Aubrey Cash learned the hard way not to rely on love. After all, Webster Casey, the new boy next door she’d been falling for all summer, stood her up at homecoming in front of everyone with no explanation. Proving her theory that love never lasts seems easy when she’s faced with parents whose marriage is falling apart and a best friend who thinks every boy she dates is ‘the one’. But when sparks fly with a boy who turns out to be Webster’s cousin, and then Webster himself becomes her lab partner for the rest of senior year, Aubrey finds her theory and her commitment to stay single- put to the test.
Genre: YA/ Teenage Fiction
Age appropriate: 13+
Number of Pages: 352 pages
Date of Publication: 16/03/2021
Author/Illustrator/Publisher:
The author of this book is Emily Martin who also wrote ‘The Year We Fell apart’.
The book was published by Inkyard Press.
Rating:4/5
Review:
This is a cute YA rom-com where the main characters go from enemies to lovers. Aubrey really likes her new neighbour and everything seemed perfect until Webster stood her up at her homecoming ball. Aubrey felt devastated and started to think that maybe love wasn’t real. Soon she meets Webster’s cousin and they started hanging out together but almost at the same time Webster started to talk to Aubrey again.
I think that the plot was interesting as love can be difficult and trust plays an important part in any relationship. I really liked how Emily Martin wrote about Aubrey’s parents and their problems as it is important to show how the relationship parents have can influence their children but also how important is to be able to communicate with each other. The story is full of drama, love triangles and friendship.
Aubrey felt insecure and anxious about love which can resonate to teenagers and didn’t know how to handle certain situations and sometimes those feelings can affect the people who are closed to us. Communication is important for any relationship and in this story had a great impact on the plot.
I felt that there where parts of the book that were slow. I also wanted to feel more chemistry between the main characters and to get to know more about Webster as I didn’t get to know him well enough to justify his importance to the plot. It was nice to have a bisexual character in a YA book but I feel that when the main characters acknowledged this it always felt awkward in some way. I would have love if his sexuality had actually had an influence on the plot. The peripheral characters were very well portrayed and I really liked what they contributed to the story. The relationship between Aubrey and Webster’s cousin was well developed and believable.
Overall I did like the plot and it did feel like a true young adult book but I also think that the story had potential to do more and I would love to see what else the author would write in the future.
Availability: The book is available in all good bookshops.
Shelf Life 
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