Ahhhhh this was just such a great read. I just didn't want this book to end and I was sad to turn the last page. I'm so excited to see what's next from this author.

A cute, light romcom bringing together two people who never thought they'd be tied together. I really enjoyed this one!

I absolutely LOVED McKenna and Jace and who doesn’t love a book where the main character is writing a book! Seriously this book had everything drama, angst, cute scenes and serious topics! Rush and Blount handled the serious topics with grace and flare that made you think about them without it weighing you down. As always I really appreciated the dual point of view and I loved the way Rush and Blount used the dual point of view to really show how the two characters thought about the world and what they thought of each other. The only reason that this book lost one star for me was the character descriptions now they were good at first but towards the middle and end of the book they became very repetitive and often they were unnecessary to the event happening in the book. I have also decided that I need Rush and Blount to write Kingdom of Sword because I am obsessed with the concept of it.

YES!!!!! These authors together create addicting YA romance with a side of drama.

Twin Rivers High is full of emo flair, jocks, sweet cinnamon roll characters, and a new couple you will be cheering for.
The 90's high school vibe tied with the small town was the perfect setting for me.

I can't recommend this book enough to those looking for their next YA addiction.

I loved this book so much, and it easily moved to the top of my favorites for both authors. The characters are deeply drawn and I loved them instantly. McKenna Storm is likable from the opening pages as the goth girl with a bipolar mother. She likes to fly under the radar, just wanting to get through her last year of high school before leaving Twin River and her mom’s drama far behind. So why she agrees to cover for Jace, one of the most popular guys in school, and oh yeah the writer behind one of the hottest fantasy romances in all of teendom, is a mystery even she can’t fully understand. And yet there she is, standing in the hallway, pretending Jace’s writing notebook filled with kissing scenes and sword fighting is hers to protect him from the taunting by his football teammates.

Jace is both horrified and grateful to McKenna. He’s worried that once one person knows something, it’s no longer a secret. McKenna has crushed on Jace since third grade, so she won’t say anything, but when her fake alter ego is revealed, her ability to fly under the radar is obliterated as she’s suddenly the most sought after girl in all of Twin River High. She pushes back, but she’s no match for Jace’s pleading that she continue the ruse, at least for a little while. The secret cover means these two opposites need to spend more time together; something neither of them really wants. At least in the beginning. McKenna, aka Goth Girl, and the star football player are, as McKenna calls them, a cheesy romcom couple. But neither of them is their perceived stereotype and they discover they have much more in common than either of them imagined.

Plot
This is a straight-up romance, but it’s filled with the kind of teen angst that keeps me turning the pages. The slow burn romance turns into so much more with a ton of conflict that drives both passion and pain in delicious ways. Their first kiss is toe-curling in the sweetest sense, but their romance is more than just sweet. The authors have created such complex characters that their actions and reactions felt really authentic. And with any romance, you find yourself yelling at the characters to just be open and honest, and then you remind yourself that they’re teens. Teens and communication are like reverse polarity. But these moments in the second half of the book only make the ending that much more satisfying.

Characters
Both characters have rich backstories that make them interesting, flawed, and relatable. Jace is a sweet older brother who found his love of writing after telling his younger sister bedtime stories. McKenna is the only child of a single mom with bipolar disorder. Jace seems to have it all with two loving parents and a little sister he adores. McKenna seems to be nothing more than a goth girl with a giant chip on her shoulder. But there’s always more to people than what they allow others to see. McKenna’s best friend, Ernie, is beyond adorable, and I hope he gets his own story in the series.

What I Loved About GUTTER GIRL
1. Scribbles. The Wattpad alternative where Jace writes his Kingdom of Swords was a fun subplot.

2. Jace. A football player who secretly writes fantasy romance. What’s not to love?

3. McKenna. She has her hands full and then some, but she still keeps her head above water while working extra shifts to keep her family afloat.

4. Writing. As a writer, I really enjoyed the scenes where they were discussing plotting, character development, and all the other delights that goes into writing a novel.

