I get so excited about any book that takes place in a theme park, but a high stakes scavenger hunt complete w/ first love meet cutes? I was sold.
This was such a fantastic YA debut from Jenny L. Howe and she brought all of the things I love about her adult romances (the heart, the genuine relatable characters, & the swoon worthy love) into a perfect YA coming-of-age romance package.
Lia’s story and her struggles with friendships and her mom were so well done and thought out. This wasn’t some surface level subplot, this was a fully engaging storyline that gave the FMC depth and made you care about her struggles.
And the fact that this book was able to pair that with an adorable & fun romance filled with banter was AMAZING.
I was laughing & crying the whole time and this book hit home with me looking back on my own teen years as well as feeling all of the struggles as a mom who also has a lot of anxiety. This was incredibly well done! Thank you to NetGalley & Delacorte for this ARC.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to read this ARC and get a chance to review it!

Cute! That's it, that's the review 😂

No but in all seriousness, this was a cute, fat-positive young adult read with a fun competition storyline and heartfelt moments of teenage friendship, first loves, and navigating finding yourself amidst an ever-changing world.

I am not the demographic for a YA novel by any means, but I can absolutely appreciate the novel. I was plus sized as a teen and adult Jenny Howe’s book is the one I needed as a teen. In typical Jenny Howe style a plus size woman is well represented.. The story is well written and a very enjoyable read. I would recommend reading it.

Jenny Howe shines with her YA debut. Centered in the magical Fableland theme park, Love at Full Tilt had me swirling and dreaming throughout every page. An absolutely lovely roller coaster (pun intended) filled with self-love and discovery, friendship, clues and puzzle solving - I want my 18 year old self to be directly inserted into this friend group and adventure. I wish I could book a trip to Fableland tomorrow!

ARC via NetGalley

Goodreads review

This was an adorable romance! The theme park setting was really fun, although sometimes the Fableland lore felt like a little much since we as readers didn't know all the movies. Lia and Mason were great, and the scavenger hunt was enjoyable. Great YA romance!

Love at Full Tilt, a novel by Jenny L. Howe, available July 22, 2025!

Let me start by saying that this is the best book by Jenny L. Howe to date! I love, love, loved this scavenger hunt in an amusement park/resort competitors-to-lovers YA romance. Lia and her friends Tess and Issy are on a quest to enjoy their last summer together before college and work split them up, so they all go to Fableland to live out their wildest childhood dreams. Lia wants to win the scavenger hunt to earn enough money to finally stick it to her overprotective parents and go out on her own, with a passion for storytelling and a dream to work for Fable Industries herself. Enter local competitor and college hopeful Mason, the softest of softest boys you’ve ever met, who loves a good book, his two dachshunds, Toast and Waffles, and stealing my freaking heart.

Let me also say that no one writes fat rep like JLH. I, too, felt like I needed this book when I was younger. The rides? The “geometry”? The feeling of clothing being too tight and people thinking you’re an object? There were a couple of moments I felt a bit teary, and Mason was right there to dry my eyes and prove that all bodies are beautiful and attractive. I also felt like Lia’s mom’s anxiety was well done, and her parents’ overprotectiveness had me wondering if they would show up. There are lots of lovely moments between the friend group that I won’t give away without spoiling!

If you are a lover of romance and Jenny’s previous adult books, you will not be disappointed by switching to YA with this story! Plus, the cover is GORGEOUS!

Thank you so much to Jenny L. Howe, Delacorte, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced (e-)reader copy and a chance to rate and review this book!

5 ⭐️ 0 🌶 (lots of angst and pining!)

I wish I had this book when I was a teen, and I wish I could get every teen to read it! Such a great story of friendship, falling in love, and living the life you want to live. Also, Jenny should get an award for best pet names in books.

A really sweet YA romance.
I really love the friendship.
And the setting.
Highly recommend, for all ages.

This was a fun read! I do think it tried to do a bit too much at times; I wish we really could’ve felt immersed in the park lore but given all the subplots, it was hard to figure out where exactly to focus. I do wish the ending for the game was a bit better fleshed out, but I did like the very end moving time in text. I think this YA may be stronger than the author’s adult novels.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this as a romance novel, it had that element that I was looking for and enjoyed the overall storyline going on. I was invested in the romance element and thought it was beautifully done. The characters were everything that I was expecting and enjoyed from this type of book and am excited for more from Jenny L. Howe.

