I actually read Tweet Cute back in July when my wish was granted on NetGalley. I am not the biggest contemporary fan, but from the synopsis of the book I was hooked and knew I needed it in my life. But I was so excited that I pushed my TBR pile aside and dived into it. I loved Tweet Cute so much that finished it in one sitting. It's cute, cheesy, (ha, get the pun?) funny and a fresh take on romance that is going to have readers everywhere swooning.

Side note: I actually work at Wendy's and our social media has a habit of roasting their twitter followers, @ing their competition and basically causing a lot of fun havoc. (Did you know they also made a mix tape that you can find on Apple Music?) So reading a book about two restaurants going at each other on twitter? I was really excited for it.

Back to my review!

Pepper's family owns a steadily growing popular fast food chain called Big League Burger, where Jack's family owned deli, Girl Cheese, is failing. BLB is launching their new grilled cheeses, but something is fishy about one of them. It is a rip off of the famous sandwich from Girl Cheese that Jack's grandmother created years prior. Taking to twitter to tweet at them, Jack doesn't expect the tweet to blow up. But it does and now its BLB vs. Girl Cheese in the twitter war of the year. Pepper secretly runs the BLB twitter that has millions of followers, which she isn't inclined to but with the pressure from her mom and the failing PR girl, she reluctantly does. But what happens when two competitors begin to fall for each other? Well let's say it isn't as simple at melting cheese on bread. (Another pun!)

Tweet Cute is told in alternating views of Jack and Pepper. I loved getting to see into both of their heads and the plans for the shenanigans the had planned for twitter next. This isn't just a story of two teens in a twitter war, it is also a story of following your dreams, finding your passions and learning that love can bloom in the most unlikeliness of places and even forgiveness.

We see that Pepper's mom is hugely involved in BLB. It is her entire life. Back in Nashville they were tiny little restaurant that blossomed into something massive and to keep the business in the family (and after divorcing Pepper's father) they move to New York to open the corporate office. Pepper and her mom's relationship is on slightly rocky ground because of the whole social media thing. You can tell that her mother loves Pepper, but she also loves her company and because of that sacrifices time with her daughter. Their are a few instances in this book were Pepper's mom is gone for extended periods of time, leaving her teenage daughter alone.

Jack lives in the shadow of his twin brother Ethan. Where Ethan is the head of student council and involved in clubs he is popular where Jack is not. But that doesn't stop people from confusing them on a continuous basis. Jack has a knack for app development and actually created an app that is an online chat room for his school. Everyone goes by animal alias and it is all completely one hundred percent anonymous until the app decided it is time to out them (which is all part of the fun.) Jack goes by Wolf and for the past few months has been talking to someone by the name of Blue Bird, I think we can all take a wild guess at who Blue Bird is. While being friends in real life, Jack and Pepper also don't know that the have been anonymously talking to each other for months with no idea.

I loved the bantering and the arguing that Pepper and Jack continuously have. Their relationship as friends and how it develops into something more was a slow progression and it made them feel even more real to me. The best part is that they actually act like their age, sometimes high school students are written to be extremely immature or too mature and both Pepper and Jack make mistakes and learn from them and are exploring life. It was refreshing and I loved seeing it.

I basically spent most of this book wanting to reach into my kindle and smash both of their faces together. I was basically like: "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO KISS!?" But needless to saw I found the romance aspect of this book to be flawless and adorable.

Overall I really enjoyed Tweet Cute and I know many others are going to love Emma's debut novel. There is so much of this story to love and so many laugh at loud moments that you are not going to be able to help but smile. Tweet Cute also sparked me wanting to read some more contemporary so yay for that!

Super cute, cheesy read. Haha. Yeah I know that was even cheesier than the actual book. But seriously a very cute book. I would liken this to a modern day You’ve Got Mail.

Jack was the perfect swoon worthy, class clown but secretly really smart male character and Pepper was the perfect uptight perfectionist who secretly feels like she doesn’t fit in female character.

Both had communication issues that had me screaming, but they are teens and both trying to figure out their lives while being pushed a certain way by their parents that they don’t want to actually go.

The twitter aspect was cute and relatable for today’s society.

Also, as an adult, the adults in this book are so stupid. I was so mad at them most of the time, especially Pepper’s mom. And I get at the end why she was upset and everything but geeeeeez.

I really enjoy the social media/secret identity booms quite a bit and I’m excited to see more coming out like this!

