Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

198 reviews

burnyayhayley's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

Talia Hibbert is amazing and omg if you want to read something that makes you feel like you're held in a blanket cocoon with your favourite hot drink, this author is it!!!!
This is Hibbert's first YA, I believe, and naturally the first YA of hers I have read, and I think it did a great job of keeping the heat and banter of her adult romances, while minimizing the R-Rated stuff down to a more teenage level.
Granted, there is very little that is kept at bay. Mental health, specifically about OCD is heavily discussed, as well as copious self-doubt and abandonment issues/parental estrangement. I love how the main characters are given lots of agency and are treated like capable humans, as opposed to plenty of belittlement that could be occurring from adults in these books. Banter was actually next level hilarious, it was delightful front to back.
This is a book I could have used when I was 17. I highly recommend.

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laceybananareads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Super cute read! I flew through this and thought it was sweet while touching on some sensitive topics. I don’t know that one of those topics was depicted very accurately but there were tw and I was prepared.

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apple_atcha_reading's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Talia Hibbert is an auto-buy/auto-read author for me. This was my fourth Talia Hibbert novel and I intend to read the rest of her backlist asap.

This was a cute YA romance, with young people ignoring their feelings and pretending their friends can’t see how much they like each other. We follow Brad and Celine on their journey of enemies to friends to lovers, learning they used to be friends until something changed their relationship forever. The romance was cute and sweet, but I also enjoyed reading about Brad and Celine figuring out what they want in life. They were both living lives and aiming for futures they thought they wanted, instead of being honest with themselves. It might be cliche, but I always enjoy reading about young people realizing their dreams and aspirations instead of their parents or other adults.

I read this for the Diverse Baseline Challenge, for the prompt “Fat Main Character”.

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kristicanread's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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booknerdery's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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cass_cgallegos's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The characters deserve a 5 star. The story deserves a 5 star. The romance deserves a 5 star.

I’m giving a 5 star because Hibbert wrote an MC with OCD, and did it unbelievably well. I can’t describe what it feels like to read about someone with OCD who is just doing his best. His counting, his difficulty with condensation and mushrooms, his future planning, his tapping - Brad is me, and I am Brad. And reading a story that centers a person with OCD who does things I do, and is still loved beyond belief, honestly wrecks me. This entire book was so good, but I will never forget that an author who has OCD decided to write an MC who has OCD, and there was nothing awkward about it. Nothing weird or strange or wrong or bad. Thank you. This means the world to me.

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ali1311's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was cute! Nothing crazy and a bit slow to start in my opinion, but by the middle I was hooked in. The outside plot was a little bland but that's alright because these characters had a lot of personality. Well done OCD rep and a cool way to include mental illness without it being the driving force of the story.

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wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

For God’s sake, we are enemies. There are rules to this sort of thing. He’s not supposed to address me unless he’s calling me a know-it-all or challenging me to a duel.

For over half of the journey I enjoyed this book so, so damn much. It's written in such a fun way! The banter and the characters' inner thoughts made me laugh out loud all the time. I really liked how, at least at the beginning, both leads were pretty self-aware, except for when they were each other's blind spots (and except for when Bradley very relatable avoided considering specific things that caused him anxiety). I liked how Celine unapologetically owned her flaws while also trying to balance them with her need to succeed and being willing to listen to other people and learn about them. Even more so, I liked Bradley: his personality, his conflicts including his super relatable writing angst, the way his OCD was handled. Very often in YA, if there's a character with mental disorder, their arc is largely built around learning to handle it, so I expected something like that. Instead, Bradley comes into the story already pretty well equipped to manage his condition. There was that one highly relatable scene where Celine expected him to break down after encountering a trigger and he instead talked himself down, employing the same tricks I use to manage anxiety and emotional spikes, loved how that played out.

There were also a lot of cool side characters who, while at large they didn't get much page time, were all believable and interesting. The chapters that dealt with the Explorers program were my favorite because of all those characters and interactions the leads had with them, in addition to the fun camping stuff. But I also enjoyed the leads' families and how they interacted and how Celine and Bradley perceived each other's family life. Honestly, the parts of the book that were more pure YA than romance ended up my absolute favorites.

As for the romance, wellll... At first, I was hooked. While these two were in their enemies era, they were endlessly entertaining together. Besides, best friends to enemies to lovers is my favorite dynamic in the world, so I had high expectations from the get go. Up until they struck an uneasy truce and started talking about what transpired between them years ago, I was eating it up. But afterward, their dynamic started changing in ways that kind of made me feel they'd be better off as friends. Perhaps not even super close ones. Like, keep talking it out, sure. Then maybe drift comfortably apart pursuing your own goals, but keep in touch and keep reconnecting now and then. The egregious miscommunications and the third act break-up really didn't help me ship these two. There was also this overall mismatch between the way their individual character arcs and the romantic arc played out. Like the romance practically stood in the way of each of these kids from working through their individual challenges and succeeding at their individual goals. So that wasn't very shippy to me at all.

On the other hand, like I've said, the YA/coming-of-age novel parts were super well done, the humor was awesome, and the characters themselves were super fun to follow. So this book gets a high mark from me regardless.

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thehannahclaire's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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bookishkellyn's review against another edition

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adventurous funny

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was very much on the teen side of YA, but the sarcastic humor drew me in. I’m aging myself, but the vibe reminded me of MTV’s Daria. With Brad and Celine’s dynamic reminiscent of its Black characters, Mack & Jodie–if they were British and in denial about their feelings for one another. The book’s synopsis covers such a small part of the plot. Their feud is dispatched rather quickly, and their rekindled friendship is the highlight of the book. Points deducted for the third-act “breakup.”

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