*YA is not my current genre that I read but I love Jenny L Howe, so I knew I needed this book*

This book weaves so much lore and backstory with a BEAUTIFUL coming of age (sort of? She’s 18 lol) story with friendship and love. I loved the dynamic with her friends and the conflicts felt very real, relevant, and appropriate for the age group and also the story. Her storyline with her parents, heartbreaking but also it did not pull too much from Lia’s own narrative.

I loved this book. I wish this book existed when I was in my teens/early 20s because it would have been just perfect for me then. I love knowing this book exists to share with my nieces and daughter when they are ready to read this book.

As a huge Disney fan, I loved this entire world Jenny created and even though I obviously knew nothing about it, her ability to paint the picture with her words really made it easy to be there. I want to see a full map rendering of this place AND of each stop on the scavenger hunt.

"Magic and wishes and all that, they don't do shit. These last few days with you, though - that's magic I can believe in."

The romance in this book was SO. STINKING. CUTE. This is a master-class in how YA romance should be written; a little bit of awkwardness, a dose of trauma that they need to overcome, and growth on their own without the partner. Jenny L. Howe does such a wonderful job of establishing both MCs and side characters, and it was so easy to root for Lia and Mason. As with any Jenny L. Howe novel, the exploration of the world from a plus-sized protagonist was well-written. Lia is unapologetically plus-sized (how lovely it is to see her enjoy food), but she also shows how the world is not made for her. Mason finds her fat AND beautiful, it's not a "but" situation, and that was so refreshing to read. The romance is pure magic.

You may be thinking, "Lauren, this is a glowing review. Why is this four stars and not five?" Well, that comes down to the theme park itself. I spent the entire time reading this book texting my best friend, who is a Project Coordinator for a theme park contractor. Jessica is a diehard thoosie who knows everything there is to know about this industry. So when she says that this book is a 3/10 on theme park accuracy, I believe her. Many of the rides described are simply NOT physically possible (things like having "wings" depicted that would break off, drop rides being indoors, etc.).

For the romance fans, this is a perfect novel. They will be kicking their feet and squealing happily. But for a book advertised as being a love letter to fandom, that part falls flat. Never doubt the thoosie, especially the teenage or early-20 thoosie. The theme park itself may take them out of the story entirely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A wonderful read!
This novel drew me in from the very first page and kept me hooked until the end. The characters were vibrant and relatable, the writing was engaging, and the story had just the right balance of heart and humor. Highly recommend!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this book. A lot of times especially with books that border the edge of the age range on YA (in terms of character age), I find the characters to be whiney or set in something so unrealistic that it takes me right out of the joy of the reading. But this book was honestly so real that it felt like I was back at 18, graduating high school and trying to figure everything out because it felt like maybe the world was too big for me and I wasn't ready for it. Jenny L. Howe described this as "the book she needed as a plus sized teen" and I'm so glad she wrote it because I would 100% agree. As a person who was plus size all throughout high school, I did so much to keep my self esteem up, and having a book like this would have been so reassuring and it feels like a warm hug from a supportive friend.
The magic of Fableland was captured so well it this book that it felt like you were truly there with Lia and Mason, the romance between the two felt soft in all the best ways. I can't recommend this enough to people in the target audience and even to people out of the target audience, I feel like there's something for everyone in here!

I've marinated on this review for almost a month.

I need you to know I don't like YA books. I don't like 16-year-olds parenting themselves, I don't like teenagers thinking they've got it all figured out, and I really don't like when they try to act like adults because, sweetie, your frontal lobe ain't done cookin' yet.

None of that will be found in these pages.

Instead, what we get is a visceral and raw look into the uncertainty and fear and excitement and pressure that it is to be 18, freshly graduated, and on the precipice of the great unknown. Instead, we get strong emotions and the occasional outburst and the moderately tempered self-awareness of, "Eh, I probably shouldn't have done that, but they were an asshole, so I'll still be able to sleep at night." We revisit what it's like to be unsure of ourselves, and to not know where we fit in when everything is changing. We get to relive the unlimited potential of everything that our lives could be, if only we could just... go to school, or find the funds to get away, or speak up for ourselves and what we really want, or score a prestigious internship, or accept who we really are.

It's so, so real.

