I'm trying to make my thoughts coherent to write this but I'm currently just operating in half sentences and gasps. Sooooo many twists and turns that genuinely surprise me and keep me on my toes. I absolutely adored the characters and found them so familiar to my own life. I found the story so familiar and that is perhaps why I enjoyed it so much. I love how Maddie found new friends who loved her for who she is. I also really enjoyed how Jesse was written. I love how we got his characteristics of green eyes (with a ring of amber), THIGHS, and my personal favorite, the SCAR like that's so adorbs, hehe. He felt very fleshed out by other characters' dialogue and, of course, his own charming interactions with Maddie.

Speaking of Maddie...what a protagonist!! She is witty and quirky in quite a humorous way that rarely came across as annoying. I think that she felt very relatable and also her own character that's not just a blank interface for someone to project themselves onto (which some MCs happen to fall into the category of, not really inherently good or bad, just saying). I loved how she had her moments of selfishness and ignorance but they never felt out of good will or being spoiled. They mostly occurred because she was thrust in a very tumultuous situation that would reasonably elicit strong emotions. Also, I just about laughed out loud at the part when Mrs. Morales goes, (I'm paraphrasing but-), "Show me what you got" and then Maddie just bursts into lines she'd memorized and they're just like on the street. Like, Maddie, girllll lol I liked that though

I'm just THRIVING off of their romance and how organic and sweet and also kind of juvenile it all felt. It felt like a decadent and frothy dessert, one that you don't tire of eating.

This is a super cute romance for teens. Its more on the clean side and I really appreciate that. While at first the cover made me think that I might get away with giving it to my middle school girls, the real audience for this book is more 9th and 10th grade.

Beyond the "who is this book really intended for" question, this is very well written. I like the main heroine Maddie, she had spunk and appeal. I also like the fact that she wasn't a whiner. It was nice to see a heroine that wore her heart on her sleeve or in this case the star on her check.

Maddie has moved from Chicago to Texas after her father lost his job. In her new Texas town, everything is different but she makes the most her new environment. She throws herself into the drama department, making friends with her new neighbors, and tries to find a guy that lives up to her dream Gene Kelly boyfriend Status. She meets Jesse the brother of her new friend and finds out that he has a secret dancing history. Could Jesse be the perfect boyfriend that shares her interests?

I thought Maddie was a really interesting character. She doesn't whine, respects others view points, and is creative in her own right. While this is a romance it is also about prejudices and first appearances. Or more specifically trying to tailor and mold your boyfriend into something their not. And then understanding that everyone grows up differently and doesn't love the same things forever. I loved how obsessed Maddie was with old movies and musicals. I loved her enthusiasm for great cinema. I'm not sure how this will appeal to teens who are probably more familiar with High School Musical then Singin' in the Rain. But maybe it will open their eyes to new movies and music they wouldn't have tried otherwise?

Verdit: Super Cute Meg Cabot-y romance.
Won't win any Printz awards but it's adorable.

If only…he was the boy she’s been dreaming of.

Theatre girl Maddie Brooks has always had high standards for guys. But she has yet to find one who can live up to the classic Hollywood heartthrobs, especially the dreamy song-and-dance man Gene Kelly. When Maddie begins to carpool with Jesse Morales, her new neighbor and star pitcher of the baseball team, she’s struck by his wit, good looks, and love for his family—but a guy so into sports is definitely not her style. Then Maddie discovers that Jesse was raised as a dancer and still practices in the community theatre’s dance studio to keep in shape. Perhaps her perfect dream guy exists after all! But when it becomes clear that baseball—not dance—is Jesse’s passion, can Maddie find a way to let her dream guy go and appreciate the charms of the amazing guy in front of her?

WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED is my type of a novel and I had a feeling that it would be a novel that I was going to enjoy. Not only did it have romance but it also dealt with musicals and theatre which is both things that I love reading about. Actually I feel that there are not enough books about that subject. I loved how passionate Maddie was about it and despite the obstacles that she faced on the way, she did not give up, instead she ended up worked harder to achieve her goals. I believe that something like that takes a dedication, and unless you are passionate about it, wouldn’t work. I wish that Maddie didn’t push Jesse so much, towards something that was obvious was her dream and not Jesse’s. WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED was filled with so much conflict, drama and as a reader you could not help but wonder what would happen next. There were days that I wished that I didn’t have put the novel down. There were so much that I wanted to know.

Jesse and Maddie’s relationship was different because two of them were so opposites. While Maddie was into theatre, musicals and dancing, Jesse was into baseball. Despite that, I could see that she was attracted to him even if she tried not to be. I could see how being around him affected her. I feel like it affected Jesse as well, expect he didn’t seem to show it the way Maddie did. I seen way that they two of them were with each other and how they looked at one another. How can there not be an attraction between the two of them. It felt that Jesse accepted before Maddie did, and with her it took some time. I just wished that she would accepted him for who he was from beginning, that could avoided a lot of heartbreak. I loved the scenes between the two of them and found myself hoping that they would their way back to one another. Two of them need each other.

I was glad that Maddie was able to find a friend like Angela, a type of friend that Maddie never had but needed. What the two of them had was a true friendship, they were for one another through almost everything. There was nothing that I didn’t love about this book, there was always so much going on and you couldn’t help but get sucked into story and soon found yourself falling in love with the characters as well. This was 2nd KRISTIN RAE novel that I have read and it won’t be last. I am looking forward to see what adventures she will come up with next.

Probably more like a 3.5 rating, but I bumped it up for all of the fun Gene Kelly references. This is a cute story about a girl who dreams of her perfect boyfriend ... a Gene Kelly clone. Someone should probably tell her that he really was kind of a jerk in real life, but it is not unrealistic to think of a high school girl making all of her romantic dreams dependent on ideas of romance gathered from the movies. I would probably label the entanglements and difficulties of this book as fairly tame for a young adult book of this day and age, but they are the sort of things you would find in an everyday high school setting. I especially appreciated the lesson this book taught about loving people for who they truly are and not trying to change them to fit some sort of ideal we have in our head. Maddie refused to appreciate Jesse for who he was. She saw what she wanted to see, and when his actions didn't live up to her expectations, she tried to change him. That happens all the time in high school relationships. That happens all the time in older relationships. It was a good thing to examine. People who love theater will love the setting of this story. I have enjoyed both books that Kristin Rae has provided for this series. She'll be an author I'll look for in the future. For now, I have an overwhelming desire to grab a bowl of popcorn and watch Singin' in the Rain again. Four stars.

Wow, I ADORED this book. Classic movies, Gene Kelly, super swoony. LOVED it. Read it in one sitting.

4.5 Stars (I would love to give it 5 but there were a few bones of contention that kept it from that higher ranking in my mind)

Gah! That was the cutest, fluffiest YA romance I've read in a long time. I hoped pretty hard that this would be a winner for me considering that the main character loves musicals and acting and Gene Kelly, and I wasn't disappointed. Though initially Maddie couldn't see (or refused to see) the signs that Jesse had a thing for her, I was pretty ecstatic when they finally got their act together

Spoiler

I was less ecstatic when they had their break-up especially because it seemed a little contrived and super rushed on his part, and then Maddie started to blame herself solely. I mean, she did help screw things up but trying to pressure him and not really listening to him, but he also wildly overreacted and got mad at her for really no reason other than that he assumed she had an attitude about baseball when really he was being all male-PMSy and territorial because she bought Brian's car. I was disappointed that that was never really addressed and Jesse just kinda glossed over it but otherwise I was happy when they got back together, especially with his super awesome grand gesture in performing Gene Kelly's newspaper tap dance from Summer Stock. That was too many kinds of adorable. I just wish they would've taken a bit to try and talk about things before instead of just flying off the handle...but then again these are teenagers in high school so hormones are a factor in creating roadblocks for healthy communication. Anyway...

