Sunday, January 17, 2016

The Girlfriend Request by Jodie Andrefski



My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publication Date: January 11, 2015

Blurb:
Updating best friend to girlfriend is more than a change of status...
Emma has been best friends with Eli since she moved to his neighborhood ten years ago. Tired of being cast in the role of the girl next door, Emma creates a fake Facebook profile in the hopes of starting an online friendship with Eli, which would hopefully lead to more. Like...way more. From friend request to In a Relationship--it all seemed so completely logical when she'd planned it.
Eli can't figure out what Emma is up to. He’s pretty sure she's the one behind the Facebook profile, but then again, why would she do something so drastic instead of just admitting she wants to be more than friends? And who the heck is this new guy he saw her with? Eli starts to think that just maybe...he missed his chance with the girl next door.
Two best friends, one outlandish ruse. Their status is about to become way more than It’s Complicated...
This Entangled Teen Crush book contains one fake Facebook profile, two best friends who secretly crave each other, and a dreaded sex talk with parents...boy crush in the room included. Pushing a relationship beyond the friend zone has never been so crazy...

Review:

After some serious thought I decided to go with a three star rating. I am not giving it a lower rating because despite everything I managed to finish it in less than three hours and I am rating it higher because I was surprised that I did manage to read the final pages this book.

I believe Entangled Publishing should force some of its authors to write books with more length because this one and some others seemed very rushed to me. When I saw this title on Netgalley I thought I was going to get a mostly light hearted, teen romance book where the biggest worry would be what would happen if Eli found out about the fake Facebook account. I wanted to read something that wouldn't need a very functional brain, something to make my evening a little better. What did I get? Tons of misscommunication and I-want-to-kill-her feelings for Emma. Want to know why?

Let's start with the worst thing in this book. Jake. He was supposed to be someone to be used as a tool to make Eli jealous, not have Emma crush on him. In this attempt to write YA fiction the author uses one of the biggest cliches that I can read in a novel intended for teens. A love triangle. Emma, who was always in love with Eli suddenly swoons when Jake kisses her on the cheek. Yes, you read that correctly. On the cheek. Not even in the mouth and she is all about Jake. That's where I really wanted to give up on this book. If it weren't for Eli's point of view I probably would have.

What led Emma on Jake's arms was the misscommunication between the two characters. When Eli realizes that he has feelings for Emma that aren't the ones that you have for a friend instead of just telling her like most people would do, he plays Emma's game and tells her that he wants to go on a double date with her and alter ego. And he knew that Emma was the one behind everything. So the heroine isn't the only one who does stupid things here.

I wanted to see the characters and the plot develops more. The blurb made the book look like it had a lot of potential and I didn't like that it wasn't delivered. A little epilogue would have been a nice idea about Eli and Emma some amount of time later, maybe after college or when Eli proposed.



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