I Think I Love You by Auriane Desombre
Synopsis
"Arch-nemeses Emma, a die-hard romantic, and more-practical minded Sophia find themselves competing against one another for a coveted first-prize trip to a film festival in Los Angeles . . . what happens if their rivalry turns into a romance? For fans of Becky Albertalli's Leah on the Offbeat, full of laugh-out-loud humor and make-your-heart-melt moments."
My Thoughts
This book was super cute once it got going. The beginning was so slow but I got about a quarter of the way in and I finally got to a point when I couldn't stop reading. This was a super adorable enemies to lovers book and I was totally here for it!
After getting in a fight, Emma and Sophia split their friend group to make separate movies for a competition that will hopefully get them out to LA if they win. This book felt like a fun adventure with both teams running around New York for their movie-making. The friend group is a bunch of meddling kids though and needs to stop starting relationships through lies. But the drama seems like exactly the kind of things a group of high school juniors would get up to. And seeing Emma and Sophia slowly fall for each other was cute.
I think this book suffers the most by having the book told from two character POVs. There didn't seem to be a good reason why we get Sophia's POV most of the time and it usually just ended up restating what happened in Emma's chapter. Another thing that I wanted to point out was that the cover made me think that perhaps the character Emma is Latinx or BIPOC but there's no real textual evidence for this at all which was a bit disappointing.
Things I absolutely loved: there was an absolutely wonderful scene in which Emma, who is not out as bi to her parents, is reassured that being bi is still an important part of her identity even if she ends up dating a guy. I love this. So often, especially if a bi person is in a relationship with a person of the opposite sex, it's treated like they've picked a side or that their bi identity isn't still an integral part of who they are. So I loved this little moment and I look forward to seeing more of these until a lot of the misconceptions around being bisexual are gone.
I really enjoyed this cute sapphic rom-com worthy of sweet Emma's love and attention and definitely recommend it!
Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC! This book is scheduled to release on March 2nd, 2021.
Genre: lgbtqia+, contemporary, ya
Representation: bi MC, lesbian MC
Content Warnings: language, misogyny, verbal harassment