The Best Friend Crush: Why is it suddenly so hard to act normal around her childhood BFF, Samuel? Must be time for a—
Makeover(!): Black leather pants and some red lipstick are apparently enough to lend Gretchen the bravado to do an impromptu set at a comedy club, and catch the eye of—
The Roguish Bad Boy: Jeremy, the alluring young comic who thinks her name is Sabrina. It might just be—
The
Perfect Cover: A funny-girl alter-ego that frees Gretchen to explore
who she really is—and what she really wants. But as rom-coms have taught
her, leading a double life can only last so long. (Pub Date: Jun 29, 2021)
This is a story pretty easy to relate to a point. Gretchen has always had problems with being extroverted, so even though she loves comedy, especially stand-ups, few know how funny she can be. Until one night, when she needs to pretend to be an older girl to get into a bar, she ends up on stage doing her own stand up. And everything falls into place there, she's now a comic and she has a cute boy flirting with her. Except, no one knows she's just Gretchen.
3.5, rounded up.
As I said, I related a lot and I feel others will too. I'm also the type who'll only be talkative if I'm somewhere I trust, that's why the internet was a great place for me to find friends. For the main character, that place was the bar where everyone saw the girl she pretended to be and not herself, so flukes and embarrassments were allowed, as they wouldn't reverberate in her daily life. But I guess you need to go beyond what we'd really do to have an entertaining story. And I probably wouldn't have let things go that far with Jeremy (her comic friend from the bar) or open up everything about my life giving out the real names of people involved, so at some point the lie became a little too much for me to side with Gretchen. It could have been worse, though.
One thing I liked that I usually wouldn't was the romance part. Gretchen is in love with her childhood friend, who's leaving and also getting involved with a girl from her club. So, of course, she'll try to get over him eventually with someone else. I loved how well balanced the juggle was in the book. Maybe because I read too many YA's, it's all become too clear for me who'll end up with whom. Although it does seem obvious looking back, I loved the thrill of cheering for someone without knowing who'd really get Gretchen, if any did.
But this book isn't perfect. Despite the good points above, Gretchen wasn't a character I liked. The whole stand up thing was something different but it wasn't interesting to me and I felt like skipping a lot of it (and maybe I should have because a lot of that wasn't needed for the plot). I enjoyed the control the author had while forming the relationship tangles, I love tangles, but I also ended up getting lost with so many characters. I don't think this book is the remarkable kind, but it was a nice one in spite of all.
I recommend this to fans of contemporary YA looking for a taste of something different but still in your comfort zone.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
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