit scholarship and decides to enter the teen version of Wild Adventures, a reality TV show with a grand prize of a $100,000 scholarship. The challenge is to hike the Appalachian trail, while completing various tasks with a complete stranger. She is paired with Finn Markum, who resents Natalie's brash perky personality and lack of outdoors experience. He is grieving his father's death, as he had hoped to do Wild Adventures as a father/son duo. Natalie with her complex beauty routines seems like a thorn in his side. As they complete one task after another, he finds Natalie has skills he hadn't counted on needing and realizes they make a good team. This slow burning romance explores mental health issues and grieving, as well as how to trust oneself when the going gets tough.

Very enjoyable YA novel about college students competing on a wilderness reality show. The relationship that developed between Natalie and Finn was sweet and funny, and the reality show aspect was entertaining. The depictions of Natalie’s anxiety were well-handled.

This was soooo fun!!! I wish that Wild Adventures was real, I’d watch the heck out of it lol.

I really adored everything about Wild About You. I don’t normally like grumpy x sunshine, so I super appreciated that Finn was only grumpy for a couple of chapters. I loved the hiking, the AT fun facts and history, Harper’s growth as a friend and how she loved and encouraged Natalie, and I really loved seeing more of Reese and Benny.

Super fun and easy audiobook that I listened to in a couple of days. I’m looking forward to Hill’s next book…. Hopefully it’ll be about Clara to complete the friendship trio. :)

This was such a fun and cute book. I really liked that this book was a mix between survivor and the amazing race tv shows! It was such a fun game and genuinely a good read. I loved all of the challenges they did and honestly wouldn't mind if this was an actual tv show!
Natalie was such a fun and interesting character I loved her character development and how she grew real confidence instead of faking it throughout the challenges & Finn was such a cute grumpy man, loved getting to know him and what his reasoning for being on the show was.
Such a cute book and I would definitely recommend it to my rom-com lovers!

As always, Kaitlyn's books are a sweet delight. She's one of the YA authors writing in the space right now who has a real hand for comedy, both in one-liners and in physical comedy. I don't read much YA anymore, but I always make room for Kaitlyn's books because they have so much humor and heart.

I absolutely LOVED this grumpy x sunshine, forced proximity, dual POV, YA reality tv show story that sees two college students paired up to compete in a competition race to hike the Appalachian Trail. The mental health rep in this book was outstanding! I

loved how much focus was spent on FMC, Natalie' anxiety disorder as she learns how to deal with negative thoughts, panic attacks and more. The chemistry between her and partner Finn was top notch and I loved that Finn was a nerdy, book-loving grump who does his best to encourage and build Natalie up once he realizes there's more to her than the superficial blonde Southern persona she projects.

Great on audio narrated by Amanda Stribling and perfect for fans of books like Grandma Gatewood's walk, Anita Kelly's Something wild & wonderful or Katherine Center's Happiness for beginners. Many thanks to NetGalley and @prhaudio for a complimentary digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

A grumpy x sunshine romance where two college students - Natalie and Finn - are thrown together as part of an adventure reality show. There's a whole lot of forced proximity and even the one bed trope (one tent). Natalie needs the prize money for college tuition since her anxiety has caused her to lose her scholarship.

I liked the relationship development between Finn and Natalie. Even with the short timeline of the show, the forced proximity made it feel realistic. I also loved the anxiety representation.

Overall a cute, tropey read even if I started off disliking Finn.

3.75 stars

This book is the perfect summer read! Hill always does a remarkable job with the enemies to lovers trope and has outdone herself on the romance front with this book. I also appreciated the time taken to try and get details about the trail as close to accurate as possible.

I loved this YA forced proximity book. Their journey to falling in love was so adorable and I am looking forward to more from Kaitlyn Hill!

This was a good story where kids applied for a show and trying to earn money for college. Along the way she gets paired up with someone who is her opposite and learn about themselves along the way.

2.5 stars, I think i've learned that this author is just not for me. I almost didn't finish it, and while i'm glad i pushed through, there's something about the writing that has consistently made it challenging for me to connect with the characters. I think the lack of maturity drives me a little bit crazy and maybe that's just the stage of life i'm in. I previously DNF'd a book by this author and I choose to try again because I thought the premise for this one sounded fun and unique. Once we got to a vulnerable state for the characters, things started to get better and i did like the latter half of the book. I personally connected more with Finn because of his grief journey. I think the ancillary characters could have been fleshed out better and dug deeper into Natalie's strained relationship with her parents. I also didn't quite feel like i knew why the two characters liked each other and wanted to be in a relationship beyond their forced proximity. overall, the competition plot of the book made for some fun scenes that kept me going and i did like the ending but i just don't feel like the book dug deep enough for me.