. All in all this was an adorable romance that also managed to showcase good friendships and family struggles without it being too melodramatic. I especially liked that Maddie was able to resolve her angst with her parents (even if it took a sort of dramatic moment to wake her up) and that there was some focus on her family being involved and present and a good force in her life. It was sweet to see, especially in YA where the norm seems to be either parents nowhere around or tyrannical or in some other way negative. In this, I think it was easy for the reader to understand where both Maddie and her parents were coming from and to genuinely enjoy their relationship as a family. That really just added more depth to the story in that it wasn't a solely romance-focused plot; there were other elements to all of these characters.
All in all I really really liked this book and recommend it to anyone who loves fluffy YA romances because it's just sweet and adorable and swoon-worthy. Maddie and Jesse were both really fun characters to read (I especially loved all her little classic movie-esque day dreams. Same, girl, same) and the author didn't skimp on the secondary characters, giving them more to do than just be a sounding board for the couple's romance or break-up. Instead they all got to talk to each about school and life and family and the things they want which was delightful to see.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me early access to this book in exchange for an honest review. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by Kristin Rae as well as more books in this If Only series cuz those fluffy romances get me every time.

If you have a thing for Gene Kelly, classic movies, and theater...this book is for you. In other words, this book was definitely for me and I was utterly delighted by all the references to all of the above. Maddie was such a great character to root for, and it was SO fun to read about a teen I would have 100% been friends with in high school.

Maddie has been in love with Gene Kelly from the moment she saw him dance. Too bad he’s long gone and none of the high school boys she knows can even compare. That is until she realizes that baseball star Jesse Morales grew up dancing. He may have traded in his dance lessons for baseball practices, but Maddie knows that Jesse’s love for dancing is still in there somewhere…she just has to bring it out.

I’ve really been a fan of this “If Only” series. I’ve read a few now and liked at least two of them. I just like that they’re fun, clean YA Contemporary Romances. They’re easy reads with (usually) pretty likable characters and just enough drama and angst. Each book is written by a different author and has a different setting and very individual characters, but they still come together in a nice series of stand-alones.

I like in books when the main character has a unique hobby or interest. In this case, our main character is OBSESSED with classic movies and musicals (especially the ones that feature Gene Kelly). This book really put me in the mood to watch “Singin’ in the Rain”, I’ll tell you that. I didn’t always like the things she did as a character, but overall I feel that she was realistic and not too annoying. From very early on, I could felt that she had a lot of potential for growth and development. While she did grow some, I think the growth and character development overall in the book fell short–it was just a little too shallow for me.

Jesse was an okay love interest for me. He wasn’t as swoon-worthy as some of the YA Contemporary Romance male leads are (regardless of how unrealistic it is that a normal teenage boy would every actually act like that/say those things). The fact that he wasn’t as swoon-worthy made him a more realistic character in my opinion, but sometimes he’d say something that would really break the mood of the scene. I could see that being the point though. This whole time Maddie’s been drooling over Gene Kelly and the characters he’s been playing and Jesse makes a good contrast to that type of character.

Some of the secondary characters were pretty good and some were just okay, but I didn’t understand Rica AT ALL. She seemed pointlessly evil. Almost like she was there just to provide a sort of foil for Maddie. She says some really mean things, but then the reader is never shown why Rica is the way she is. Maybe we’ll get a book about her sometime later? I’m not really sure. But yeah, she was such a flat character.

Overall, I thought this book was pretty good, but I wouldn’t buy it–probably just check it out from the library. The dynamic of Maddie’s family was interesting and I’m not sure how necessary that subplot was to the rest of the story, but it didn’t distract too much.

Overall Rating: 3
Language: None
Violence: None
Smoking/Drinking: None
Sexual Content: Mild

Note: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.