Hi all! I'm so lucky to be on the TBR and Beyond tour for Follow Your Arrow by Jessica Verdi--check out the rest of the tour schedule here, and be sure to read my review down below and comment on my book look! Thank you to Scholastic for sending me a copy of the book for my honest review. The Book and its AuthorCeCe Ross is kind of a big deal. She and her girlfriend, Silvie, are social media influencers with zillions of fans and followers, known for their cute outfits and being #relationshipgoals. So when Silvie breaks up with her, CeCe is devastated. She's lost her first love, and now she can't help but wonder if she'll lose her followers as well. Things get even messier when CeCe meets Josh, a new boy in town who is very much Not Online. CeCe isn't surprised to be falling for a guy; she's always known she's bi. And Josh is sweet and smart and has excellent taste in donuts... but he has no idea that CeCe is internet-famous. And CeCe sort of wants to keep it that way. But when CeCe's secrets catch up to her, she finds herself in the middle of an online storm, where she'll have to confront the blurriness of public vs. private life, and figure out what it really means to speak her truth. Jessica Verdi is an author of books for kids and teens about identity, family, acceptance, and love. Though she’s always been a bookworm (her childhood was basically defined by the philosophy that working your way through giant stacks of library books is far superior to playing outside), she remained convinced throughout high school and college that theatre and music were meant to be her creative outlets. After nearly ten years in the NYC theatre world, she got an idea for a novel. While that first attempt at a “book” will never see the light of day—nope, don’t ask—it was the book that started her love affair with writing. Now she can’t imagine doing anything else. Jess received her MFA in Writing for Children from The New School and is a freelance editor of romance and women’s fiction. She lives in New York with her family. Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads ReviewI read Follow Your Arrow literally the afternoon it arrived in my mailbox--I didn't intend to finish it, but I couldn't put it down. So now you know I mean it when I say Follow Your Arrow is unputdownably adorable, a perfect afternoon romance filled with heart. Can I just say how awesome it is that CeCe IDs as bi and it's right there in the synopsis? How freakin cool that we can finally stop begging for scraps of rep and we're coming into a new moment in publishing these past few years. It was so meaningful to me as a reader to see CeCe confront internet biphobia and rejection from the queer community, and come out of it shining. We gotta talk about how bi people are so often cut out from the queer community when not in same-gender relationships. CeCe gets internet vitriol for dating Josh, and has to learn how to deal with not being the darling of the internet like she was when she was dating Silvie. As a bit of an "influencer" myself, it was kind of strange to see that mentality of keeping up an online persona echoed in the book. I'm obviously less famous than CeCe (being that I'm not famous at all) so I can afford to be more real with my readers, but I do get anxious when I haven't posted and I worry about disappointing people, just like she does. I've spent quarantine navigating healthy boundaries with social media, having had to cut it almost entirely out of my personal life in order to use it healthily in my blogger life. Watching CeCe go through a similar process in a realistic way is a highlight of the novel. And of course we have to talk about the love story. I think I say that in every review of a romance because I'm a sucker for love. Josh is positively adorkable--the music nerd who's totally inept at the internet is a surprisingly good match for CeCe. I definitely squealed once or twice while reading, but of course I won't admit that ever again. I think the best romances are when the characters have to put in some work to be together, which happens here. You can imagine what happens when CeCe keeps big secrets from Josh, and they have to find their way back to one another after the deception. This was the most rewarding part of the book to me. My only complaint is that sometime the writing felt a bit plasticky, fake. There's a lot of internet vocabulary that feels a bit overused, and I wish CeCe's narration had more of a natural feel to it. Overall I'm giving Follow Your Arrow 4/5 stars for Kacey Musgraves references along with general excellence. Don't miss out on this awesome new contemporary release! Book Look
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The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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