Happy #PubDay to Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales 📖💗. After I read (and loved!) Only Mostly Devastated, I knew I had to get my hands on this one... and it did NOT disappoint!
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Darcy gives anonymous relationship advice to her classmates who leave her letters in locker 89 and she thinks she has it all figured out. Until Brougham, the swim team hottie, discovers her taking the letters from the locker one day. In exchange for his silence and a cool sum of money, Darcy offers to give him one on one relationship tutoring. And what could possibly go wrong? Especially since Darcy is in love with her best friend Brooke and not at all interested in Brougham.
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This book is cute, timely, relevant and full of great representation and I highly recommend checking it out. Sophie Gonzales does it again! 🥰🙌🎉.

THIS IS AN AMAZON BOOK. I loved it so much it has amazing bi rep and queer rep in general. I love the plot twist and all the characters. Darcy is an amazing characters and I related to her a lot. I love her, ALSO ALEXANDER is OMG I love him.
Probably one of my favorite reads of this month.

Happy release day to this actually perfect book! Despite the name, Perfect on Paper is literally perfect on paper. I originally picked this book up because I heard twitter murmurs of casual trans rep. And there is! Plus, it's handled fantastically! Not only that, but I got to meet Darcy, a bisexual main character who has a crush on her lesbian best friend and a new boy in school. After he catches her working on her anonymous relationship advice pseudo-company, she agrees to help him get back his ex. She didn't agree to falling for him, too.

AHHHH. There's so much good rep in this book. Sophie Gonzalez handles everything so perfect and beautifully, and as a bi reader, Darcy made me feel so elated and happy. As a trans reader, Darcy's sister made me feel so elated and happy. As an everything reader, this book made me feel so elated and happy.

Even though this book was short, it had such a good grip on the romance and plot, and it never felt like it was moving too fast or slow. I really loved all the characters, though I have a super soft spot for Darcy, which is really saying something because the main protagonist is almost never my favorite. This book was seriously one of the best things I've read in awhile and it was just some really good queer fun.

I've been sitting on Only Mostly Devastated, but I know after this I'll definitely have to pick it up. Please read this book!!

This book was SO CUTE. It was relatively light, fluffy, and just overall super cute. A sarcastic know it all and a secret sunshine boy. What more can you want!

I absolutely adore Darcy as a main character. She was sarcastic and had a bit of a smart mouth and was a perfect foil for Brougham who was stoic and a slight grump. Their banter was top notch. I'd read 100 more books about them.

Each chapter starts with a letter sent to Locker 89 and Darcy's response and a lot of the advice was actually really good and thoughtful. While they're almost all about romantic relationships, they cover a broad array of relationship "problems" or identity concerns. One even went into depth about the definitions of aromatic and asexual which was A+!

This book has a ton of LGBTQ representation. The school's Queer and Questioning club has: bisexuals, lesbians, gay men, pansexuals, non-binary individuals, and someone on the ace spectrum (they are not sure where they identify). Darcy's sister is trans and was definitely one of my favorite side characters. It was nice to see a trans character where their being trans was not ~the point~. I also really appreciated the scene in which internalized biphobia was discussed at the Q&Q club. It had me in tears.

I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone, especially those looking for a fun romance with lots of diversity.

This was a really fun, diverse, sweet YA romance that took some very real seeming teens and crafted a wonderful story with them. The teens in this book act like teens, sometimes making mature decisions and sometimes making terrible teenage decisions or not thinking through the implications of their actions. Main character Darcy knows a lot about the theories of relationships and often gives great advice to her fellow teens (anonymously), but is still struggling with her own personal relationships. This was very enjoyable and addressed a lot of issues that aren't only applicable to teens.

