A teen makes a startling discovery after signing up to get her DNA sequenced. As she grapples with the results, a number of other secrets come to light. Through it all, the teen will need to decide what family and friendship really mean to her. Author Emma Lord brings to life her complicated characters with minor hiccups in the endearing novel You Have A Match.

In the little Seattle suburb of Shoreline, Abby Day is trying to deal with reality. Before her junior year of high school started, her grandfather, Poppy, died, causing Abby’s grades to slide. Her parents are freaking out and have scheduled Abby for every tutoring and prep session available.

Abby feels like she doesn’t have time to breathe. She also doesn’t have time for her photography anymore, a passion she shared with Poppy. Abby wishes she could explain to her mom and dad that if she could just take pictures, she’d actually do better in school. She can’t tell them that, though; they’ve rearranged their busy legal careers so someone is always at home with her and her brothers. Poppy used to take care of them. Now her parents are around all the time, and it’s driving Abby insane.

Her best friends, Leo and Connie, make life a little more bearable. Of course, things have been awkward with Leo after the BEI, otherwise known as the Big Embarrassing Incident, where Abby misread some signals. Now she can’t be her normal, goofy, regular skateboarding self around Leo.

When a class at school sparks a conversation about family trees, then, it seems like the good old days when Abby and Connie practically dare Leo to take a DNA sequencing test. Because he and his sister were adopted, he’s always been curious about his heritage. In a bid of solidarity, all three friends spit into vials from their kits and mail them off.

Leo doesn’t get the answers he was looking for, but Abby gets some she didn’t even know existed. Apparently, she has a sister—a full-blooded sister—who lives in the area and is only a year-and-a-half older than her. Worse, when Abby looks up her new sister, Savannah “Savvy” Tully, online, she discovers that her new sibling is an Instagram influencer for the personal health industry. She’s put-together, well-heeled, and has a mad number of followers. She’s the exact opposite of Abby.

The girls meet, wary of one another and full of questions. Why would Abby’s parents give Savvy up? How do their parents know one another? Why didn’t they tell the girls about Savvy’s adoption?

The only way to get any answers, they decide, is to execute a plan that involves summer camp and hacking into parental email accounts. As Abby begins to spend more time with Savvy, she learns that the “what ifs” life throws at a person can sometimes become the “what nows.” Neither of those, she discovers, are bad things.

Author Emma Lord builds characters who are real and refreshing. Abby shares her uncertainty about Leo after the BEI proving how teens, just like adults, care so deeply about their friendships that they’re not willing to risk them for something else, even if that results in a broken heart. Lord does a great job, too, juxtaposing Abby’s lack of confidence with Savvy’s cool and collected manner. Even when the girls get into scrapes together, Savvy manages to pull herself together within moments.

If the book can be faulted anywhere, it’s in leaving the secondary characters less developed. Abby talks often about her three brothers, but readers don’t really spend any time with them. It’s a testament to Lord’s careful crafting that readers will still care about Abby’s brothers, even when they’re almost always off the page. A love interest for Savvy surprises her at camp, but, again, what’s known about the relationship is what Savvy shares. The full impact of the unfolding events doesn’t land nearly as much as they might have if readers had more information. Even the other best friend, Connie, gets relegated to the background once Abby arrives at camp.

Despite all this, the book is warm, funny, and offers a slow romantic burn that will make readers’ toes curl with delight. Those who like books about young love and finding one’s identity all in the same summer will enjoy this one. I recommend readers Bookmark You Have A Match.

This was a cute YA book reminiscent of The Parent Trap. The camp setting was fun! The characters were well rounded and relatable. The writing was witty and at times laugh out loud funny. You Have A Match became a bit unrealistic at times which was a bit disappointing. Overall, it was a sweet book and a fun setting!

You Have a Match is a fun take on the Parent Trap storyline and the classic summer camp setting, both nostalgic and fresh, and I tore through it in one afternoon. I didn't love this quite as much as I loved the absolutely delightful Tweet Cute, which is one of my favorite YA novels of 2020, but it is the same brand of charming, quirky, funny contemporary YA. Emma Lord is quickly becoming a new favorite writer for this, especially because she is good at writing millennial/gen z stories when I think a lot of writers still struggle with this. She uses social media and pop culture pretty well without hitting us over the head with them, and I appreciate how she worked in the role of social media and expectations around it. Similarly, it was nice to see Abby's struggles with school pressures, part of why she was a fun, interesting character. While she could be frustrating at times, I loved watching her relationship with her sister grow, as well as all of the other relationships (friends, family, and romantic) worked into the book - it wasn't focused only on her sister and her love interest.

It's like YA version of THE PARENT TRAP but with diversity and romance.

Tropes: family secrets. found family, friendship, best friends to lovers, sisterhood, summer camp... and pranks!

