Caleb and Emma used to be best friends until a sudden falling out led to them avoid speaking to each other at all costs. However, they can’t keep avoiding each other when they both have to confront a bully who’s targeting the new girl, Juliet. The ex-friends are both instantly drawn to Juliet and devise a competition to see who can win her over first.

I don’t know why the premise of two people competing over a mutual love interest ultimately for the other’s attention always sounds so compelling in a book description, only to be a bit disappointing in practice. To be fair, every character acknowledges how gross it is, but that doesn’t stop anything. Besides being slightly off-putting, it also doesn’t allow for the love interest, Juliet, to have a personality for most of the book because she’s only there to serve as a propellant for the two MCs relationship. Caleb and Emma seem to immediately fall in love with Juliet for no reason other than she’s pretty and so unbelievably ~quirky~. I understand why she felt so unconfident and was self-deprecating but it felt a bit grating to read, and I couldn’t understand why it was supposedly so endearing. 

Like in Amanda Woody’s debut, They Hate Each Other, both MCs have heavy issues to deal with, and it’s nice to see how Caleb and Emma develop individually and support each other while working through everything. There were a few moments that made me laugh, and I know from THEO how funny Woody is, but I think maybe the whole quirkiness factor weighed that down in Exes & Foes. There wasn’t as much opportunity for their humor to shine through here.

My favorite character was hands down Caleb’s mom. She was about to make me cry with how loving, supportive, and caring she was, and I just really loved her. I also thought the friend group that started forming had a lot of potential, and I would’ve appreciated seeing more of them. Overall, I thought there were some sweet and interesting characters and dynamics that may have had more of a chance to shine with possibly a different handling of the premise and some further character development. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.