Member Reviews
Even though the characters are at an age where they are getting prepared for college, the narrative was a little young for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.
One of the sweetest YA novels I’ve read in a long time. Loved the vibe of this music festival romance and the chemistry between the characters. Especially enjoyed all the clever nods to Coachella and YouTube culture!!
Romcoms and enemies-to-lovers are... Not really my thing. This book was included in an influencer kit, so I felt obligated to read it even though it's not my genre. The characters were relatable if not necessarily interesting or particularly novel - but the banter got to be a little too much for me (again, not my genre).
I will say that I loved the setting of the music festival and the questions of choice between friends (or lovers) who want what's best for you and family who don't always do the right things.
I am all about a fun read these days, and this one definitely fit the bill. I loved the live music backdrop, and the romance arc had me pulling hard for Andi and Jay.
This was super cute and this summer, we can all use super cute! This Is For Tonight definitely lifted my spirits and yay! for that!
This was an adorable read about content creators and college. I was, unfortunately, reading this at a time when I myself was going to college so the little details are foggy at best but I remember living for the summery feel and the characters are those you want to be your friends. I definitely would reread this one.
I love a good romcom that delves into deeper topics and this didn’t disappoint. I laughed, I teared up a bit and I most definitely enjoyed my time reading this.
I’d recommend to any lover of YA contemporary or anyone looking for a wholesome, sweet romcom!
Thank you so much for Netgalley and Swoon Reads for the opportunity to read and review this book. Trigger warnings for bullying and grief. If you are a social influencer but also someone who loves music festivals this book is for you. It has all of the different elements that you would expect from a young adult novel with the added social media influence. I loved most of the characters and I loved the discussion with social influence and how it can make a person money quick if they play the system correctly and how a lot of people do not want to work that way (I personally don't want to work that way). Plus I loved the atmosphere description of the festival also. I think my only issue with this book was that with a couple of the diversity aspects that were presented could have gone more in-depth or more researched to make it seem more real rather than just added just to be there. I think also I would have loved a solid ending other than the romance (like where did she end up going to college etc.) Overall, it was a fantastic book a lot of fun but I would have liked more depth. Because of these points, I have to give this a 4 out of 5 stars
Big thanks to the publisher for allowing me early access to this title! This in no way impacts my review.
Andy and her twin brother Jordan are the main characters of this story. Andi works on her crafting youtube and her brother is essentially a meat head. Jordan wins a basketball scholarship to a college but Andi is left to figure out how to make it on her own. Jordan gets them two tickets to a music festival and Andi decides to try and make some money by filming the bands and uploading them to YouTube.
Enter Jayden - the cute guy she meets but soon realizes is her rival. Jayden runs a pranking YouTube that Andi downright hates. Jaydens attempts to get to know and prove he isn't the guy behind the screen but his attempts are thwarted due to her judgment of who she thinks he is.
I really enjoyed this romance from SwoonReads! I think it perfectly touches on social media and influencer culture, YouTubers, podcasters, and more. It was.a fun and quick read and I really think most teens would enjoy this!
This Is for Tonight is a cute YA romance that takes place in the span of a few days. Although the burgeoning romance between Andi and Jay is the central focus of the story, it also touches on grief, family, and the inevitability of growing up. However, I wouldn't quite categorize it as a coming-of-age story. The elements are present but the exploration of the themes is surface level, making it a light and quick read. I enjoyed the book mostly for the light romance, the sense of place Patrick creates by setting it at a music festival, and a relatable protagonist. Overall, This Is for Tonight is an enjoyable read.
This is for Tonight follows Andi Kennedy, a girl who has her heart set on attending the same college as her twin brother but in order to do that, she needs money. She has a half formed plan of attending Cabazon, a music and art festival with the hopes of filming an epic video that will hopefully give her arts and crafts YouTube channel the push it needs in ordering for her to make some money! Once there she discovers a scavenger hunt, that if she wins, she will be able to interview a famous band and hopefully gain some traction on her channel. All of that goes awry when Jay Banker shows up, the last person she would have ever wanted to see...
Ok, I want to start this off by saying that I almost never ever read YA contemporaries like this so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I ended up really enjoying Andi and her story! From the cover( btw I love it) and the synopsis, this book would seem like a fun music filled contemporary, which it was, but there was also more depth to this then I was expecting.
While reading This is for Tonight, I felt like I really knew and understood Andi. She felt like a completely real and relatable character to me and I couldn’t help but love her quirky, goofy personality. She loved fiercely and felt strongly and felt like a typical high school going into college kind of teen and reminded me of my younger self. But Andi was also more then a fun loving teen, she was someone experiencing hard times trying to earn money to go where she thought she needed to be but in the end, she was just trying to find herself and that really resonated with me.
This was also a super fun read for me since I love music and also went to a ton of live shows myself as a teen. I just felt this whole story to be relatable and believable and I also love how it touch on the “influencer” type since that is very present in our world these days.
