Meet Cute Diary
Ratings27
Average rating3
this was a really sweet read! It was also a really frustrating reminder to me that I'm an adult and YA books are for teens. Like when Noah gets his credit card cut off because of spending too much money on Ubers instead of walking?? I was like NOAH that card was for EMERGENCIES you KNOW your family is having a hard time financially right now!!! Like I too had an emergency credit card as a teen that I don't think I ever used bc I wasn't sure what would constitute an EMERGENCY and I didn't want to get in TROUBLE.
Anyway that stuff is like a minor part of the book but it really had me clutchin my pearls. This does not reflect the quality of the book it just reflects what kind of teen I was.
The romance is sweet here and I like that it also doubles as a kind of Intro to Pronoun Etiquette that I think a lot of teens will find helpful/validating to read.
i'm giving this book a 4.75, there was poc rep & trans/gay-lesbian/ace rep, it felt very inclusive & the overall story was adorable, it was quite predictable but like, obviously, this would definitely be a comfort read for me later on, i really did enjoy this story a lot it's super light & fun and just overall a good time, i also listened to it on audiobook which was nice as well :)
DNF @ 51%.
I appreciate what this book was trying to achieve and I liked the diary aspect of it but my main issue is the main character. Not only is he immature and self centred but are we really expected to believe a 16 year old would be looking for love so much?? Sorry but I just couldn't get my head around it. If the character had been 19/20 it would have been much more believable and enjoyable.
MC is 16, pampered, sheltered, and from a relatively wealthy family so... the character is expectedly pretty emotionally immature. He's an a**hole to the people who care about him. There was some character development and I'm sure he's on the road toward emotional depth and empathy in his 20's but the book is not that long...
Devin is precious and I wish eir story line had started sooner. E's the only reason I finished tbh. I relate.
this is the kind of book that makes me want to stop reading ya for a while.
it's not necessarily bad, it's just that the protagonist is so infuriatingly immature and selfish that i just cannot vibe with it at all. i think i'm just simply too old to enjoy a book like this even though there were some elements/characters that i liked.
Meet Cute Diary follows 16-year-old Noah, who runs a popular blog about trans love stories that all start with a “meet cute” of some kind. The stories are all made up, but his followers don't need to know that, right? Noah is okay with this deception. He feels it's more important to give trans people hope for a happily ever after, and things go smoothly until a commenter starts pointing out all the inconsistencies. The only solution? Fake dating a boy named Drew, who Noah meets while visiting his brother for the summer. Drew knows the secret to the Diary and is all too willing to help. Add in a strained long-distance friendship with Noah's BFF Becca and a new friendship with sweet co-worker Devin (that starts as anything but a meet cute), and you have plenty of drama to add flavor to this summer rom-com.
This novel is set against some favorite romantic comedy tropes and features a lot of great representation. I felt that Noah was a pretty realistic teen: caught up in big, dramatic emotions, equal turns self-absorbed and insecure, ultimately a good kid but making plenty of mistakes along the way. The ultimate problem for me was that he didn't see to grow beyond a fundamental surface level; that is, he said he understood how he let himself get caught up in things and behaved poorly, but his actions toward the end of the novel seem to indicate that he hasn't completely broken these habits. Which is fine! It's realistic! It is still a bit frustrating to read, though.
Ultimately, a cute read that I will recommend to teens. 3/5
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!