This book was incredibly cute. I loved the interactions between Pepper and Jack. This family drama was fun, but not terribly over the top. I definitely don't regret spending a whole morning reading this.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!
I am between 3.5 and 4 stars for this one. I was worried the story was going to be predictable and felt I knew where it was heading. Luckily, i was wrong. Of course there is a love interest in here, but it did not pan out the way I thought it would, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I really liked the characters of Pepper and Jack; they are likable and realistic and have their own family struggles that come into play (identical twin, small business, mother and sister butting heads, striving for perfection), giving these characters some depth. I also felt like the developing friendship was legit and easy to see happening, even as it turns into a little something more. Pepper also sees some people are not what they always seemed, which is a good lesson (and it is not done in an annoyingly obvious after school special way). .This book does not have nauseating insta-love, thank goodness!
The Twitter battle was something fresh and timely and would be appreciated by teens. The kids in this school also communicate via an app, and there are other apps developed and referenced in here, which was a nice modern touch.
There is talk of teen drinking, some mild making out (how nice to have the twin with his boyfriend featured in here like it is not big thing), and some profanity. Overall, really cute and enjoyable. Definitely one I will be recommending to my students!

This is a wonderful book of first love and all the awkward feelings that go along with it. Jack and Pepper are simply adorable! I would recommend this book to anyone from 10 years up who enjoys romance. Emma Lord has a huge hit on her hands!

The "You've Got Mail" of Gen Z, Tweet Cute is a delightfully cheesy rom-com for the age of Twitter. Be prepared for puns and snark. Overall, a really fun read!

I truly enjoyed this book, but it could have been just a bit shorter. I found myself wondering when the end was coming even though I was liking the read. I think maybe it could have been edited a bit better. It has all the elements of a great story...wonderful characters, chemistry, fun twists, fun ending. It just needs to be a bit tighter.

Pepper has spent the last 4 years molding herself into a perfect NYC prep school student, complete with a killer GPA and a full roster of extracurriculars. She doesn't have a lot of friends but she does have a nemesis: Jack, the class clown who never seems to take anything seriously except for possibly coming up with new annoying nicknames for her. When a social media feud erupts between their family businesses, Pepper and Jack find themselves battling it out on Twitter and having a surprising amount of fun doing it. Their snarky barbs actually lead to something like a friendship, but both are hesitant to explore more because they've been exchanging messages on an anonymous school app with someone they think might truly understand them (and they don't know they're talking to each other). Between their feuding restaurants, parent expectations, college applications and feelings for what they believe are 2 different people, senior year is turning into kind of a mess! When they discover that their secret pen pal and their real-life partner in Twitter-banter are actually one and the same, can they get past their tangled history to grab the future that's right in front of them?

This updated YA twist on You've Got Mail (and The Shop around the Corner) was SO cleverly done! It was well-written and engaging from the very first page. I was sucked right in and couldn't wait to see what other changes Lord had made to the story to modernize it and what she'd kept the same. There are so many little sub-plots and supporting characters that you get to know, so while you're rooting for Pepper and Jack, you're also getting attached and invested in the other people in the story. There are so many layers here that it makes me tired to imagine writing it and keeping it all straight, but it made for a wonderful tapestry of endearing characters mixed with a love letter to New York, social media, and small businesses.

There are some big issues tackled here, too. It's not merely a cute little rom-com (though it is that, too). Lord tackles cyber-bullying, academic pressures, recognizing that parents aren't infallible, and the difference between who you think you should be and who you ARE. There's also plenty of diversity in this book. Jack's brother, Ethan, is unavailable a lot of the time because he's off making out all over the city with his boyfriend. And Pepper discovers that her arch-rival for valedictorian, Pooja, is actually quite a wonderful and supportive friend once she gets to know her.

I'm a big fan of You've Got Mail so this book had a lot to live up to in my mind, and I'm so pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and think it did an AWESOME job of updating a story that has to change with our times (from handwritten letters to AOL to Twitter)! What a fun debut by Emma Lord!

**Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the delightful ARC in exchange for my honest review!**

I loved this story, which is a retelling of the You’ve Got Mail / Shop Around the Corner, big business vs small business, star-crossed romance.

Pepper’s family owns the Big League Burger franchise while Jack’s family runs a small local deli, Girl Cheesing. The competing enterprises square off about their grilled cheese recipes and the social media war is heated.

The story is told through the alternating perspectives of Pepper and Jack, endearing, well-developed characters, as are their various family members.

There are a couple plot twists but essentially this is a retelling of a familiar story with more current social media components. I think young people will find this playful romance as relatable as I did.

A mildly inoffensive version of "You've Got Mail" for the teen set, Tweet Cute is as cute as the title sounds. The drama between Jack and Pepper is thankfully not drawn out for the sake of teen fiction. A light summer read.