This book is the type of book I needed at 16/17 so I am so glad it exists now. The representation is astounding and really inclusive of the world we live in today. Spoiler alert, not everyone is cis and straight and authors should start realizing that when they write books. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Darcy runs a secret love advice business out of Locker 89, well secret until Alexander Brougham catches her. *swoon btw* He enlists Darcy’s help to get his gf back meanwhile Darcy is hopelessly in love with her best friend Brooke. Of course, things go awry and feelings get hurt but in just over 300 pages this book packs a lot in it!! Guys, the ending of this book made me cry tears of happiness for the talk of internalized biphobia which is a HUGE problem in the bi community myself included.

Personal note: I’d really like my cis straight friends to understand something and be mindful when talking to their bi friends and family, BEING BI DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE HALF STRAIGHT AND HALF GAY. YOU ARE 100% BI. There now that we got that out of the way. I felt like a fraud claiming that I was bi because I have only dated men, I felt I didn’t have the right. But I do. I am bi no matter if I only date men, or if I only date women. You can be bi and never have an experience with someone from the same gender. @sophiegonzales handles internalized biphobia SO WELL in this book and it felt like her characters were talking to me through Darcy telling me I was still queer. I define my sexuality, it is mine. No one else can do that for me. I AM BI AND I AM PROUD! I will thank Perfect On Paper, Darcy, Brooke, Ray, Finn, and of course Sophie Gonzales for giving me this book and helping me understand myself. An ULTIMATE thank you to Netgalley and the publishers to let me read this early and write this review on the books birthday. Oh and… 5 AMAZING STARS!!!

I read Sophie Gonzales' #OnlyMostlyDevastated in September, and so as soon as I heard her new book was coming out in March 2021, I knew I needed to get a copy as soon as possible!! 

#PerfectonPaper is, simply put, YA perfection. This book has it all - representation, love, high school, friendships and frenemies, teen parties, divorce, parents who need to get with the times, and of course, some of the best representation I have ever seen in a YA story. Perfect on Paper follows Darcy, a bisexual teen who anonymously gives her classmates love advice using an abandoned locker (Locker 89) as a mailbox. She's secretly in love with her best friend, has a super cool older sister, and helps to run her school's LGBTQIA+ club. When another student, Alexander, catches her retrieving letters out of Locker 89, he promises to keep her secret if she'll help him get his ex-girlfriend back.

I loved pretty much everything about this one - the writing, the setting, the main and side characters, and the relationships that all of them build. Gonzales captured the essence of high school in this book and I enjoyed every single moment of it. This book gives LGBTQIA+ characters a strong voice and confronts the hardships of bisexuality head on. Gonzales didn't shy away from being open and honest in this book, and she dealt with more difficult issues with a strongly written story that grabbed me right from the start!

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for my copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Darcy is the anonymous dating guru of her high school. Her classmates slip their relationship questions into Locker 89 to get her advice. When Brougham, the popular hot jock, discovers Darcy is behind Locker 89, he hires her to help him get his ex back. To protect her secret, Darcy agrees. What could go wrong?

Of course, almost everything goes wrong! Darcy is a hot mess in the best way; she gives great advice but doesn't apply her wisdom to her own life. She has good intentions but is flawed in her execution. She does her best to correct her mistakes, though. I also enjoyed seeing her navigate her crush on her best friend and move on to find a rewarding relationship with someone else.

There's so much to love in Perfect on Paper, but here are a few of my highlights:
-- The sibling relationship between Darcy & Ainsley
-- Brougham! He seems like a jerk at first, but he's a genuinely good guy
-- Sassy banter between all of the characters
-- Good relationship advice in Darcy's responses to her classmates (e.g., setting boundaries, the importance of communication, managing different relationship styles, etc.)
-- Likable characters

I really enjoyed Perfect on Paper. It is such a fun read because the characters and events are so realistic. Plus, I loved the LGBTQ+ representation. The author handles the topics of sexuality and identity thoughtfully and insightfully. I hope you enjoy this delightful story of identity, acceptance, relationships, and friendship as much as I did!