Reading this instantly transported me back to when I was 17 and freshly graduated. I had secured a partial scholarship, but didn't qualify for grants, couldn't get a loan, and because of that, any kind of further education was explicitly off the table. So I, much like FMC Lia, felt stuck. I'm reminded of some lyrics by Elton John's seemingly forgotten musical, Aida:

We are free to have it all / We are what we want to be / It's in ourselves to rise or fall /
This is easy to believe / When distant places call to me / It's harder from the palace yard / Fortune favors the free...

The individual singing is in a gilded cage, unable to leave the confines of the palace, and has had to forsake all dreams of adventure and exploration. Lia, also, is in a gilded cage of sorts. Lia was a miracle baby, and her parents are, understandably (if a little misguidedly) overprotective of her. They also want to give her everything, including a legacy of working at the family furniture store so she can be secure and have steady, if modest, income. Lia, like anyone, teenaged or otherwise, chafes at having her future predetermined for her.

And that's why she wants to enter the contest at Fableland and win the cash prize: so she can have the means to chase her dreams. Don't we all wish we could do that? Lia's realistic; she's not a plucky young thing who thinks a can-do attitude and a winning smile will get her where she wants to go.

And that's why I love her so much.

She's still 18 and acts like an 18 year old (i.e. sees a pretty boy and her brain vacates for a minute, sometimes lies, sometimes holds grudges, sometimes sneaks around) but she's the most realistic 18 year old I've ever read.

The plot itself is fantastic. It follows a predictable but comforting cadence over the course of a week while Lia competes in the event at Fableland. The stakes get higher and higher until the climax of the story, and she has to figure out what comes next. I will say while I expected her to lose the contest, I didn't expect the manner in which she lost. I was raging right alongside her. The injustice of it all! Lia makes some mistakes, and has to scramble to deal with the consequences of those mistakes, while juggling all the other mental and emotional burdens she's being crushed under. And she does it with her friends alongside her, which is beautiful.

But because life is messy, there's a cute boy thrown into the mix too. Long distance relationships never work out... right? Imagine flirting and trying to steal a kiss or two, knowing there's an expiration date on your stay in Florida. Ugh, to be young!

And I haven't even mentioned the inclusion and representation yet! I tagged this as "lgbtq-awakening" because, it is, but also... Lia's still figuring things out. Hell, at 32, I'm still figuring it out, too. There's some really honest and vulnerable conversations that take place, and while a lot of people are enjoying this book because it's the plus-size rep their teenaged self needed to see, I'm enjoying it because it's all of the rep my curvy and some-flavor-of-not-straight and PMDD teenaged self needed to see. PMDD thoughts/healthcare rant behind the spoiler tag: Seriously: PMDD rep is rare and not a lot of people know what it is! Seeing a character have it, like me, had me all up in my feels! I was diagnosed at 16, which is pretty young and many women don't know they have it until they're older or meet someone who has it and they can be "peer-reviewed". I've been on hormonal birth control ever since I was diagnosed because I was unbearable to be around. And yes, that means I've been on some kind of hormonal BC for half my life, boy that's fun. There's very few studies on PMDD and it's a problem that not enough people are talking about. Living with PMDD is hell; I feel like a hostage in my own body. Awareness and representation are VITAL! And there's still so much we don't know about it, how it's caused, how to treat it, how it can manifest, if it's genetic... If you google it, you'll see "may", "possibly", "suggest", and other qualifiers sprinkled around various articles. We just don't know much about it and I get so happy when I see other people talking about it and spreading awareness.

It might seem like there's a lot going on, and there is. But it's done well, and its immersive, and I fell in love with Lia and her friends and even her overbearing parents and Fableland and Mason and every letter of every word of every sentence of this book.

And remember... I don't even like YA books. Buy it, read it, cry at the end like I did, make it your entire personality like I did, and recommend it to everyone with a pulse... like I am.