As befits the title and cover art, in Tweet Cute, two smart, attractive and socially insecure Manhattan teens meet cute online. In the real world, Jack and Pepper don’t like each other very much. Yet they have an easy rapport on the social networking app that's exclusively for and by kids from their school. With the freedom and sense of security that comes from anonymity, Jack and Pepper find that they a lot in common: both feel like outsiders in their swanky Upper East Side private school; both have a snarky sense of humor; and they both harbor a disdain of the more entitled classmates who have more family money than intellectual heft.

Unfortunately, as social media/ marketing whizzes who, unbeknownst to each other, use Twitter to boost their families’ fast food businesses, they’re also competitors. The premise is fine, but there’s an inherent challenge in a book that hinges on the wit and creativity of its protagonists: the text itself has to have original things to say and say them well. Novels about poets for example fall flat when the poetry disappoints. In Tweet Cute, the art is texts and tweets. The conflict between Pepper and Jack arises from a critical tweet by Jack about Pepper’s family account, a tweet that’s supposed to be so sharp it gets shared by a pop star, and goes viral. Rather than bask in his moment of twitter fame, Jack’s immediately consumed by worry that he’s going to be grounded for his impudence. The Tweet in question though is basic, rather than edgy: Pepper tweet brags about a new menu item at her family’s burger chain; Jack screenshots it with the comment “Sure Jan,” making fun of the larger company for being a copycat. As Twitter fights go, that’s as mild as it gets. So neither its virality nor the anxiety it inspires make much sense. and therefore the tension between the two feels pretty overblown and low stakes.

The Manhattan Pepper and Jack live in is essentially a wholesome, G-rated version of the one depicted in Gossip Girl with some of the sweetness of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Sometimes that’s just the escape we’re looking for as readers. Even though the conflict is tepid, the characters are interesting and refreshingly sweet. They care about each other, their families and their futures. There are subplots about bullying, sibling rivalry, academic stress, business ethics, and divorce. The plot gets a bit more complex with time, and I grew more invested in them as things progressed. While Tweet Cute may not be the kind of YA novel that holds a ton of crossover potential, it could and should appeal to its true, hopefully less jaded, intended audience, at least i hope so.

This was such a cute book! It felt like a modern "You've Got Mail", but still original. Pepper is a very relatable teen, and I want to strangle her mother throughout the entire book. Jack is absolutely adorable, and I love the two of them together. I can't wait to read more of her work!

As soon as I saw this book I knew I had to read it. This new take on You've Got Mail/the Shop Around the Corner was very entertaining and sweet.

One sentence summary: Pepper and Jack are seniors at a competitive Upper East Side High School who are dragged into their two families' social media spat, all while they get to know each other anonymously online and deal with standard growing-up issues.

I really liked Pepper and Jack, and felt for them. Both were well-developed, rounded characters. Though I'm no longer a teenager, I think a lot of the emotions they went through (disappointing people, stress, life confusion, jealousy) are relatable at any age. The other characters (Pooja, Paul, Ethan, Paige, etc) were less well-developed, and while I understand that the plot comes first, they felt a bit flat and one-dimensional. I would have particularly liked to see Ethan fleshed out a bit more- the twins' mutual resentment made sense, but I don't think we ever saw enough of their relationship to be invested in it. I realize we only have Jack's POV, but Ethan just kind of annoyed me. Speaking of annoying, don't even get me started on Pepper's mom...

A few more observations: 1. Monster Cake sounds absolutely delicious. 2. I'm not sure if the younger crowd will get some of the pop culture references (High School Musical, Gossip Girl, etc) but I hope they do! (Otherwise I'm just old). 3. [Spoiler-ish]- were there really no college-acceptance-repercussions from some of things that happened? 4. I liked the relative lack of drama caused by miscommunication. It was definitely there, but it wasn't endlessly dragged out.

Despite the few issues, I loved this book and will be enthusiastically recommending it to patrons and friends. Thank you to Netgalley, Emma Lord, and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

A very cute book, much like the description of “The Shop Around the Corner/You’ve got Mail.” Fun likeable characters that have your rooting for them throughout the story. I wish the parents storyline was fleshed out more.

You've Got Mail (itself an adaption) for the YA Twitter set. I liked the concept, but felt the story dragged fairly often and found the repeated dives into why the two MCs felt isolated was tedious and myopic. Related to this was the unnecessary and unrelenting bashing of wealthy prep school kids. It's hard to take that pathos of two kids with iPhones and a prep school education who whine about not being quite as wealthy as their fellow prep school kids very seriously.