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for a digital copy to read and enjoy. This voluntary review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

This was super cute! Between the cover (love an orange-y cover) and the synopsis, I was instantly intrigued. I loved seeing such diverse characters - this was the kind of story I wanted from Hot Dog Girl and didn't get. Darcy is in no way perfect, and she definitely does some sketchy things, but she owns up to them and there is fall out for them. Darcy helping Alexander Broughman showed off how our first impressions of people (like the one you'd get from an anonymous letter) aren't always the whole story, and I loved seeing her interact with the rest of the Q&Q club - the scene about Bi-Erasure and and is she queer enough while she's liking a boy questioning was so important. As someone who has been married for almost 12 years to someone of the opposite gender, but is definitely still Queer, it's something I've run into in conversations with peers in the past, and it had me so excited to see it addressed here. It was just overall a cute, fun read, and I definitely recommend it!

Only Mostly Devastated was one of my top reads of 2020, so I was super excited to be able to read Perfect on Paper in advance. While I didn’t love it quite as much as OMD, it’s still a fantastic read that I would highly recommend.

I loved the conversations around gender and sexuality, they felt incredibly real and were very well-written. I felt Darcy experienced a whole lot of growth from the beginning to the end of the book, and it was a joy to witness. Her and Brougham’s banter was also super fun and of course, as you would expect from a Sophie Gonzales novel, this book was chalk full of laugh-out-loud moments!

If I tried, I could not describe a book that was so perfectly made for me.
Snarky main character? Check
An *also* snarky love interest (who also just really needs a hug)? Check
A good look at relationships, friendships, family, and the feelings that come with? Check
AMAZING BI REP??? CHECK

Darcy Phillips has been giving out relationship advice anonymously through locker 89 for years when she’s caught by Alexander Brougham. In exchange for keeping her secret, he recruits her to help him get his ex-girlfriend back. Darcy needs to keep this from getting out, specifically to her best friend (and the girl she’s in love with) so she agrees.
First of all, Darcy? If I was still a teenager I’d want her to be my best friend (possibly because our humor lines up very neatly lol). She was so funny and had me laughing the entire time I was reading. And she’s very unapologetically bi. Even as she struggles with her feelings for Brougham and what her bisexuality means for her, for her relationships, and her place within the queer community, Darcy knows who she is.
Perfect on Paper has one of the most validating conversations on being bisexual in the queer community I have ever read and it made me cry (but in the best way). And a special shout out for the m/f couple bi rep because that is something I often find lacking in the queer books I read and I loved them together.

This entire book is boldly queer and I loved every aspect. From Darcy herself to the side characters, this story is a love letter to the queer community and I will be recommending it to everyone I know.

Loved this book! It was written so well and was really moving. I thought it explored complex topics well and with great sensitivity. Plus, it was super cute! Highly recommend.

This book was absolutely incredible. I expected to love it but nothing could have prepared me for how much this book would mean for me. It's definitely my new favorite YA contemporary of all time.
It's a story about Darcy, a bisexual girl who gives great relationship advice through anonymous letters but has a messy/non-existent love life herself. I was immediately charmed by the voice of the book and super invested in Darcy. Then she makes a deal with Brougham to help him get his ex back and... let's just say, a lot of shit goes down.
I was in love with the main characters and rooted for them so fucking hard since the very beginning. The book was such a quick read and it was filled with so many good vibes, and I loved the relationship advice parts of it so much as well. But that's just the very surface of it all.
This book is a m/f romance but Darcy is bisexual and it has a lot of queer rep within side characters as well which is completely casual and I adored every bit of it. She has an amazing sister, Ainsley, who is trans, then a best friend who's a lesbian, and a lot of other queer characters. There were some really fucking amazing conversations about bisexuality that made me cry my eyes out. And just... casual queer rep in YA contemporary is so fucking amazing, so needed and wonderful. It was everything.
So, I can't put into words how much this book took over my heart. How it wrapped me in a hug. I cried four times and it wasn't just tearing up, I was legit CRYING and I just wanted to give the main characters such a big hug.
So just, do yourself a favor and read this beautiful, queer, emotional, real book. You're not gonna regret it.

