4 stars

This book is so quirky in the most appealing way.

Phoebe is 15 (going on 16), and she's in a state of flux. Her father died before she was born, and her mother is out of the country so often providing medical services in war torn areas that Phoebe actually has her own room in her godmother's (Kate's) home. She spends the bulk of the novel with Kate, and without her parents physically, but they both spend a lot of time on her mind! There are fantastic cameos by "designer cats" and a really fun cast of characters, and Phoebe is a growing but likeable (and highly amusing) character herself.

There's a lot more here than one might expect at first blush: burgeoning identity, sexuality, friendship, connections to parents, feelings of abandonment, death and grief, and - of course - love of all kinds. This is a truly charming book, and I look forward to more from Brueggemann.

rating: 3 stars

trigger/content warnings: cancer (mention), death, death of a parent, mental illness - anxiety

Love Is for Losers is a solid read. It was definitely different from what I was expecting, but I did enjoy the diary format, which gave us a direct window into Phoebe's mind. Although it left some gaps, I thought it was an engaging way to narrate through her perspective. I had difficulty getting into the novel and Phoebe's personality nettled me a bit at times throughout the book. I found myself wishing that she had more character growth, but I did think she was a very realistic portrayal of a teenager.

For me, highlights of the book included: 1) The sapphic representation for this age group! I would love to see more LGBTQ+ books like this targeted towards/centering the younger side of YA. 2). How sex-positive it is! This is another topic that I think is extremely important for teenagers to be educated on and feel comfortable discussing with people they trust. Even if it may have seemed over the top to some, I think it's preferable to be informed as a teenager rather than reinforcing shame around the topic. 3) Brueggemann perfectly captured the teenage experience. While I found her irritating at times, I can also recognize that Phoebe's intense, seemingly overdramatic emotions and angst are extremely true to how teens really do feel.

Overall, Love Is for Losers was a sweet and funny read that also addressed some heavier/deeper topics. Unfortunately it wasn't a favorite for me because the plot felt slow at times and Phoebe often irked me, but I might still recommend it to others who enjoy YA (especially for the LGBT representation).

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for providing this ARC!

Love is for Losers follows Phoebe, a girl who has decided that love is the most dreadful thing to ever happen to someone. However, once she starts working at a local thrift shop, her perspective begins to shift.
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This was such a fun book! It perfectly filled the Princess Diaries shaped hole in my heart, but with more sass and snark! Phoebe was an unlikeable character, seeing as she was an “edgy 15 year old”, but I found myself sympathizing quite often with her. The premise was light-hearted, and as a whole this book didn’t take itself too seriously.
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There were also some darker topics sprinkled in that gave the story some depth! Absent parents, loss of siblings, and loss of a close friend was added in this book in the same pages that also contained the lives of two designer cats.
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Overall, I would recommend this book! It was a little hard to get into, but once I was about 20 pages in, I was hooked!
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book! I started off a little unsure how I felt about it. Phoebe is definetly a narrator with a very strong personailty that took some getting used to. But I'm so glad I stuck with it because once I got into it I couldn't put it down. Phoebe's narration reminds me of Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries series in a lot of ways. She's unapologetically teenagery and struggles to figure out her place in the world and I loved following her on that journey. I think teens will definetly be able to relate to her over honest take on life. And I'm so pleased that this sort of book now exists that LGBT+ kids can find themselves in. The fact that the main love interest is a girl is never a problem for anyone. In fact, the only thing Phoebe is really worried about is having a crush in the first place. (Which I found all too relatable.) The transition from friendship to more was so beautiful and seamless that by the time Phoebe notices and is freaking out about it you the reader can't help but be rooting for her to get with Emma in the end, It was adorable and emotional all at the same time and I highly highly reccommend it.

This book was different than expected yet very well written! Phoebe is definitely a pessimist, especially when it comes to the idea of love and can be too realistic around the ideas of loss. Emma is however the opposite, she is optimistic and loves life to the fullest. When Phoebe realizes that she may have feelings for Emma, she treats it as a disease that she needs to get rid of. Not to mention that Phoebe also has to deal with abandonment issues, school, and trying to understand her best friend. The only down side to this novel was being written as a diary format where Phoebe is jotting everything down by the day. This can be in some peoples favor, while it wasn't the best format for me. Overall, a very solid coming of age novel.