Plot: When a sixteen-year-old Abby Day signs up for a DNA test, she discovers that she has a match: a full-blooded secret sister that is only a year and a half older than Abby herself. Savvy is an Instagram star and a junior councelor at Camp Reynolds; she invites Abby to come to camp with her, so they can get to know each other and find out why their parents gave Savvy up for adoption.

(This summer camp also preps kids for the SATs, so Abby's parents were trying to convince her to go there even before she met Savvy.)

Setting: Abby lives in Shoreline, Washington. Her sister, Savvy, lives in Medina, just half an hour away.

Diversity: Leo and his sister were born in Philippines and adopted by American parents. There are several queer characters in this book.

I like this book so much that I can't even. It's one of these books that make you forget about everything else. A book that makes you smile. A book that inspires you to become a better person. It's mostly about family, friendship, and forgiveness. It's about the lack of communication and the fear that you're not good enough. It's about lies and secrets, and about the courage to give someone you love a chance to reject you.

I love these characters so much! All of them: Abby, Savvy, their parents, their little brothers, Leo, Connie, Mickey, Finn, dog Rufus...

I like the pros and Connies list!

I love the female friendships in this book. It's so refreshing to read a book about girls who aren't mean. Girls who pass the Bechdel-Wallace test. Girls who are there for each other.

Even though the central dramatic question of this novel is "why did their parents give Savvy up for adoption?", I was more anxious to find out whether Abby and Leo will be together or not! Leo is one of the best YA characters ever. He is gentle, kind, and supportive. He puts the needs of others first. He loves cooking. He encourages Abby to follow her dreams. He believes in her even when she doesn't believe in herself. Abby is reckless and impulsive, she loves photography and skateboarding, and she will climb anywhere to get a great shot. What I'm trying to say is: she gets hurt quite often. And Leo... well, he remembers all of her injuries, all of her scars. Swoon. So yeah, he is way better than a typical brooding YA hero.

The descriptions were so vivid that I could actually feel Abby's embrassment whenever she thought about the Big Embarassing Incident. Abby, Connie, and Leo are best friends. They have known each other since like diapers, but everything changes when Abby falls in love with Leo. It's awkward and mortifying, and... heartwarming. Adorable.

Abby is such a wonderful heroine! I love how driven she is. I mean, she climbs the trees with her camera just to get a good picture of a landscape. I wish I could be so brave. And I wish I could be such a good friend. To be honest, it's very hard for me to forgive people who let me down. People who lie. And reading this book reminded me how important it is to forgive. To talk. To listen. To try to fix.

I wish I had read that book when I was sixteen.
This novel is even better than TWEET CUTE!

E-galley was provided by NetGalley for an honest review. Thank you so much!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of "You Have a Match" by Emma Lord. I LOVED Lord's "Tweet Cute," which came out earlier this year, so I was really excited for her next book and I was not disappointed. Abby was such a great, relatable heroine with different flaws than you see in many YA heroines, which was so refreshing. I loved the many different relationships that were focused on in this book, not just romance but parent/child, siblings, friends—all of them got pretty equal page time and were many-faceted and nuanced. I also adored the slight "Parent Trap" vibe from the whole newly discovered sister at summer camp thing. I'm not sure whether or not it was intentional, but it gave me a lot of nostalgia. The tone was quirky and funny but also heartfelt and, once again, I highly recommend Emma Lord. Go discover her now!

This was a really cute YA romance that salt with more than just the main romance. My favorite part of the story was the growing sibling relationship between the main character and her newly discovered sister. The romance with Leo was also really cute.

At the end of her junior year, Abby is struggling. Her beloved grandad recently passed, her parents are scheduling her into an intense series of classes to her her grades up, her best friend doesn’t like her back "in that way", and there’s no time for her passion, photography.

Then a DNA test reveals she has an older sister she’s never met. Fast forward through some excellent teenage highjinks and now the secret sisters are battling their way through an academic summer camp without the knowledge of either set of parents.

Pretty perfect YA fodder right here. There’s tortured teenage romance, but it’s certainly not the only thing. Misunderstandings between parents and children. Betrayal of friendships and forgiveness. A dose of teens and technology (that felt more more realistic than the use of Twitter in Tweet Cute). It’s set in summer camp which makes room for all sorts of unsupervised tomfoolery. The secondary characters are interesting and engaging in their own right, but the stars of the show are definitely sisters Savvy and Abby.

I enjoyed reading it, and it will be an excellent purchase for any high school library looking for mild teenage romances. Mature middle schoolers who are thirsty for romances will enjoy this. Librarians, be warned there’s a sprinkling of “F words”, so it may not be appropriate for every audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and #yalsa20 for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very interesting premise. Abby finds out she has a sister through DNA testing and lots of things start to go sideways when she meets up with said sister at a summer camp. She's also dealing with her crush, Leo, her parents' secrets, and questions about her future.

