Book Review: Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

Publisher’s description

Felix Ever After meets Becky Albertalli in this swoon-worthy, heartfelt rom-com about how a transgender teen’s first love challenges his ideas about perfect relationships.

Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe.

When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page.

In this charming novel by Emery Lee, Noah will have to choose between following his own rules for love or discovering that the most romantic endings are the ones that go off script.

Amanda’s thoughts

If you like drama, this book is for you! And I don’t say that in any sort of condescending tone. I can’t even begin to count how many times readers have said to me something along the lines of, “I like books with relationship and friend drama/where dramatic things are happening.” It’s exciting. It’s interesting. You can live vicariously through someone else’s drama if you feel like your life is boring, or you can relate and feel a little better to see someone else navigating alllll the drama that can come with growing up.

Noah, who is trans and white, Japanese, and Afro-Caribbean, is in Denver for the summer, spending it with his older brother while their parents navigate the logistics of a cross-country move. Noah runs Meet Cute Diary, a blog that shares stories of trans meet cutes. He thinks of it as “reality-inspired,” making the stories up to help give other trans people uplifting stories of swoon-worthy relationships. But there’s some talk online that Noah makes up all the stories (which, yeah, he does, but he’s presenting them as they he isn’t making them up) and people are starting to turn against Noah and the popular blog. Enter Drew, a cute bookstore boy who suggests he and Noah fake date to provide some fodder for the blog and show a true story. Well, true-ish. True but still fake. Yeah—drama.

Noah and Drew go on all kinds of cute dates and suddenly the line between fake-dating and real-dating has blurred. Enter Devin, who is nonbinary and trying out various pronouns to find the right one. At first Noah and Devin are just friendly, but then it starts to seem like there may be potential for something more. Now what? The blog’s reputation sort of hinges on Noah and Drew currently living out an ideal romantic relationship spawned from their meet cute. What’s a boy to do?!

In addition to all the ups and downs of Noah’s dating life, he’s also experiencing friend drama, with his BFF Becca (at home in Florida) seeming distant and exasperated with Noah. And people continue to attack Noah online and question the veracity of the blog. And his brother’s girlfriend kind of seems like a jerk. And, to top it all off, Noah is only in Denver for this short summer—soon he’ll be moving to his new home in CA leaving behind Devin, Drew, and Becca. What will happen? With everything!

I suspect readers will have FEELINGS about Noah’s various relationships, which are not necessarily the best or the healthiest or the happiest. Lots of self-discovery, exploration, ups and downs, and DRAMA. The story is filled with questionable choices and motivations, lots of self-centeredness, and many missteps—you know, all the stuff that real life is so often filled with. Realistically messy and ultimately happy.

Review copy (ARC) courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9780063038837
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 05/04/2021
Age Range: 14 – 17 Years

Filed under: Uncategorized