This book is an absolute delight. Phoebe has a fun, spunky voice that teens will surely relate to and love. The short and punchy diary-style of writing is easy and quick to read, and the characters all feel real and authentic. It's been a while since I found a new YA I liked so Love is for Losers was a breath of fresh air.
PS: The cover is perfect.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this title.

~Love Is For Losers~
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4/5 stars
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I got approved for this book on Netgalley not really knowing too much about the plot besides that it involved a queer romance and had a really fun cover! This book was very British and reminded me of a mix of the movie Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging and the show Sex Education so if you liked either I think you’d really enjoy this book.
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Pros:
+I think the formatting really allows for a uniquely authentic teen pov. It really feels like a 15 year old wrote this story in her journal.
+Honestly I can appreciate how much of a pessimist Phoebe is because I was also extremely angsty when I was 15 (who wasn’t an emo teen at some point?)
+The portrayal of how teens deal with grief, abandonment, and change was very honest and raw. She deals with everything poorly because all 15 year olds deal with everything poorly
+Her absolute PANIC over everything to do with Emma is a) hilariously too real and b) very well written. There needs to be more sapphic YA stories like this!
+There are some good unexpected moments that are just effortlessly funny and made me want to keep reading til i found the next one. I actually laughed out loud at some points LOL
+I really appreciate the different healthy role model figures in this book especially Kate!!
+The character growth wasn’t flawless but it was so fun seeing Phoebe learn and grow and experience life! She was finally someone I was rooting for near the end.
Cons:
-The lack of chapters makes it really difficult to read at first because it becomes repetitive. Each journal entry is to short to stop after just one but reading too many in a row is a little draining. I got used to it eventually but the first 10% of the book was rough for me.
-Sometimes Phoebe moves past being “relatably angsty” and into “i’m mean for no reason but it’s okay because it’s me”.
-there seems to be some aspects of the “i’m not like other girls trope” in this and I can’t express how tired I am of seeing this in books.
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Overall this book ended up being a surprisingly fun read for me! At first I was skeptical because of the format and Phoebe’s angsty voice but I ended up really enjoying it and was sad when it ended.

I loved Love of For Losers. It reminds me of Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontle Snogging, but for older teenagers. Hilarious, snarky, and a lot of fun. I would finely recommend this to my students who like romance with a little cynicism and LGBTQ themes.

About the book:
Phoebe is a 15 year old living in London who knows one thing for certain: love is for losers. Her best friend's gone crazy with it and her godmother is obsessed with finding it, but she knows it's not for her. When Phoebe's Mom decides to go on a 6 month Doctors without Borders trip, she loses it. Everything seems like it's falling apart at the same time: friends, family. Even GCSEs are coming up! When she's forced to take up work in a charity shop she meets a group of people who, much to her incredible dismay, are actually pretty cool. And is she, maybe, falling in love too?

TL;DR:
- Content warnings: death by cancer mention, side character death by stroke, side character with severe anxiety, death of a parent
- 3.75 stars
- Diary style story of girl trying to get through a semester at school without her mom, her best friend, and without falling in love. Worth reading if you're looking for a painfully accurate experience of the emotions when you're a young adult, good and bad.

Loved:
- I loved the diary style. Princess Diaries really set the subgenre up, and this does not disappoint. I think the structure helped provide a much needed timeline to Phoebe's story.
- Super sex-positive. I know some reviewers have said it felt like too much, but frankly, I wish I knew half this information when I was 15. Every teen is going to do what they're going to do regardless of how much info they have about sex, so why not give them the facts, so they're more educated!?
- Absolutely loved how casual Phoebe and everyone in her life were about her realization that she was lesbian. I appreciate YA that includes meaningful coming out stories, but I'm a really big sucker for casual ones. I hope I don't have to explain why that makes my heart warm.
- Very sweet, slow romance.

Less into:
- In many ways Phoebe's voice was not unlike Mia's (Princess Diaries) in that they're both rather immature and need to undergo a significant amount of growth. The thing is, Phoebe never really had her growth - she just kind of, became less frustrating? And everyone in her life was like "we love you anyway! but you suck sometimes!" which, like alright, didn't we all, at 15. But there was no inflection point where she realized she was being consistently rude and grew from it. Again - this is VERY realistic. It's not bad, just the truth.
- Related: it didn't feel like there were explicit resolutions between Phoebe and her mom, or Phoebe and her best friend, the two people she spent a lot of time complaining about. Would have been nice to see some more there. Maybe a sequel?!!

