Reviews with content warning for Classism - The Feeling of Falling in Love

After loving the heck out of I Wish You All the Best, I hoped to like this more, but I still had a good time overall. Basically just a queer teen romcom with fake dating tbh.

I really liked Wyatt, they're just like me fr fr. (especially Wyatt's Taylor Swift opinions are SO valid). Neil has to grow on you. He's immature, often a jerk for no good reason, very selfish, extremely short-sighted (so basically a teenager lol). Some of which he learns to overcome over the course of the book as he learns to communicate better, recognise his own feelings, and check his privilege. On a lot of levels he reminds me of Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls.

The biggest frustration was the third act breakup, sorry if you feel like that's a spoiler but this book is extremely formulaic. It was weird how it all went down and how it was resolved was fine but not something I particularly enjoyed.

I read quite a lot of queer (especially trans) YA romance and this is a middle of the road read that is perfectly enjoyable if not revolutionary.

Content Warnings

miaaa_lenaaa'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

3.75

Minor spoilers

This was rly good and v cute, my only problem with it was the wise conversations at the end with other who y’know teach Neil about love were a little bit to on the nose and also there were a lot of them lol

Content Warnings

mkwreads's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense

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

4.0

Content Warnings

lyd4ever's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

3.0

Overall I enjoyed this book. However, it didn’t really give “enemies to lovers”. It felt more like privileged to pitied, and I’m sorry but I didn’t really like Neil.

He and his family are extremely classist and suddenly at the end of the book that’s not forgotten about because all along they had trauma?? No.

But I like Wyatt, Wyatt is awesome.
Also, I notice how Deaver purposefully made Neil fat. I am glad for the representation but it’s hardly ever mentioned and is always sort of subtle. Which I think doesn’t have to be a positive or negative thing, but a lot of fans seem to have interpreted Neil to be slim in fan art. So this isn’t really a comment on the book but the readers. Neil is a fat trans man, stop drawing tall skinny white boys with perfect features.

Content Warnings

stormeno's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted 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? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

purrson's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

4.25

I was actually going to put this aside and come back to it later, but I picked it up and kept with it until the end. I love the cover, and the funny, sometimes acerbic tone the book takes is enjoyable. It was funny, sweet, the characters are lovable, the family conflicts (the MC has divorced parents) are relatable and resolved/handled well, and I’ll definitely keep it in mind when shopping for new YA for friends.

Content Warnings

lim's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

Content Warnings

bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-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? Yes

3.5

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