5. Angsty Romance. It’s my favorite romance sub-genre, but it’s not over the top here. Just the right amount to add conflict and tug at my heartstrings.

Bottom Line
My favorite book by this author duo with fantastic characters and heartfelt romance.

I loved the premise of this book. Very cute story, with some funny moments.
I love YA books and this one was very much on par with the genre.
I think the teens and adult YA readers will enjoy this book.

I went into this book with 0 expectations- I loved the premise, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I will be honest, I probably wouldn’t have paid to read this book (thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me this in exchange for an honest review), and it felt quite like I was reading a Wattpad book. However, once I got past that, it was an enjoyable story. It felt quite surface level, and I almost wonder if it would have worked better as a film- there was a lot of showing rather than implying, and I wish that some of the issues went more in depth. However, it was an enjoyable, easy read.
Story wise, it was pretty simple, and the characters were quite well developed. I wish we had seen more of the side characters such as Ernie, Kyle and Trinity, but McKenna and Jace were both interesting.
Overall, it was a nice easy read where you didn’t have to think too much, so I might recommend it, but it won’t be one of my top books of the year.

thank you to entangled publishing for an ARC!

this was a cute book! i wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style at first but it got better as i went along. i liked how the book was paced as well! i LOVED how original the plot was. normally you’d think it was the goth girl writing the romance story so the fact that it’s the popular jock? definitely a fun, refreshing concept!

the characters were extremely relatable & lovable! a shy goth girl that’s being bullied who happens to have a crush on a popular football player that writes ROMANCE fantasy story!? what could go wrong?

i definitely enjoyed this book but i didn’t find myself hooked like i thought i’d be until near the end. i don’t like to give away spoilers in my reviews so i won’t say much but it was a good book! if you’re in YA high school romance, pick this up!

I really wasted to love this one, but it didn't end up happening. I think the main reason for this was because of the utter stereotypes. I knew they'd be there based off the synopsis, and even though this flipped them, I didn't enjoy it.

I also hated how young the writing felt. Our characters were supposed to be mature teens who had struggled. Instead, they read like 7th graders. Especially when you look at the relationship between Jace and McKenna. They broke up so many times in this, and instead of ever discussing it, they just got right back together. There were no stakes, and because of this, no tension.

I did like Jace and his fantasy book, but that was about it. Otherwise, this was just a mediocre book that had several aspects that irritated me.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review !

3.5 stars. This was a really cute, easy to read, light YA romance starring McKenna and Jace. It was a bit stereotypical (the goth and the jock/ opposite side of the tracks type), but it was still an enjoyable read. I absolutely LOVED Jace- what a great book boyfriend :) I'll definitely be checking out the other books in this series.

I really enjoyed this book, it was realistic and dealt with a lot of issues that affect young people as they navigate school, family, friends and relationships. I would like to know more about the supporting characters. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an egalley.

This was SO CUTE AND SWEET!!

Ok, there is also bad language and some very heavy topics, parental abandonment, parent with mental health issues, bullying, etc. so this might be trigger-y or inappropriate for below YA readers. No more than kissing, though they are written as if they were experienced by hormonal teenagers and sex is discussed, as well as testing afterwards, so solid YA.

Ok, warnings out of the way, let me get into this book and why I enjoyed it so much and will recommend it to most YA readers.

It's contemporary, no magic, no magical realism, just realistic in that it takes place in this world. The characters all have real problems, granted some more serious than others, but it's realistic.

The stretch is the MC H being a super popular online writer and what comes from that, but I'm sure it happens to some teens who are good writers and put their work out there, so not out of the realm of possibility.

The love story wasn't even the stretch, as the MC h had trust issues and she dis-trusted the MC H one too many times and SHE HAD TO BE THE ONE TO DO THE GRAND SCENE for forgiveness and NOT him! I loved that the roles were reversed from the usual.

I admit, I loved this one so much, I rushed out to buy the second book and I'm reading it right now. That one also has cursing and underage drinking in it, as well as more parental abandonment, so these books are not all sunshine and roses, but they are realistic with a HUGE thread of hope running through them.