I don’t know how that happened, but I ended up reading two YA contemporaries about fandoms back to back. This one was set in a Disney World inspired theme park (it’s even set in Orlando!) so Disney fans would definitely enjoy the depictions of the different attractions in the park. I liked following Lia through the park and I also enjoyed the contest aspects of it. Lia and her two best friends, Tess and Issy are also in a major time of transition so they are dealing with that. I liked the friendship between the three of them but I also found it frustrating because Lia kind of used them? Like they were supposed to always be there for her and somehow know when she needed them and she would be mad at them when they weren’t there at the moment she needed them to be. The idea of friendship after high school is an interesting theme to explore, especially since two of the girls are going away to college and one is not. The romance was cute enough. Overall it was a fine read

As an avid-Disney parks fan who visited both domestic parks when I was eighteen and secretly harbored a desire for someone to fall in love with me while in line (and as a fan of scavenger hunts!) this book should've been right up my alley. Unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. While Lia's emotional connection to Fableland and it's magic was relatable, I found myself wishing I knew more about the fictional park. It's hard to get swept up in nostalgia for a place you're just learning all the lore about. Plus, my puzzle-loving brain wanted to solve the clues, but that's not possible when the pertinent information is only being told to the reader after the clue has been introduced. I almost wish this had been a second book, and that I'd had the chance to be introduced to the park and its lore in a previous story. I also did not find the grand gesture at the end as romantic as it was supposed to be because OMG that's SO MUCH MONEY. One thing I did love was the much-needed commentary on size-inclusiveness in the theme park industry!

Love at Full Tilt was such a fun and heartwarming read! It was especially refreshing to see a plus-size heroine like Lia confidently take center stage and find her own love story. Watching her relationship with Mason unfold was full of swoony moments and genuine chemistry that made it hard to put the book down. Lia’s friendship with Issy and Tess was another highlight—they were supportive, hilarious, and brought so much warmth to the story. The dynamic between all three women felt real and empowering. The scavenger hunt through the theme park added a playful, whimsical layer to the romance, and it was easy to imagine yourself running from clue to clue alongside the characters. Following along with Lia and Mason’s journey was such a joy, and the setting made everything feel magical. I’d absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a feel-good, inclusive romance!

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ★★★★☆
𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭/𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐞: 0/5
𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐬: scavenger hunt ~ ya romance ~ forced proximity
𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: ya romance

*DISCLAIMER: Thank you to the publisher, Random House Children's, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review*

OVERVIEW
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I really enjoyed this book. Its one of the best arcs Ive read in a while. Its cute and makes for a good summer read. I would totally recommend it if you want a light teen romance. The vibes were super fun, and it had a very creative plot. I really liked both of the characters and would say this was solid read!

CHARACTER REVIEW
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The main character was a good fmc. I liked her. The mmc was also good. I thought they were cute together and had lots of chemistry. The side characters, her best friends were also sweet, and made for a fun friend group. I also liked how the book touched on the main characters experience as a plus size woman, and think it adds extra depth to the novel.

PLOT REVIEW
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I liked the plot, it was really interesting and fresh. The setting of it taking place in a theme park was cool and all the adventures they went on were fun to read about. I thought the scavenger hunt plot added a fun element and was well done. The romance between the two characters was so cute! A well done ya romance, that felt realistic. The vibes felt like summer and vacations.

WRITING REVIEW
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I really liked the writing, the author did a really great job of making it realistic, and it felt like the main character was actually a teenager. This was fun to read and I dont have any complaints about the writing style, well done and well thought out. The author also did a good job of writing the characters feelings. The main character had a clinically anxious and overprotective mother, which put a big burden on her. her feelings about the matter were explained well and made sense.

ENDING THOUGHTS
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I really enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend it, I enjoyed it and think its very creative and well written.

Thanks! Ellie,

I can’t even begin to tell you what a privilege it was to get an ARC of Jenny’s debut YA novel, a book she describes as “the book she needed as a plus size teen.” It was abundantly clear from this page forward that Lia’s story was a love note to her former self, and I don’t think I realized exactly how much both me now and me as a teen needed this book, as well. Love at Full Tilt is full of whimsy, magic, courage, and empowerment to not be afraid to take up space and to show up proudly exactly as you are. This is a story about love and friendship and the power in figuring out who you are and how you want to live your life, and with every word I was transported back to this same time in my life—the summer before college—when everything was exciting and scary and full of promise. Jenny is incredible at plus-size representation and creates characters that you can really relate to and that you can’t help but root for, and sweet Lia is no different. I am so glad to live in a world where this book exists and am so incredibly proud of our friend for putting this amazing work out there for other people to have burrow between their ribs and take up space in their hearts. While YA, at the end of day this is a book that can genuinely be enjoyed by readers of all ages. We love you, Jenny—thank you for this gift!