I absolutely adored this book. It was such an easy-fast-paced read that really sucked me in. I love Celine and her conspiracy-theory self with my entire heart. I instantly loved her quirky personality and sarcastic humor. She was so bold and determined all the time and I couldn’t help but love her for it. I felt the exact same with Bradley. I loved his character and how witty he was with Celine. He didn’t let her bulldoze him and he kept her on her toes, which had me cracking up. His POV had me smiling the entire book and I’m pretty sure I developed a crush on him. I loved the representation that Hibbert writes into her books. It’s so comforting to have plus-size and LGBTQ+ main characters. I think Hibbert represented OCD very well in Bradley’s character. I really enjoyed reading this and I hope we get more YA books in the future.

Joy Revolution Books is a new YA Random House imprint dedicated to telling stories about people of color written by people of color. I’m not sure there’s anyone better to be part of their inaugural list in Spring 2023 than Talia Hibbert. Her books are funny and heartfelt and always center women of color in starring roles.

Her foray into YA is pretty successful. It took me a minute to warm up to Celine, because she’s headstrong and stubborn and kind of a know-it-all in the way of brilliant seventeen-year-olds, and it’s been far too long since I’ve been a seventeen to adjust easily to that attitude. But you’ll comes to love her so much in the end. Brad is easier to love, so sweet and earnest and relatable, which is exactly what Celine hates most about him. They bicker and argue and compete for a scholarship, but it’s easy to see there’s so much more there, both of them hurt when their friendship crumbled at age fourteen.

Hibbert really captured so well the feeling of applying to university and feeling like you have to have everything figured out. And then realizing you actually know nothing at all. She handles topics like bisexuality and OCD and plus size representation with a deft hand. The book is not about any of those things, they’re simply parts of the characters that add up to a very real, engaging whole.

I’m really excited to see what Joy Revolution has in store for us. This imprint is really exciting and startlingly overdue, and if this is any indication, the books are going to be incredible.

#highlysuspicioisandunfairlycute:⁣
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Thank you @prhaudio and @getunderlined for the gifted copies!⁣
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“I’ve decided no one’s reservations—including my own—will ever stop me from going after what I want.” ⁣
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Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute was just that, unfairly cute. I freaking adored this book y’all! I love reading Talia Hibbert so I was so excited to check this one out. I really think she can do no wrong! ⁣
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Celine and Brad were the absolute best. I loved their personalities as individuals and also loved how they did compliment and understood each other so well. I felt they really grew into themselves in the book and I loved every second. Also, may I get a book on Aurora because she was a close second fave? ⁣
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Told in dual POV, the audio is where it’s at y’all. Amina Koroma and Jonathan Andrew Hume. The pacing was amazing, the sarcasm unmatched. You could hear the vulnerabilities in some of the insecurities our MCs face and it was just really well done.⁣
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Overall, easy 5 🏃‍♀️. I mean, we went camping in Scotland and that wasn’t even my favorite part?! Thank you again @prhaudio and @getunderlined Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is out 1/3.

It took me a while to get through this book and I'm not fully sure why. I don't think it had anything to do with the book itself and all to do with the fact that I was in a reading slump. Regardless of how long it took me to finish it, I still really enjoyed it. I really liked how we got to know about the entire past between them and the pacing of it all. It never felt rushed to me which is a HUGE plus when I'm reading. I hate the feeling of a slower burn romance feeling like it's completely rushing me.

I will definitely be rereading this as soon as I'm out of the holiday season slumps!

*4.5*

“Even if neither of us ever did anything interesting in our entire lives, it wouldn’t matter. You don’t need to be special or significant to have value. You’re just important, always, and people either see that or they don’t. They either love you, or they don’t.”

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is a love story between once friends, now enemies, Celine and Brad. They both enter a survival contest for a chance to win a scholarship and are forced to work together. Along the way they learn more about themselves and the dreams of the future they were so set on, but they also rehash the past, discovering why they really stopped being friends in the first place.

I absolutely loved this book. It was so funny and the characters had such personality. I loved Celine and almost related to her a little too much. I loved Brad and all his quirks. I love getting to see these two learn to trust each other again, especially Celine as she dealt with more personal issues and learned to open up. I especially loved seeing how they supported each other and their dreams. They helped each other realize their potential and encouraged each other to go after what they truly wanted. Overall, I adored this. It was so cute and very meaningful.

this was most certainly *unfairly* cute!

i loved the dual pov in this book and Talia Hibbert did a really great job at keeping the characters voices distinct and unique, it was always easy to tell which pov i was reading from. i really loved the dynamic between the main character, Celine, and the love interest, Bradley. they had this childhood best friends-to-school nemesis-to-lovers progression and the banter between them was so natural. i loved the confidence that Celine has as a main character and Bradley was such a sweetheart.

the scholarship portion was interesting lol i've never seen a scholarship quite like that but it added an extra level of competitiveness and opened doors for the main characters to develop in nice ways.

overall i would definitely recommend this if you're looking for a fun quick read! and the mental health rep is always an added plus

This book is:
- delicious
- delectable
- delightful
- hilarious
- swoon-worthy
- so much fun

I loved Brad and Celine. I loved the OCD rep and the way Talia Hibbert handled her teen characteres' traumas and I laughed out loud and underlined so many parts. This book was truly a delight from start to finish.

