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3.5/5
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Read for YA in Publishing DeCal.
Rating: 4.5/5
Pages: 336 (9hrs15mins)
Started: 5 February 2024
Finished: 9 February 2024
Summary:
Celine Bangura is going to finish Year 12 with perfect grades, use her conspiracy-theory social media account to propel her acceptance into a prestigious law school, become a world renowned corporate lawyer, and finally show her dad what he's missing for not being a part of her life. And the first step of that is attending a outdoor survival camp competition sponsored by her entrepreneur-and-lawyer hero. With her intelligence and determination, there's simply nothing that can get in her way--except, maybe, for Bradley, her ex-best friend and current enemy.
Bradley Graeme has a secret. He doesn't want to be a lawyer; he wants to be a writer. But all his drafts so far have been awful, and he's willing to tell anyone about his dreams yet, so instead he focuses on something much easier to antagonize: Celine Bangura. When he realizes the wilderness camp Celine is so excited about offers a full-ride scholarship to winners, which would ensure Brad could get his own apartment, making it much easier for him to manage his OCD, Brad also decides to enter.
When Brad and Celine start the program, they both think they know what they want--but, as they quickly discover, academic achievement is not the only thing motivating them as they begin to draw closer and closer together, and learn more and more about themselves.
Thoughts:
This was a ridiculously cute book; I haven't read YA Realistic Fiction that made me feel so giddy and satisfied in a long time. The characters were charming and complex; Celine was smart and high-achieving without being annoying, and she had more personality than just her academic goals. Bradley was a quintessentially charming YA love interest, and I felt his OCD was a complication to his character that was both genuine and present, and also didn't negate his definition as the charming, object-of-desire love interest. The banter and emotional intelligence in the book were gorgeously spot-on for the age group, and the plot was comfortingly YA without being frustratingly over-predictable. I am so glad that this book was chosen for the rom-com section of this class; it's a really good example of how sweet and lovely YA romance can be.