This is for Tonight definitely felt like a coming of age story that kept it on the lighter side so I could totally see it being really fun to read during the summer months. It was a fun quick read with a little bit of competition, music and a lot of spicy pizza!
CW: death of a parent, cancer
Jessica Patrick’s This Is For Tonight is a fun YA romance readers of all ages will be charmed by!
Andi Kennedy is desperate. She needs to make money for college, but sadly, funds are in very short supply. Andi had even launched a YouTube channel in the hope that she could monetize her videos and make a quick buck, but although she enjoys filming her crafting content, the much-hoped for injection of cash has failed to materialize. However, Andi refuses to be deterred. She has come up with a great plan which will provide her with the cash she so desperately needs – she will attend the Cabazon Valley Music and Arts Festival and will film a video with a world-famous band that will help launch her channel into the digital stratosphere. However, there is just one obstacle standing in her way: Jay Bankar.
Jay represents everything Andi loathes. He is the host of a popular prank channel with views Andi would kill for. He is also rude, obnoxious, arrogant and somebody Andi simply cannot stop herself from thinking about. Worse, Jay is what is standing between her and the interview with the immensely popular band she hopes to get on her channel which will get her the hits she is so desperate for. However, the more time she spends with Jay, the more she realizes that there is more to him than meets the eye – and that she is falling for him!
Forced to choose between competing for the interview with the band or the boy who has come to mean so much to her, will Andi make the right choice? Or will she be condemned to a future full of regret and heartache?
YA fans are going to be completely charmed by Jessica Patrick’s This Is For Tonight. The book has all the elements readers would expect from a YA romance, however, Jessica Patrick imbues her story with plenty of depth and nuance that makes This Is For Tonight a cut above the average YA fare.
Written with honesty, candor and flair, Jessica Patrick’s This Is For Tonight is a tale about first love, making your dreams come true and forging your own path that is fun, feel-good and hard to put down.
Crafting YouTuber Andi needs money to go to SCU (presumably the fictional USC) with her twin brother, the same school where her parents met. Unfortunately, she doesn’t win the scholarship and can’t afford the tuition since they’re still paying off her father’s medical bills 5 years after his death. (Universal healthcare, anyone?) So they come up with the idea of filming a video at the Cabazon Music Festival (Coachella in disguise) in the hopes it’ll go viral and raise the funds she needs. The problem is that she’ll have to change her vlogger focus if she wants the money to keep rolling in.
Jay Bankar has a hugely-successful YouTube channel that features him pranking people and being an all-around jerk and misogynist. When he and Andi meet the first night of the festival when he offers to help her set up her tent, the chemistry is instantaneous, that is, until she gets a good look at him in the light of the following day. She struggles to reconcile the nice guy with the vlogger she hates with a passion. As they begin to compete with each other in a scavenger hunt with the prize of interviewing the headliner band, one of the hottest in the country, she sees traces of that sweet guy hiding behind his sarcastic online persona. Can she believe him when he says it’s all an act, one designed to raise his own college funds? Is he worthy of her forgiveness after he disappoints her more than once, especially when she thinks about her father’s policy of “no second chances”?
Patrick’s debut novel will appeal to her internet-savvy, social media-obsessed teen audience. In addition to its enemies-to-lovers theme, it also explores sometimes rocky sibling relationships, the lingering grief of losing a parent, and the stress caused by a lack of funds which sometimes causes people to make questionable decisions, all set against the backdrop of a music festival. If you have teen patrons looking for a fun summer read, hand them this book. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Swoon Reads through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
I love YA, as most of you would know, but I also love the whole “Enemies-to-lovers” trope and out of all the YA books I’ve read in this trope, I actually liked very few, This is for Tonight being one fo them.
The story revolves around a teenager, Andi who has a Youtube Channel where she uploads crafting videos, and while she loves her small band of followers, she’s not exactly an Influencer. Her plan to go to her dream college with her twin relied on a scholarship which she was eventually declined and when her brother gets tickets to the famous Cabazon Valley Music and Arts Festival, she has one shot to turn her channel into something she can earn money with. At the festival, she meets Jay Bankar, who has his own Channel too but he pranks and insults people on it, and of course has a big following too. Andi hates everything that Jay stands for and does but has feels an unexpected (and really inconvenient) connection to him.
The book made us face so many important topics such as family, questioning your identity, grief and more and I think the author wrote them really well. Andi not only has to face with the possibility of not being able to go to her dream college with her twin, which has been their plan forever, but also face the anniversary of her dad’s death. I think the most important topic in the book might be identity because we live in a world where our lives revolve around social media and we all seem to be very different people on-screen where the whole world is watching, and off-screen where we are truly ourselves.
If you love YA Romance books that face real life issues then you’d love this. Even someone who loves music and the atmosphere that surrounds it would love this book because we get to see the whole Festival up close, what music concerts, etc are like in real life would absolutely love reading this.
Cute story. It was a fast read, but also a little too quick for my liking. I didn't feel like I really got to know the characters or their motivations because it was so short. It was a fun story though.
