love this book. really enjoyable to read, and i loved all the messages about gender equality and body image. sebastian and emir are very cute!! childhood friends to lovers arc :)

edit 2 years later:  AHHH I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH it’s too cute. i can’t believe i’ve never heard anyone talk about this book like HELLO this needs to be more popular wtf??? 
it is so ridiculously romantic and cute i died. 

it was so heartwarming and just adorable i loved all of the characters and their found family was so so cute like the way the friendship and brotherhood in this book was written was soooo lovely it makes me so happy. i wish more boys could be like this honestly it’s so sad. also, this book sets a perfect example for young teens about being confident in who you are while also trying to figure out who that is yourself. it has some beautiful quotes and conversations about exploration, being unsure about the future, body image, and just overall things that teenagers struggle with, and being a teenager myself, i found it very very relatable, and a book to me is always better when i can relate to the characters. 

i especially relate to sebastian because of how he is very unsure about the future — that was a big theme in this book which i liked because i feel like it’s not talked about enough — i so relate to that like i think about the future so much and i overthink to the point where i get scared i’m going to be a failure and i don’t know what to do with my life, but this book rlly gives you the motivation to believe that it actually is going to be okay and that i don’t have to know everything right now if i want to have a successful future. this hit home. i also relate to him because he’s the mom friend like the mom of the group you know and i very much feel that because i’ve always been that person as well :) 

AND OMFG EMIR and sebastian are just SOOOO FUCKING ADORABLE LIKE UGHHH THEY MAKE ME SMILE SO MUCH LIKE IF I COULD BLUSH I WOULD FULLY BE BLUSHING RN😭 their banter was so funny and i loved the little enemies to lovers PLUS childhood friends to lovers thrown in there, just made it 1000x better bc those are my 2 favourite tropes. like just the entire summer romance vibe was so cute all the kissing and playing football in the rain, skinny dipping, bonfires, drive-in movies, lazily kissing in a cabin until the sun peaks through the windows like ugh it was all just so, like i said in the beginning of the review, ridiculously romantic like i want this. 

anyways in conclusion yeah sure, this book might seem cheesy and unrealistic at times to others but to me honestly idc because it was just so cute like i want to live in this beautiful world where boys show their emotions freely and you can love whoever you love without judgement from others and you can accept that it’s okay to not know anything about the future and that the most important thing about life is just LIVING it. i love this book and all of its messages. i feel like it’s super important for young teens to read and it needs more hype for sure!!! read this book rn!! 💗💗💗💗