Overall it was such a quick read, a page-turner, and I would 100% read a follow up. Just saying.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed the format of the narrative and the humor that this book brought with its writing. It felt witty and funny and engaging and kept me interested in reading the story. I really enjoyed the characters that Brueggemann was able to bring to life and highly recommend this one for classroom libraries!

I really enjoyed this book. The book was told in a great diary type format which I always enjoy. I love a book with a flawed and honest narrator as well.
This book really had it all. A sarcastic narrator, a queer romance, a thrift shop romance, and so many cats! This book is so much fun but it also takes on series subjects like greaf and abandonment.
I really hope to see more from Brueggermann in the same vain as this book. I also can't wait to get my hands on the physical copy of this book. I mean just look at how great the cover is!

Love is for Losers is adorable! Frank, funny, and sex-positive, this was exactly what I needed to read right now. It takes the diary format of Adrian Mole, The Princess Diaries, Bridget Jones, or The Princess Diaries if they were written by a queer teen girl who can't understand why anyone would be interested in falling in love, and chronicles her struggles with love, loss, and relationships. I'd recommend not only to tweens and teens but adults who enjoy books like this as well.

I really enjoyed this book. It felt different, fun, and relatable. Phoebe can sometimes be unforgiving and many readers may find her unlikable, but I thought that while she was honest and emotional, she was also often right. (Her best friend was being pretty terrible to drop her for a while because she had a new boyfriend. Her mom is really distant and, while doing good things for other people, not a particularly great mother.) Phoebe has a lot going on that she has to balance, not the least of which is her conflicting feelings about her mother.

The romance was really cute. Phoebe is so oblivious about both her own feelings and Emma's, and it was sweet to watch her completely stumble over her crush and her inability to figure out what to do about it.

The book is written in a journal format, with Phoebe sharing her thoughts and experiences. It had a very conversational tone, and I really felt like someone was telling me a story. She typically uses more conversational phrases such as "And then she was like" instead of "She said." I could see this being irritating for some readers, but I thought the tone and style really worked and helped me understand Phoebe.

4.5/5

This romantic comedy offers witty, comeback lines filled with sarcasm and humor. Expresses the life of a young girl who considers love the worst thing since stale chips, as she weaves her way thru high school experiencing bouts of teenage insanity, peer pressure and identity conflict.

This is definitely a coming of age type of book, for fans of the style of writing for "Diary of a Wimpy kid" and "Dork Diaries". It is written in a diary-style with humor and comedy. It's the type of YA novel that many Librarians are probably looking for to recommend to their patrons who have grown up reading the books mentioned before and now need something through getting them through those first years of high school. I love the cover and the narrator's dialogue comes across as someone who is sometimes clueless but not afraid to say what she means. It's a slow burn queer romance, with all the elements of being ok with finding yourself.

I definitely recommend and will be adding this to our collection.

My initial review of this book, based on the first 2 months or so of the diary entries: I was not terribly impressed. There is zero narration in the book; the structure is entirely in journal/online diary format, complete with hashtags. We meet the POV character on a really bad New Year's Day, where her best friend has abandoned her for a boy and then her mother tells her that she'll be leaving *again* and so she's off once more to stay with her godmother/mom's best friend. Pheobe, when we meet her, is an incredibly unlikeable character. In many ways, she remains such throughout the book: unapproachable, with a temper, hates people, self-centered, fairly oblivious to a lot of things around her, and on top of all of that, she's preparing for GCSEs. But, on the other hand, she is a 15 year old girl, who is lonely and feeling abandoned yet again by her mother's "savior complex" that takes her away for months at a time with Médecins Sans Frontières.

This was a bit of a slow read, partly because whether I read it on my phone or on the computer, the page turn was so slow (15-20s per page), and partly because it's never-ending daily diary entry style, with no break for real narration, scene-setting, etc., made it hard to get into the story. It's set in London, apparently, but other than names like "London" and "Wimbledon" and "Kingston" thrown around, nothing about what we get from the diary entries makes this feel... real. As someone who has lived in busy cities, though, to be fair, not in London or even in the UK, this book did not feel like it was set in one.

As the half-year that the book takes place in wears on, however, things do improve and by the end, you do start to root for (though remain frustrated by) Pheobe and the people around her. As she gets over her anger, frustration, and fear, the other characters around her become more interesting because the reader is not only seeing them through anger-tinged lenses.

