The day I created a boy started out like any other.
Katie didn’t mean to create a boy. A boy like a long-lost Hemsworth brother: six-foot tall with floppy hair and eyes like the sky on a clear summer’s day; whose lips taste like cookie dough and whose skin smells like springtime.
A boy who is completely devoted to Katie.
He was meant to be perfect.
But he was never meant to exist.
I LOVED Jenna’s first book, What I Like About Me (seriously – I did! Check out my review here), so when I heard she had a new one coming out in 2020 it was automatically one of my most anticipated YA releases for the year! I’m delighted to report that You Were Made for Me did not disappoint. This book is filled with all the same humour and charm that made me fall for What I Like About Me, with an added twist of magic and perhaps a bit more kissing.
There is just something easy and open and friendly about Jenna’s writing. I loved the narrative style in this novel – it is presented as if protagonist Katie is writing the story, with her friend (and partner in boy creating crime!) Libby interjecting every so often to keep her honest (and on track!). I think this adds an intimacy that really had me laughing – and cringing – along with Katie.
I enjoyed the cast of characters we meet along the way – they felt quite real to me, and the relationships between them (whether they were friends, family, crushes or other) were so wonderfully written. I loved that they all felt like regular people, but without being all the same – the relationships, and how the families look aren’t all ‘traditional’, but they all feel natural and authentic. I feel like this is something that YA and middlegrade writers do so extraordinarily well, but don’t necessarily get enough recognition for – the way that differences in families are presented without drawing specific attention to it. In this case one of the teens has lost a parent, and it is clear that this has changed their life and continues to impact the family, but it is just part of their story rather than them being defined by it. (I’m not sure whether that makes sense? But it was something I really appreciated about how the characters are written.)
If you’re after a sweet, funny, sometimes cringe-y romcom, then I really think this is worth you checking out (whether you are a young adult or not!). And I hope that Jenna writes many more!
xo Bron
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You Were Made for Me by Jenna Guillaume
Out now from Pan Macmillan Australia.
Source: Thanks so much to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing a free copy for me to review (all views are my own).
Category: Contemporary Australian YA romance (with a little twist of something else)
Format: Paperback (336 pages)
RRP: $17.99
You Were Made for Me on Goodreads
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