A review by lizanneyoung
Flirty Little Secret by Jessica Lepe

3.0

I received an eARC on NetGalley and am leaving an honest review. 

⭐⭐⭐

TROPES

📱 Instalove

📱 Cinnamon Roll MMC

📱 Dual POV

I always love it when social media is inevitably tied to a story in an important way, which is why I picked up Flirty Little Secret to begin with. And while I was met with a fun inclusion of social media, I also read a story that had an important representation of depression and anxiety.

This book does not shy away from its depictions of depression and anxiety in the main character, Lucy. She herself is open about them on-page, and with other people when necessary, and I think it’s important to see that on-page. While this is important characterization, it becomes the only characterization for Lucy, which I think is to a detriment. There is more to her than that, which the story tries to get at, but it never quite gets there, making her a bit one-note.

This is also seen in Fletcher, the MMC. I remember reading a scene towards the end of the book and being completely surprised about what was happening because it was implying all this character development had happened. And maybe it did, but it was off-page. As much as I love a dual POV story, I don’t think it worked as intended here because key scenes weren’t included from the other character’s perspective, so we missed out on important character development. 

That said, this is a fun read. Do I wish we had seen the character development instead of it happening off-page? Yes, because I’m a sucker for good character development. But, it was an enjoyable story that had me hoping everything would work out for the better for Lucy and Fletcher, especially considering how they met IRL.