I don't know that a full, 100% diary-style book such as this one is the best way to tell the story. Some books do this well, but they succeed because the diary entries themselves provide that much-needed context for the reader to really experience the story. This book lacks that, and I think suffers for it, even as the budding teen romance is sweet, the cats adorable, and the tear-jerking bits appropriately touching. This feels like the start to a pretty good YA LGBT high school romance, that needs the gaps filled in.

Oh, I so enjoyed Love is for Losers! What a fantastic debut for Wibke Brueggemann.

This is the type of YA book I enjoyed reading as a teen and I throughly enjoyed it as an adult as well. When we first meet 15 year old Phoebe, she is a bit whiny and a lot judgmental, which aren't exactly character traits one would aspire to be. Her main motto in life is along the lines of, "I don't like people." There is so much growth over the course of the novel however, as we see Phoebe begin to find herself and come to terms with the various relationships in her life. The secondary characters in Love is for Losers are all fantastic! Each of them adds greatly to the dynamics of the story and not one seems like a filler character or someone checking off a box.

I loved that this was written in the style of a diary and this format allowed for candid honesty from Phoebe that was refreshing. This belongs on the "recommended reading" shelf at a library or store and will also appeal to YA fans of all ages.

An additional note is that although the book was mostly funny, there are some heavy topics covered. Major content warnings are: death/loss/grief and parental absence.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the advanced copy.

I loved the characters - snarky Phoebe, her cool godmother Kate, the crazy mix of people at the thrift shop, and even her love-struck best friend Polly. I enjoyed the diary format and the slightly more bitter "Georgia Nicholson" vibe. While there wasn't really a whole lot of romantic tension, and the LGBT romance seemed a little bleh, the humor and character growth kept the story going. Overall, a solid debut and I'll be keeping an eye out for future novels from this author.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

I love this book so, so much. I couldn't put it down! It made me so happy.

As many other reviews have pointed out, Phoebe is a flawed character. Deeply flawed. But, that's part of what I love her. Her character arc is strong, moving from a girl that believes she is deeply unlovable (because her mother is off saving lives in Syria, leaving her to live with her godmother, Kate) to someone that opens up to the possibility of love and community. It's a great lesson for teens.

I loved the sex-positive nature of this book. Forty-year-old women fall in love with younger men. Young girls talk about orgasms in a way that does not make them shameful! LGBTQIA+ representation. Often, LGBTQIA+ characters are represented as one-dimensional. Brueggemann does a nice job giving all characters (even secondary ones) depth.

In short, I can't wait to read more by this author. I have already told my students to up it on their "to read" lists.

Phoebe is sick of being let down by love. After her mom leaves her behind to save those injured in war, a father who died before she was born, and a best friend who was head over heels with a boy who wouldn’t know how to locate a clitoris on a map, Phoebe is determined to devote her life to sologamy. Who needs a partner when there’s all of outer space to explore anyway?

When Phoebe accidentally lets one of her godmother’s designer cats into the street, she feels guilty enough pay back her godmother at the thrift shop she works at. There, in between GCSE exams, selling Easter cards at the last minute, and a signed Star Wars poster, Phoebe becomes more and more interested in fellow coworker named Emma. Who is Luke Skywalker in her instagram profile? Can Phoebe ever gain the courage to ask?

Love is for Losers is a hilarious book written in journal format. Phoebe’s teenage voice is strong within the text, making me laugh at multiple points which gained me looks from my coworkers when I read during a lunch break. It brings back the awkwardness of budding sexuality with the struggle of teenage hormones, important school exams, and absentee parents. Phoebe struggles to let people into her life but the reader sees her growth by the end of the novel. I’ve seen a few reviews that don’t like how grumpy and “edgy” Phoebe is, but I remember who I was at fifteen and thought it was spot on. The sex positivity from teenagers did not bother me, and while the discussion around a character with down syndrome was a little on the nose, I think it was handled well.

I do wish the plot didn’t take so long to get started, and there were so many names at first that I had to pause to remember who was who even when I was nearly fifty pages towards the end. I wish we could have a stronger resolution between Phoebe and her mom as well, but the relationship between Phoebe and her godmother drove the concept of a “chosen family” home, where Phoebe finds that it’s ok to let people who care about you in, even if they’re not blood related. Maybe love isn’t for losers after all.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of #loveisforlosers