This was a fun read, but I wasn't really happy with her parents' explanation about what happened with her sister. I guess I just wasn't expecting that. Overall enjoyable.

This book was ADORABLE!! Take The Parent Trap and multiply it by 2, and you're somewhere in the neighborhood of the vibes of this book. I loved Abby and Savvy's dynamic as they fall into sisterhood and the commentary on grief, control, and making amends. It can be a bit tropey with Abby and Leo but I'm willing to set that aside just because they're 2 pure cinnamon rolls who deserve to be together. This a wholesome YA romance novel that I would read again in a heartbeat.

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a cute YA contemporary that doesn’t take romance as its main plotline - it is funny at times, sweet at times and cute YA story - worth reading.

<b>2.75 stars!</b>
I really, really just couldn’t get into this book. Like at all. I really wanted to like it because Emma’s debut was a great first book but this one fell short to me.

THE PLOT:
Okay, so I originally saw the description and was all over it. Secret sister? Camp? yes please. But this book felt overly forced and Abby’s reaction to finding out she had a sister was so bizarre to me. She just took it so well. I didn’t like the camp set up either. Savvy was bossy and overbearing and I couldn’t stand the “romance” between Abby and Leo. I understood the direction Emma was going in but this book just felt very...<i>young</i> to me.
THE CHARACTERS:
I didn’t really like anyone. Abby was okay, Savvy just infuriated me and I didn’t care for any of our side characters either. Nobody stood out.
THE PACING:
This was one of my biggest issues because this book dragged. I feel like 60% of this book was filler and the rest the plot happened it. I just couldn’t get into it and it’s a miracle I finished the book.

Overall, this wasn’t a book for me. I really wanted to like it and I love the cover & Emma’s writing but this wasn’t for me.
<i>I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Emm Lord does it again. This novel was hilarious, emotional, and just absolutely perfect. I love the characters and I found myself cheering for each and every one of them. The parent trap summer camp vibes were everything I never knew I needed in a book and you better believe I’m going to be shouting about this one for a long time to come. Thank you netgalley and Wednesday books for my copy!

4.5/5 stars

I fell in love with Emma Lord's novel 'Tweet Cute' and I was worried that this wouldn't live up to that, but I was pleasantly surprised that You Have a Match was about as amazing as I hoped.

I was immediately drawn into the story from the beginning, it really delves right into the plot as Abby decides to take a DNA test to morally support her friend and then finds out she has a sister, turning her world upside down. I adored reading about the ups and downs of their relationship, how hard it is placing a new person in your life, especially when that person is so different and yet so similar to who you are. Their antics and pranks at camp were so funny, but also slightly saddening as you could see Abby and Savvy both really wanted to have a good relationship but didn't know how to manoeuvre their dynamic. The book moved from light-hearted scenes to really emotional ones super well, keeping it fun while still moving along the plot.

The whole story with their parents was super interesting to read and watch it unfold. It was so much more drama than I expected, but also so much sadder and heart-wrenching than I thought it would be too. I sympathised with both parties, and I really loved the hopeful happy ending. Emma Lord is super talented at making family dramas so fascinating and sweet and heartfelt.

And the romance was beautiful! Usually miscommunication is something I easily get annoyed about, but Abby's conflict avoidance was something so relatable that I understood why she didn't follow up on her crush on Leo, and explained a lot of her decisions.

All in all I'm adding Emma Lord to this list of authors who I will always read.

I read Tweet Cute earlier this year and loved it, so when I heard about You Have a Match I moved it up to the top of my TBR and have been anxiously awaiting it.

This book is fantastic! I loved all the characters but felt especially connected to Abby. I was so invested in her, her photography journey, and her life. I absolutely loved her. I really loved all of the characters as well.

I love stories that focus on either family relationships or friendships and You Have a Match definitely has a focus on family relationships and it was done so well. I also loved the romance! I'm such a sucker for the friends-to-lovers trope and Emma Lord excels at it.

I highly recommend this book!

Well I'm going to add Emma Lord to the list of authors that I'll read no matter what. It's my second this year, and I don't know what I'm going to do next year when I have nothing to expect from Emma.
This book was about family and friends, and how at the end of the Day ;), it's all one and the same. I loved it, stories like these, about families, it makes me very emotional. I cried and laughed.

You Have a Match provided exactly the heartwarming serotonin boost I was looking for. I read Tweet Cute earlier in the year but didn't love it as much as I'd hoped, so I had some reservations about picking up You Have a Match. However, I absolutely adored the book and I'm so glad I decided to give it a chance! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC!

