Can a love triangle have only two people in it? Online, it can… but in the real world, it’s more complicated. In this debut novel Marisa Kanter explores what happens when internet friends turn into IRL crushes.
There are a million things that Halle Levitt likes about her online best friend, Nash.
He’s an incredibly talented graphic novelist. He loves books almost as much as she does. And she never has to deal with the awkwardness of seeing him in real life. They can talk about anything…
Except who she really is.
Because online, Halle isn’t Halle—she’s Kels, the enigmatically cool creator of One True Pastry, a YA book blog that pairs epic custom cupcakes with covers and reviews. Kels has everything Halle doesn’t: friends, a growing platform, tons of confidence, and Nash.
That is, until Halle arrives to spend senior year in Gramps’s small town and finds herself face-to-face with real, human, not-behind-a-screen Nash. Nash, who is somehow everywhere she goes—in her classes, at the bakery, even at synagogue.
Nash who has no idea she’s actually Kels.
If Halle tells him who she is, it will ruin the non-awkward magic of their digital friendship. Not telling him though, means it can never be anything more. Because while she starts to fall for Nash as Halle…he’s in love with Kels. (synopsis from goodreads.com)
*Before I jump in, I want to thank you to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an eARC and my friend Chloe (Chloe’s Blog) for sending me her copy of the physcial ARC. All of these views are my own, and the review is honest.*
Nash and Halle don’t know each other as Nash and Halle, they know each other as Nash and Kels. But when they meet in person, Halle panics and befriends Nash even though she knows the whole time who he really is when he has no clue who she is.
This book was AMAZING.
I loved this book so much. The writing was amazing, the characters are out of this world and this book made me laugh SO hard! If you follow me on twitter, you would see the book event posters I made while I was reading this book and how much fun I was having while reading!
Okay, I have a lot of thoughts to share and I am not so sure how well I’m going to be able to express them in words so please just, yeah.
When I heard this book was coming out, I knew I needed it. In the past two years, there have been more and more YA novels published with Jewish main characters written by Jewish authors, this is something I never had when I was in high school. And I can not wait for this book to get into the hands of teens who have been WAITING THEIR WHOLE LIVES for something like this!!
One of the things I loved about this book is the strong relationships between Halle and her brother, and Halle and her grandmother. My grandmother passed away about two years ago, and like Halle, she really was one of my best friends. My grandmother, like Halle’s, introduced me to so many things that are now some of the most important parts of my life. And watching as Halle’s relationship with her grandfather, separate from her grandmother, has developed reminded me a lot of my new relationship with my grandfather.
Something I have noticed about myself is that I really love books that talk about grief. I might have a small obsession with books that have a theme of grief. I dont know why exactly, but some of my favorite (if not most of my favorite books) have an element of grieving threaded through them. This book shows grieving through the Jewish lens, especially during certain scenes with Halle, Ollie and their grandfather. It made my grieving experiences feel more seen in certain ways.
And then we have Halle and her brother, Ollie, have an amazing relationship. I have a younger brother who is three years younger than me, and we are close. But Halle and Ollie have each other as their rocks, and it’s something so nice to see.
The friends that Halle makes in this book are ones that are just plain amazing. Each character offers their own unique voice and view on things, making this an extremely well-rounded cast and I just love all of them.
Nash. Nash is so soft and smart and creative and kind and a great person. I love Nash.
Halle and Ollie are Jewish, they aren’t practicing in many ways, but they are Jewish. Throughout this novel, they discover their Jewish heritage more and slowly start to connect more and more to different aspects. I loved this, I loved how the friends that Halle made that are Jewish all experience being Jewish differently and I think that is something that is so important.
An extremely important part of this book is the fact that both Nash and Halle have HUGE online followings and what they do online is VERY important to them. I joined the book blogging community at the tail-end of my teen years, right before my nineteenth birthday, so I didn’t have to figure out this whole messy place. But I have seen how it’s been for teens to find their footing in a community of books aimed towards them, and to any and all teens reading this I want to say I see you and thank you. You are the ones giving a voice to your peers who might not have had one otherwise. You are the ones making sure that this community is gaining diversity and calling out adults on their garbage, thank you.
Halle deals with this, and Halle fight back, she stands up for what is right making sure that people her age get a voice. And I hope that this book helps those who are looking to be a voice in this community, be able to do that.
Oh wait! I almost forgot, CUPCAKES!!!! I LOVE CUPCAKES AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS BOOK! Halle recreates book covers with cupcakes, which is so cool and they all sound so yummy. I wanted cupcakes the whole time I read this novel.
This book has been by far one of my most favorite books I have read so far. This book has meant SO much to me and I hope it means a lot to other who read it too. This book hits shelves April, 7th, 2020.