Darcy has been using Locker 89 to anonymously provide relationship advice to her prep school peers for a price. They leave letters and a little cash in the locker and she emails them guidance that almost always works (and it's not her fault if she wasn't given all the information, right?). When her classmate Alexander Brougham catches Darcy picking up the letters from Locker 89, they reach an agreement: she'll help him get his ex-girlfriend back for a generous fee and he won't tell anyone her secret. But if the school finds out Darcy is behind Locker 89, her best friend and crush Brooke might never speak to her again. Although she's been as impartial as possible with most relationship advice, she wasn't neutral when Brooke sought advice from the locker.

I absolutely adored Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales! The relationship between Darcy and her sister Ainsley (who is trans, complex, and totally amazing) is one of the highlights of this story! They're definitely two of my favorite literary siblings at this point. I also loved the variety of queer representation in this one! No one felt like a stereotype to me. Darcy is a total bisexual disaster, but she's so easy to relate to and enjoy. Brougham is completely loveable and I honestly just wanted to give him a hug and tell him it'd be okay for most of the book. One of my biggest complaints about books is often that the characters don't feel complex and three dimensional. That's not the case at all in Perfect on Paper. The characters all felt so real and relatable! They also face the consequences of their actions, which is nice. I'd highly recommend this book to literally anyone because it's cute, complex, romantic, and perfectly queer!

I dont know anything about the authors past work but I absolutely loved everything about this book! It was so good! It had all kinds of representation in it. It was funny and sweet. I dont know how many times I found myself smiling while i read this and even wanting to cry. The characters were real, messy and flawed which made them even more believable. This book had such a diverse cast of sexualities and gender identities and it was shown in a positive way. The storyline was simply fantastic! There most definitely should be more books like this for teens. I truly loved and enjoyed every second of this book. I really recommend this! To be honest I'd love to see this as a movie someday.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for my copy to read and review.

In Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales, protagonist Darcy Phillips has a secret - she gives anonymous advice to the lovelorn of her private school. She also has a crush on her best friend, Brooke, though she's afraid to act on it. One afternoon, as she's collecting the stash of letters from their "mailbox" - a locker she's mysteriously deleted from record so it won't be assigned - she's busted by classmate Alexander Brougham.

In exchange for keeping her secret, Brougham has a price - he wants Darcy to help him win back his ex-girlfriend. No problem, right? It's what she does - gives advice to the lovelorn. But she can't stand the guy. Right?

This book was so well crafted that I could not put it down. I loved the relationships Gonzales painted with a wonderful cast of characters - Darcy, her sister Ainsley, her parents, her friend group, plus Brougham and his friend group. Each character felt fully fleshed and real, and the twists and turns of the plot were - okay, geeky pun - perfect on paper. This was a fun story involving a cast of LGBQTIA that were rich and satisfying.

Definitely a 2021 favorite!

Darcy loves to help people with their relationships, despite never being in a relationship herself. On a whim—and to make some extra cash—she sets up an anonymous love advice by way of an abandoned locker at school. Besides her sister, no one knows it's her—until she gets caught by senior swimming star, Alexander Brougham. So that he keeps her identity a secret, she agrees to help him win his ex-girlfriend back. Things start to go awry as Darcy lets her personal feelings get in the way of her anonymous advice when her best friend—and biggest crush—gets a girlfriend.

I really loved this, and not just because a date scene takes place at Disneyland! This is an inclusive and well-represented story about friendship, love, and when to know if you can judge a person by their advice-seeking note. Right off the bat, Darcy and Brougham have incredible chemistry and banter. They challenge each other and don't back down when questioned on their beliefs. The blossoming of their relationship felt really genuine and authentic. I loved the relationship Darcy had with her sister Ainsley. I can't wait until we get to the point where I'm not surprised when the fact that she's trans isn't made into a plot point; it's still something I note.