I think that's why I like them so much. Considering the age of the characters, when bad things happen at that age, it can see like life is hopeless, but the characters come to find out that they CAN achieve their dreams and thrive, they find hope. Their problems don't magically go away, but they are able to find ways to deal with them.

5, I honestly wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing, LLC/Entangled: Crush for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

2.5
Thank you to netgally and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The plot of this book is actually not bad at all and had a lot of potential. Jace and McKenna were fun POVs to read from and overall I liked their chemistry.
Unfortunately, I found the writing pretty weak. The descriptions were pretty basic and very repetitive. I get it! McKenna wears all black, has a lip ring and pink hair, and her eyes are green. It's only mentioned about 500 times. The writing also relied upon a lot of stereotypes (so many, in fact, that the characters started pointing them out themselves) and tropes. The pacing was actually pretty okay in the beginning but in the 2nd half of the book it started to get a bit rushed and all over the place.
I would highly recommend this book to fans of fanfiction. Obviously, the plot deals with a writer who writes a story on a site that sounds like a fanfiction site but also the writing itself actually reminded me of fanfic also. To clarify, I don't mean that in a negative way. The pacing, writing style, and certain references gave off fanfiction vibes and all that coupled with the fanfiction-esque story line makes me think fanfiction readers and Wattpad readers would enjoy this book.

This story was so much fun and I loved how different these characters were. These are both new authors to me, but I will definitely be reading more from them. I absolutely enjoyed every minute of reading this book and could not put it down. I am looking forward to more from this series.

This was such a fun start to what promises to be a great series! I can’t wait to get to know more of the group in the future books and will definitely be reading the entire series as they are available.

I loved the alternating POVs - I’m a huge fan of this in contemporary romances. The execution worked wonderfully for me, I didn’t have any problems remembering whose POV we were reading.

This promises to be a fun YA series, though I would recommend for upper YA mostly due to language.

I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to get out of this novel but I ended up glad that I received a copy of it. Make sure to grab yourself one.

Very interesting storyline. Definitely cliche at times, but I thought it was executed pretty well! The authors were able to make it a mostly cute and fluffy storyline between Jace and McKenna. Especially liked the central idea of how Jace was the one writing the stories and the concept of McKenna covering for him, though there were moments where I was really questioning Jace's choices (like, come on now dude!). So I'd say overall, while moments felt cliche, the general plot was good and definitely had some unique elements that made the story enjoyable.

This book was a beyond fun read. I loved the story and the banter between characters. Jace is my favorite type of character, one that is undercover deep and sweet and wonderful. On the surface, Jace is a football player jock but deep down he loves writing and romance. This story would be a fun one for anyone looking for a page turner with fun characters and a very intriguing story line.

This was such a fun read! I thought that the storytelling was interesting. I've never read a book about a football player that writes romance before. I thought that the characters were well-written and interesting. I thought this book was fun, sweet and there were also plenty of laughs!

Are you ready for a super cute and fun read? One that will have you hooked and before you know it, you’ll have finished it? Because that is exactly my thoughts after finishing Gutter Girl.

Jace and Makenna, our two main characters, could not be more different. Jace, the football start, but who is a famous author on a writing site for a fantasy romance (anyone else getting the Wattpad vibes, or is that just me?). And then Makenna, who is a bit quieter due to past events, but that all changes when she says she is the author of the fantasy romance books.

These characters were wonderfully written and I could totally picture them at school. Their interactions and witty quips were amazing, and when I wasn’t laughing I was either aweing with cuteness or yelling for things to be resolved. As well, the supportive best friend totally gets an award for being their through thick and thin, and he didn’t take away from the storyline, but actually ADDED to it! Love when this happens!

This is a very real, coming-of-age story that deals with real life issues that are not openly discussed in YA books. Its about being true to yourself and not letting others opinions of you define who you are. Oh, and if I don’t have you hooked already, its literally a book about a book👌🏼 what more could you ask for!?

If you are interested in a super sweet, fun, and slightly awkward romance, this book is one you should definitely be checking out!