Tweet Cute

Non-Spoiler Review:

I read this as the second book in my ‘Buzzfeed Recommends' series, and I was left feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

This story is very much sold as an enemies-to-lovers kind of romance, with two teenagers who are engaged in an online twitter war representing their respective parent's companies, growing closer in real life and eventually falling into a romance.

Harper, our female protagonist, is unbelievably dull and there's not much really to her personality. Jack, our other protagonist, is a little more interesting and I enjoyed reading the chapters from his perspective more. However, neither of them were exciting characters. And unfortunately, dull characters mean we have a fairly dull romance. The romance wasn't exciting nor was there anything that made me feel soft about it - it was just nice, and whilst it had it's sweet moments, it had more moments where I felt incredibly bored by it all.

The issue with this book is that it's meant to be a character driven story, however when your characters are dull it leaves the reader feeling like something is lacking. There wasn't much plot to this book to save this, and it's hard for me to name any specific plot points to talk about.

Also, the twitter war played less of an aspect in this than I thought it would - it seemed to come and go quite a bit, so if you're going to read it for that, be warned it's not always there.

There were a few problems with this book I also can't talk about due to spoilers but I wouldn't readily recommend it. I think you'd enjoy this if you are really into YA romances, but if you're not or even only mildly interested into YA romances this is not the book for you.

Spoiler Review:

Wow, this was boring.

Pepper really is a basic bitch. Which I thought was a little strange considering she's very creative in her baking, but not creative in any other aspect of her life which I found a little weird. Creative people don't tend to funnel it into one outlet, it bleeds into every area of their lives - but not for Pepper, she's just boring .

I liked Jack a lot more but he wasn't perfect either, and when I say I liked him a lot more I mean I feel fairly neutral about the character. I don't really know what to say about him other than the fact I didn't appreciate that most of the plot points surrounding this character revolved around miscommunication. I am fine with one or two plot points being due to miscommunication when it comes to teenagers in books - but nearly all of them? No thank you.

Their romance is forgettable as are the characters. It's nice and sweet but I'm already forgetting their relationship, and honestly I don't think we got to see enough of the actual romance side of their relationship to feel strongly about it. I think too much time was spent on them cultivating a friendship instead of a romance for me to feel strongly about them being in a romantic relationship.

I think the biggest problem I had with this was the ‘big reveal' at the end of the novel for why Pepper's mum encouraged and pressured Pepper into a twitter war. She was bitter Jack's father cheated on her and used her recipes at his shop for a while. That was it. It felt like far too little to motivate an experienced CEO of a corporate food chain to risk the company's and her daughter's reputation on. It was unrealistic and petty and wasn't a good enough reason for it all.

I think the best aspect of this book isn't the romance, the characters or the twitter war - it's the commentary on family pressure. Both Pepper and Jack feel trapped by the pressure their families put on them, and it really drives them into awful and uncomfortable situations. Emma Lord does a very good job on exploring how it impacts their mental health and their relationships. If it hadn't been for this aspect I may have given this one star.

Overall, not a read I enjoyed and I was left feeling really disappointed. This could have been a fun, light read if we had been given better characters - but we weren't. It falls flat in almost every aspect.

Read my full review here: https://moonlitbooks.home.blog/2020/04/03/tweetcutereview/