This a really important queer book that explores the struggle and stigma that comes from identifying as bisexual. Cis and queer people seem to feel very strongly about bisexuality and its role in the queer community—almost as if there is an internalized biphobia. People can feel that they aren't queer enough, or on the contrary, not straight enough. Just because someone who identifies as bi dates—or even marries—someone of the opposite sex, doesn't make them any less bi. This book opened up a really great conversation through Darcy's own internalized questioning. A great companion book to this would be Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Darcy runs a secret business. She's willing to give anyone anonymous relationship advice for the right price, so long as they leave a letter in locker 89. This works out pretty well for her, until the worst person possible, Alexander, catches her accessing locker 89 one day. His price for staying silent? Darcy must help Alexander rekindle his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Despite the blackmail, Darcy has no choice but to go along, because if the identity behind locker 89 comes to light, Darcy may lose her best friend Brooke forever, and other aspects of her relationship business could bring shame or scorn down on her. She's already helped many others with their relationships, so what's one more, even if it is for loathsome Alexander?

One of my favorite YA reads from last year was Only Mostly Devastated, so when I saw that Sophie Gonzalez was coming out with another book, I couldn't hit that request button fast enough! Sophie discussed some of the pushback she received after Only Mostly Devastated was published, all because bisexual characters wound up in a M/F relationship. Because of this pushback, Sophie decided to double down with a story that focuses on another bisexual M/F pairing and examines the prejudices that can arise from such a pairing, with Darcy herself being bisexual and being concerned with seeming less queer because she might want to date a boy instead of a girl. Darcy secretly is infatuated with her best friend, Brooke, but doesn't want to tell her, but along the way while helping Alexander, well, things get more complicated.

I always enjoy enemies-to-lovers stories, and Perfect on Paper is yet another great one. I love the focus on an often-overlooked queer pairing, the examination of prejudices surrounding that pairing, and of course, the characters were really great and funny. Sophie Gonzalez has written an important, table-turning book that sheds light and discussion on biphobia within the queer community. Read this one as soon as you can!

I loved this book! Darcy is a super smart student at a private high school, where she secretly runs a romance advice service through an unclaimed locker, locker 89. She has run the service for years, and she has a 95% success rate (people can write in if her advice didn't work, and can even get a refund of their 10 bucks). Right at the beginning of the book, she gets caught checking the locker for the first time, and one of her classmates, Alexander Brougham (just called Brougham) hires her to give him one-on-one help to get his ex-girlfriend back. They start working together and form a begrudging friendship. Darcy's got a lot of other stuff going on, too, bouncing between her divorced parents (neither of which seem to have much time for her), participating in the Queer & Questioning club at school, and being in love with her best friend, Brooke. Over the course of the book, Darcy helps a lot of people with her advice, makes some really epically bad decisions, and struggles with some internalized biphobia as she worries about what it means for her queer identity if she enters into a relationship with a guy. I loved Darcy and her obsession with advice (especially romantic advice) and I feel like her feelings and decisions all seemed very realistic to me, and I was really happy about who she ended up with romantically (it would have been really inauthentic any other way, I think). I'd love to read more Sophie Gonzales!

Not gonna lie, "if Sophie publishes a book, Ea reads it immediately" is just how it's gonna be from now on. I adored Only Mostly Devastated and I loved Perfect on Paper. Askdfgsdnjka.

I have a very soft spot for queer YA rom-coms, and this hits the spot. As much as I found Darcy kinda great (even when she messed up (actually especially when she messed up because she really did what she could to right her wrongs and while it wasn't perfect, it just made me really happy to see her at least try, especially when it got uncomfortable)) what really stood out to me what the way bisexuality and, in particular, internalised biphobia was handled; carefully, delicately, and realistically. Darcy is bi, and she's just as goddamn bi whether the book's romantic aspect is f/f or f/m. And that's just so goddamn important so see represented and I'm just so delighted with this. <3

If that's not enough to entice you, the wonderful side characters (who, I must add, bring a whole bunch of extra queer rep to the table but still have personalities beyond their sexuality!! amazing!!), beyond supportive family relations (Darcy's relationship with her mum and sister? *chef's kiss*) and the sheer DELIGHT that is Darcy and Brougham's banter? Y'all. So good.
So good.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.