It's been a long time since I've read such a good contemporary story. I giggled and cried and felt all the feels... it's just an awesome book!
Andi needs money. She wants to go to the same school as her twin, she feels like she needs to keep him in check, but for that, she needs money & fast. She has a small crafting youtube channel, that doesn't bring that much money. Andi and her brother go to the music festival, she hopes she can film some kind of video that will make her go viral, but nothing feels right. The first night, when the brother ditches her, a hot strange help her. It's not until the next morning that she realized that it is Jay Banker. He has the worst prank channel and she hates him and his videos very, very much.
She joins a scavenger hunt, where the winner gets to interview a band, the interview that could blow up her channel. The only downside, Jay and his brother join it too.
Along the way, the more time she spends with him, the more she discovered that there is a lot more to him, that just that is shown on youtube and soon falls for him.
It's an awesomely swoon-worthy love story, but not just that, there is friendship, wishing for independence, and lots of growing up that happens over a very short time.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. It's intense, it's funny and romantic and oh so good. :)
Andi dreads the anniversary of the death of her father, and to make it worse, it seems like something bad happens that day every year on top of the emotional sadness. When her twin brother Jordan gets tickets to their father's favorite music festival that happens to fall on the dreaded day, Andi looks forward to creating new positive memories. What she never expected when heading to the festival was how intense her 3 day weekend would be and all the truths she would discover about herself along the way.
Overall I found this to be a fun, lighthearted, fast paced read that was easy to read and the perfect weekend escapism- it really felt like I was transported to a hot, sticky, gritty and perfectly wonderful outdoor music festival, it was all felt so real due to the level of details. The story took place basically over three days during a music festival, making the story more intense since it was such a short time frame. This was the perfect read for anyone who loves all things in the music experience, family issues, teen romance, going on an adventure to find yourself, social media and the world involving influencers and hashtags, the joy of crafting, standing up to bullies, and everything outdoor summer festivals. This Is For Tonight was a solid read nd I can't wait for what is next from this author.
Two things drew me to Jessica Patrick’s This Is for Tonight: the cover which gave me the vibes of the great movie about a rockband and its groupies, Almost Famous, and the fact that it took place at a music and arts festival. Since I’m not one moved to read a book because of its cover, this was pretty significant! Great cover!
Andi Kennedy, a crafts vlogger, and her twin brother Jordan are going to the world-famous Cabazon Valley music festival after Jordan gets two tickets from a friend. In tandem with that fantastic news is the news that Andi didn’t get the expected college scholarship to SCU where Jordan has received a baseball scholarship to go and now has to find a way to make money for tuition. A viral video at Cabazon might just be the answer if she can think of an idea.
On the first night of the festival, Andi meets a hot boy who helps her set up her tent when her brother deserts her for a girl. She and this boy click and she’s looking forward to seeing him again, maybe this time in the daylight when she can really see him and figure out why he seemed so familiar. The next morning Andi discovers via a selfie they took that her hero was none other than Jay Bankar, a video prankster, who she considers to be evil incarnate.
While I liked most of the characters (Jay’s dislikable brother, Dev being an expected exception), I was not an Andi fan. Like that old adage, actions speak louder than words, I never believed Jordan or Jay when they said how amazing Andi was because throughout the novel she moved from being exceedingly rude and nasty to drama queen clingy to hypocritical and judgy to un-self-aware via her actions. Despite being a self-proclaimed feminist, her main motives to going to SCU with her brother are to follow in the footsteps of her parents who met each other, their soulmates. Andi wants to meet her soulmate there too. Unfortunately, I would have liked to hear what she wanted to be and do with her life other than just being the other half in a relationship.
That was a vent. Now on to the good stuff.
There were some extremely cute scenes in This Is for Tonight. From the scene in which Jay helps Andi set up her tent to an impromptu craft video later in the novel are just great happy scenes. During the crafting video scene, I was just smiling away–I can’t give details, spoiler alert!
The novel is also filled with sage advice and introspection. From beauty influencer and kind person, Sadie, who shows that beauty doesn’t have to be just skin deep:
“. . . second chances aren’t always bad, you guys. It’s not like they show some kind of weakness. Sometimes they’re about forgiveness. And forgiveness is something that heals you when you offer it to the other person.”
Jessica Patrick did a good job of making the experience of a music festival come alive. We experience a touch of the electricity of the bands and feel-good atmosphere as well as the sweat and grime that can’t diminish the excitement.
I would recommend This Is for Tonight for the older ages among YA readers because of explicit language.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
What a fun meet cute. It stood out to me and had immediate chemistry
Unique setting; a music festival similar to Coachella.
Sibling relationship was cute and realistic: twins (boy/girl). I loved their relationship and the struggle of graduating and going separate places.
The relationship was adorable. The banter between the two characters was fun. I loved the main character. I did struggle a bit with the conflict and what he did. I'm not sure if I could have forgiven quite so easily, but it is a good reminder of second chances.