Counting Down with You

honestly idk if this book was bad or if I just found out i HATE contemporary YA romance books

Rating: 2.5
Well I definitely did not expect for my rating to be this low... Let me start with the things I absolutely adored about this book, the MC deals with anxiety which is great rep & I also felt connected to her on a personal level because of it. She (Karina) also loves English and I do too! I thought it was clever how the title is “Counting down with you” not only because Karina is counting down the days until her parents arrive back home but she also counts down to help with her anxiety and I thought that was neat. This book also includes fake dating which is one of my favorite tropes!This book has Bangladeshi & Muslim representation, I'm not an ownvoices reviewer for this book, so please look at reviews by Bangladeshi and Muslim reviewers for their thoughts on the representation! But I do think Ace & the romance aspect is what I most enjoyed about the book.

Now for the nitty gritty, I found Karina to start getting annoying after a while, I do feel as though most of this novel is her inner dialogue so with that being said a lot of her thoughts are super repetitive. I do think people could really love Karina and really relate to what she was dealing with/going through and how she deals with it but it wasn't my cup of tea. She would go to people and ask for advice & in turn she would ignore the advice given just to complain about the same situation she ignored the advice for. I do understand to a certain extent though because I did see how hard it was for her. Also I think this book could've been at least 100 pages shorter, I found it to be really redundant which bothered me.
This wasn't that big of a deal for me but I also wasn't a big fan of the Gen Z talk the author incorporated. Just felt a bit cringey.

All in all this is a really sweet book & it's a quick fun read, the MC just wasn't that likeable to me despite all of the similarities we shared and how much I saw myself in her, I wish I enjoyed this book more than I did.

Okay this was incredibly cheesy and had fake dating (which, I've realized now, I don't like) but it was still cute and it referenced Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, and One Direction so that's a plus.

He shakes his head and cups my cheek. “Yes, it is, Karina. I want you with all your lines.” A tremor runs through me. “All my lines?” Ace nods, resting his forehead against mine. “All your lines.” “There are so many,” I whisper and my voice cracks. “You should give up now.” He smiles faintly. “That doesn't change anything. I want you, Karina Ahmed. That means lines and all.” Ace, Ch 40, pg 314

Goody-two shoes Karina is assigned her teacher to tutor bad boy Ace Clyde. Things escalate when she is invited over his house and Ace suddenly blurts out that they are dating, prompting the two to fake a relationship. With ever increasing expectation put on marina by her parents, she struggles between fighting for happiness and feeling for Ace or let it all crash and burn.


This book has it's fair share of cliches and cheesiness but it was a good book. This book taught me a lot about the damaging effects of heavy expectations from parents. The anxiety rep was great and Ace was the BEST boyfriend. Seriously I want a guy like that when I get into a relationship. He the type of guy you marry.

However despite all the good, I did have some gripes:

•Ace didn't really feel like a bad boy to me. Sure he got detention or whatever but besides not caring about school and hanging out alone, he didn't do anything inherently bad. Besides wear a leather jacket and suck on lollipops like right out a 60s' movie.

•I wasn't really feeling the fake dating part in this one. I think it was mostly because Karina was trying to hide their relationship from her family. There was no real stakes or purpose to it except for on Ace's side. The book would have been fine if the fake dating was written out and maybe replaced.

Overall this book was EMOTIONAL. The writing was topnotch. You feel every inch of Karina's anxiety and understand why she hides who she is from her parents.

Definitely recommend for people seeking book featuring heavy anxiety rep, and characters in an actual healthy relationship.