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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-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
If you want a book cure for Red, White, and Royal Blue, or books by Alice Oseman, I would recommend this!
Wren is president of the student council and he is determined to make an impact. Starting with ridding the school of the much-loved Valentine’s Day dance to allocate that money elsewhere. However, his fellow council members—especially the vice president and annoyingly perfect person Leo Reyes—suggest that they use Buddy, the popular anonymous not-dating app to sponsor it instead.
Whilst managing homework, council duties, and expectations, Wren secretly curiously downloads Buddy and makes a connection with the boy he starts chatting with.
This was so cute! Wren is such a sassy, chaotic main character. He can also be an obnoxious teen sometimes, but he’s also very relatable and sympathetic.
This also presents Wren struggling with expressing his asexuality, as well as his grief over losing his mother a couple years previous. His experience is portrayed with empathy and opens up discussions on how we should approach exposing Young Adult audiences to important topics in a way that is open and not treated negatively.
Yes, it was obvious who the Buddy Wren chats with is, so all the drama and mystery initially felt overdone. This predictably did make me roll my eyes and mutter, get on with it, but I had to remind myself, this is a type of romance type of book where ‘I hated this guy forever, but maybe that’s because I actually had feelings for him’ is expected.
I think I would have wanted more emotional exploration of Wren’s asexuality. There isn’t many conversations between him and his family, friends, etc. which could have provided a good framework to deal with how we navigate such experiences.
Wren is president of the student council and he is determined to make an impact. Starting with ridding the school of the much-loved Valentine’s Day dance to allocate that money elsewhere. However, his fellow council members—especially the vice president and annoyingly perfect person Leo Reyes—suggest that they use Buddy, the popular anonymous not-dating app to sponsor it instead.
Whilst managing homework, council duties, and expectations, Wren secretly curiously downloads Buddy and makes a connection with the boy he starts chatting with.
This was so cute! Wren is such a sassy, chaotic main character. He can also be an obnoxious teen sometimes, but he’s also very relatable and sympathetic.
This also presents Wren struggling with expressing his asexuality, as well as his grief over losing his mother a couple years previous. His experience is portrayed with empathy and opens up discussions on how we should approach exposing Young Adult audiences to important topics in a way that is open and not treated negatively.
Yes, it was obvious who the Buddy Wren chats with is, so all the drama and mystery initially felt overdone. This predictably did make me roll my eyes and mutter, get on with it, but I had to remind myself, this is a type of romance type of book where ‘I hated this guy forever, but maybe that’s because I actually had feelings for him’ is expected.
I think I would have wanted more emotional exploration of Wren’s asexuality. There isn’t many conversations between him and his family, friends, etc. which could have provided a good framework to deal with how we navigate such experiences.
adventurous
emotional
funny
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
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-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:
Complicated
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
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
bumping because this comes out tomorrow!
thank you NetGalley for the ARC!
Wren Martin was made the President of his school council this year and the first thing he wants to do to fix Raptur High is eliminate the Valentine's Day Dance. Unfortunately for him, his school has been taken over by an anonymous (but everyone uses it for dating) friendship app called Buddy and when Wren's VP suggests that Buddy sponsor the dance, Wren is outnumbered. Things get complicated for asexual Wren when he downloads the Buddy app and starts falling for his new anonymous friend.
This book was so cute. Wren is a very complicated character -- he's kind of sarcastic and funny in a way that's really relatable and doesn't come across as really corny like it can in other books. I think the fact that he's a little bit bitter and dry instead of being super peppy and positive was nice and different from other books and as I said, in other books where the main character is sarcastic and dry, it can come across as a little unlikeable and embarrassing for me, but I never had that problem with Wren.
I liked that his asexuality wasn't a big deal, it was just a fact and it only became a conflicting plot point when he was thinking about the fact that his crush(es) might not be so into it because he was so aware that everyone else around him seems so interested in sexual relationships. Aside from that, it was just a fact and a part of who Wren is and I liked that this book skipped over the self-discovery and figuring himself out in favor of just presenting Wren as-is.
The identity of Wren's anonymous Buddy Boy was obvious pretty much immediately, but that didn't make it any less cute. I found that it added to it as I was excited for them to figure out who the other was and it was so cute watching Wren fall for the same person twice without even realizing they were the same person. I really liked the way that their relationship was split across these two different "people" and it added a lot of depth.
thank you NetGalley for the ARC!
Dante was wrong when he wrote about the circles of hell -- one of them is definitely a high school dance.
Wren Martin was made the President of his school council this year and the first thing he wants to do to fix Raptur High is eliminate the Valentine's Day Dance. Unfortunately for him, his school has been taken over by an anonymous (but everyone uses it for dating) friendship app called Buddy and when Wren's VP suggests that Buddy sponsor the dance, Wren is outnumbered. Things get complicated for asexual Wren when he downloads the Buddy app and starts falling for his new anonymous friend.
This book was so cute. Wren is a very complicated character -- he's kind of sarcastic and funny in a way that's really relatable and doesn't come across as really corny like it can in other books. I think the fact that he's a little bit bitter and dry instead of being super peppy and positive was nice and different from other books and as I said, in other books where the main character is sarcastic and dry, it can come across as a little unlikeable and embarrassing for me, but I never had that problem with Wren.
I liked that his asexuality wasn't a big deal, it was just a fact and it only became a conflicting plot point when he was thinking about the fact that his crush(es) might not be so into it because he was so aware that everyone else around him seems so interested in sexual relationships. Aside from that, it was just a fact and a part of who Wren is and I liked that this book skipped over the self-discovery and figuring himself out in favor of just presenting Wren as-is.
The identity of Wren's anonymous Buddy Boy was obvious pretty much immediately, but that didn't make it any less cute. I found that it added to it as I was excited for them to figure out who the other was and it was so cute watching Wren fall for the same person twice without even realizing they were the same person. I really liked the way that their relationship was split across these two different "people" and it added a lot of depth.
funny
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
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
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Terminal illness, Death of parent
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
Wren Martin Ruins It All was a decent little read!
I wasn’t a huge fan of the texting and social media aspects, but it was still interesting!
I wasn’t a huge fan of the texting and social media aspects, but it was still interesting!