About the Book
-
Author:
- Emma Lord
- Genre:
- Contemporary
- Voices:
- Cis Boy
- Cis Girl
- Straight
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: ‘No, I Like You More!’
Drinking Buddy: A Thousand Likes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol use, strong language, suggestive scenes)
Talky Talk: My Heart is a-Twitter
Bonus Factor: Corporate Rivalry
Bromance Status: ‘Friends’
Cover Story: ‘No, I Like You More!’
While this is obviously a romance, the two main characters start off as rivals, which is really the best part of the book. Here, we get the impression that it was love at first text.
The Deal:
Pepper is the daughter of the founders of Big League Burger, a family restaurant that has gone corporate. In charge of the chain’s social media, she resents that some hole in the wall deli is accusing them of stealing their famous grilled cheese recipe. Jack, the teenage grandson of the founder of the Girl Cheesing Deli, is furious that some faceless corporation has stolen his grandmother’s secret formula, and lets the Twitterverse know. They soon realize that they go to the same high school, and already don’t really like each other (Pepper is on the swim team; Jack is on the diving team, and they’re constantly jockeying for pool time). They get into an all out Tweet war, a David and Goliath rivalry. They soon realize they’re enjoying the competition, and might be on the way to a tentative friendship…provided their parents don’t put the kibosh on this fraternization.
Meanwhile, Jack has developed a social media app called Weazel, where kids at his school can communicate anonymously, though no one knows he’s the designer. He’s infatuated with a girl called “Bluebird’, and wonders if she might be the one who can see past the awkward joker he is in real life. Dare he ask her to meet?
Pepper also likes the app, and is starting to fall for a boy named ‘Wolf.’ She’s never really dated, and certain clues make her wonder if Wolf might actually be Landon, her long time crush from the swim team.
Yes, the reader knows from page ten that it’s actually Jack and Pepper talking to each other, and in some instances, complaining about each other. But they’ll laugh about this in the end, won’t they?
Drinking Buddy: A Thousand Likes
The author did a great job of creating two very likeable kids. Big League Burger was just a Nashville food joint until business exploded. Pepper suddenly finds herself living in New York City, away from everything she knows. Even worse, the explosion in business made her parents realize they no longer loved each other. They’re now divorced, but still corporate partners, with her dad still back in Tennessee. And Pepper’s older sister, Paige, blames her mother for the breakup, and is estranged from Pepper’s mom. While corporate technically has a social media maven on staff, it always falls to Pepper to compose the perfect pithy Tweet or the next media campaign. Pepper’s not sure how much she likes that role, especially when she’s forbidden from hanging out with Jack from the enemy camp.
Jack has grown up in his family’s NYC deli, and has been working there since he could walk. It’s a family business which he’s expected to take over one day. Unlike his perfect popular identical twin Ethan, who is destined for so much more. It’s not that Jack doesn’t want to run the business, he just wishes his family would realize he has other options. App developing, for instance.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol use, strong language, suggestive scenes)
Pepper is an attractive, intelligent, driven girl, but has never had a boyfriend. Jack lives in the shadow of Ethan, who does everything better, and yet somehow always leaves Jack to clean up his messes. Girls absolutely moon over Ethan, who’s openly gay, but never seem to notice the boy who’s his literal physical clone.
That’s why the pair are so drawn to Jack’s app. They can be themselves for once, not trying to live up to the hype or being saddled with a reputation. Of course, the temptation to bring things out in the open is getting stronger. What I especially liked about this couple was that while they constantly fretted that they’d end up disappointing Bluebird/Wolf, they never once feared their anonymous corespondent wouldn’t measure up to their imagination.
Talky Talk: My Heart is a-Twitter
I was rooting for these two kids, even when they both (especially Jack) made some boneheaded mistakes. Once Jack and Pepper shake hands and agree to a brutal yet friendly Twitter war, things get fun. But how can you deliver the coup de grace to someone who just listened to your problems IRL? You’ve absolutely crushed your rival with a devastating meme…so why are you worried about how that company’s social media director is taking it?
All the time they’re plotting their next move to zip up the body bag of the other restaurant, Pepper and Jack are going out of their way to be nice to the other. Pepper brings Jack baked goods every day. Jack helps Pepper overcome her fear of traveling in the big city. If these two weren’t rivals, they’d have never shared a kind word. But now that they’re actively engaged in destroying the other’s family business, they risk becoming good friends. Maybe more.
Bonus Factor: Corporate Rivalry
The Pepsi Challenge. The Cola Wars. The way Thomas Edison would send thugs to trash rivals’ businesses. Corporate America is rife with stories of good natured rivalries and spoofs of the competitors’ products. It’s only grown worse in the digital age. And hey, that’s the cost of doing business. In a world of Dr. Pepper, there is no room for Mr. Pibb. The thing is, while corporations seem to be nothing but faceless entities, there are people behind them. What if your awesome new commercial means a rival has to shut down a store? Did your hot new social media campaign cost some minimum wage grunts their jobs? Do you care that some mom and pop might go under, just because you’re successful? No easy answer, huh?
Bromance Status: ‘Friends’
I’ll be ‘following’ this new author in the future. I’m looking forward to more content by her.
FTC full disclosure: Library book. I received neither money nor monster cake for writing this review.
Literary Matchmaking
Verona Comics, by Jennifer Dugan, is another book about two teens anonymously texting, unaware that they know each other in real life.