I was immediately drawn in by the plot and hardly wanted to put the book down to do anything else! You Have a Match felt much more cohesive and natural to me than Tweet Cute did–I think the dialogue flowed better, as did the progression of the story. You Have a Match took me through the spectrum of human emotion, but never felt rushed or forced as it covered territory that ranged from lighthearted to devastating and in between. I found the writing to be much more enjoyable, too; there were some truly lovely lines that stood out, particularly in the way that they were able to create such vivid mental pictures. The banter in the book was fun and clever, and as a pun-lover myself, I enjoyed the sometimes cheesy yet cute puns throughout. While it is a romance, I'm glad that the book took time to focus on other important and meaningful relationships as well–friendship, parent-child, and sibling bonds. A strongly developed friendship is key to my enjoyment of the friends to lovers trope, and Emma Lord did not disappoint!

A highlight of the novel was reading how the friendship/relationship dynamics shifted and changed as the plot progressed. The ensemble cast of characters is complex and multilayered, with flaws and anxieties that feel authentic to the experience of being at that stage in life (16-18 years old). It was often a genuine joy to read interactions between characters, especially Abby and Leo and Abby and Savvy. Even though the scenes were fewer, I also deeply loved the friendship between Leo and Mickey. Admittedly, the constant misunderstandings/lack of communication with the main ship made me wanted to scream at times, but it truly is about the yearning, and it made the ending all the more satisfying. When I wasn't screaming, stressing, or tearing up, I was almost always smiling (sometimes a combination of the above!). This is such a sweet and enjoyable read that also tackles some important issues (friendship, identity, family, worries about the future). I'm excited to follow Emma Lord's work in the future, and I can't wait for more people to be able to enjoy this book!

trigger/content warnings: grief, anxiety, injury (mild), death of a family member,

I had such a fun time reading You Have A Match. I loved Abby and her journey so much. The summer camp setting was so fun, and I loved the tiny bit of mystery of how Savvy was her sister, even though they didn't know each other existed.

This book was heartwarming and such a quick read. I can't wait to have a finished copy once it comes out in January! Emma Lord has done it again with her fun dialogue and always making me hungry

Emma Lord's second novel, You Have a Match is filled with everything I loved about Tweet Cute, and more. I felt like the pacing was smooth, and I really liked how the main "mystery" was revealed in parts. Abby and Leo's pining, slow-burn, friends to lovers relationship was everything that I wanted, and I loved reading about Savvy's relationship as well. But where You Have a Match shines isn't just through the romance, but more so, the familial bond between Abby and Savvy, between their parents - it's a story about love of all types. Overall, I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a good YA romance. Major thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the opportunity to review this.

This is no Tweet Cute but I love the role that instagram took place in this book.

I really love the sister relationship and i was engaged from the start to figure out the back story.

I felt the romance was forced. However, overall this was a good book to read.

I will be fearturing a book review closer to publication date and a listicle of YA Books that you should add to your TBR in 2021.

When Abby signs up for a DNA service with her friends Leo and Connie, she doesn't expect to get much from the results considering she and her three younger brothers live with their parents. So when she gets a message from a match who is 100% her sister, she is floored. Of course, she and her sister, Savannah, have to meet up. Savvy is a year and a half older than Abby, but Abby's parents never mentioned a daughter they gave up for adoption. And Savvy, while she knew she was adopted and that her bio parents had kids who were much younger than Savvy, have never heard of Abby. Parents, you have some 'splaining to do! But before Savvy and Abby can solve the mystery, Savvy has to leave to work at a summer camp-- the same summer camp Abby's parents are pressuring her to go to. So Abby goes, and the two sisters expect to spend the month figuring out. There are some wrenches-- the parental type, the boy/girl type, and the friendship type, but with some great character development, there are also all the answers that Abby and Savvy want.

Disclaimer: I ran a camp in Washington state that would have been, by car, about an hour from Camp Reynolds. I did not realize when I started this book that they were going to camp, let alone a camp in the PNW. That said, this book just about gave this former camp director a heart attack because of

A) All the unsupervised time these campers had. That's just asking for trouble.
B) There is a MAKEOUT ROCK!?!?!?!
C) Letting 18-year-old junior counselors decide what to make for the meals and having them "argue" about it the morning of or night before: psssht. Dude, that menu would have been planned in May, and that food ordered a month ago.
D) The fraternizing between junior counselor and regular counselors? Um NO! We don't need camp babies OR lawsuits!?!
E) The latent cell phone policy. Obviously Lord has never known the horrors of homesick campers who get ahold of a cell phone. And camp is supposed to be about disconnecting from the outside world!

I'm all for books that encourage teens to go to camp because I loved going to and working at camp. However, I do think that You Have a Match gives a big misrepresentation of what camp is like. So, grain of salt. That said, it feels a little far-fetched. The writing is good, the characterizations and character dynamism are good, but there is a bit too much "wow, what a coincidence." I understand that there is "movie/book magic," but even then it seems a bit far-fetched.

LGBTQIA+:
- Mickey and Savvy are lesbians.