Quirky. Fun. Sweet. Adorable. REAL.

Really engaging as well as quirky, fun, adorable and real. I really enjoyed this second chance, dual POV, YA romance between two estranged former best friends who end up working together for a chance at a prestigious scholarship.

I thought the characters were so well developed and relatable! Bradley has OCD and Celine is dealing with her feelings after running into the father who abandoned her and her mom.

I loved the OCD representation that was clearly there but managed in a healthy way not only by the character but by the author as well.

The emotional intelligence and growth by both main characters throughout the book was so refreshing. They both made strides to being better people, but also realistically had it come slowly and in spurts.

Enthusiastically recommend!

NEWS: My queen, literary mother of Zaf Ansari, Ms.Talia Hibbert, is releasing her first YA novel on January 3. Here is an ARC review!

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is exactly what I expected from Talia: a widely diverse cast, lovingly portrayed, and great, dry British humor. I adored the FMC, Celine, and the MMC, Bradley, was everything. The main relationship was adorable and the familial and friend relationships were also wonderful.

Celine and Bradley start the book as “enemies,” meaning they were very close childhood friends who had a falling out as they grew up and started making new friends. But of course, deep down, they both care for each other deeply. Of course the point of the book is them figuring that out!

We have a dual first person POV and being in these characters’ heads was at once angsty AF and also hugely relatable and emotional. If you’ve watched Sex Education, these two MCs give Jackson and Viv energy and it’s INCREDIBLE.

👍🏻Recommended! If you liked the Brown sisters, you will love this. It is YA so it is not in any way spicy but it is emotionally impactful, funny and so sweet. This is the kind of book I wish I had had as a teen.

Talia Hibbert's writing in this book is funny, touching, and real. Her characters are flawed, tender, and resilient. I'm not usually a fan of YA romance, but I can honestly say that this book is one of the best YA romances I've ever read. I loved the plus size and OCD representation (representation is HUGE in her books and always handled with grace and beauty), and the way she weaves comedy and romance into a book that still deals with trauma and abandonment is incredible to read. This foray for Talia into YA is well done and a gem.

Adorable, sweet and cute read. Characters were fun and full of zest. The enemies to lovers was perfect.

This book is in fact, ridiculously cute! I loved it! Celine and Bradley were best friends, then enemies, and then friends again and more. The evolution of their relationship was delightful to watch, the banter is top-notch, and the ending was great. The way mental health was represented was thoughtful and real, as was the way ambitious teens can struggle with the weight of their parents' expectations. I will be adding this to my classroom library without hesitation!

As soon as I saw Talia Hibbert had a new book out, I was so there! And then I heard it was going to be a YA romance???? Featuring bffs to rivals to lovers??? Aka the best trope????

I was pretty much over the moon!

Talia’s distinctive wit and charm is all over these characters, but more than the countless giggles this work provides, is at the beating heart, the stark true to life-ness that turn her stories from mere words on a page to something so relatable you end up in tears.

In other words, this story was a fun time but also reading about the vulnerabilities that we all share on the page like that, sort of cracks you open sometimes, in the best way!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Is it too cheesy to say Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute was… unfairly cute? Talia Hibbert’s YA debut was the sweetest YA romance. I love Brad and Celine and will protect them with everything I have. They were best friends, until they were enemies, and then they were kind of friends, and then they were really friends and then they were… possibly more. Their friendship was so sweet and the side characters were adorable. The plot was well done and the over arching themes spoke to my soul. This story was complete with Talia Hibbert’s humor and I found myself laughing out loud more than once.

Thank you, #netgalley for an early read of #highlysuspiciousandunfairlycute in exchange for my honest review!

This was a delightful palate cleanser of a book, like most by Talia Hibbert. I thought the pacing was a bit clunky and choppy in the first half, but the second half of the book was beautiful and touching. The portrayal of OCD felt sensitive and well done. Celine and Bradley felt legitimately teenage in their foibles and decisions. Overall a delightful read!

As a huge Talia Hibbert fan, I was thrilled when I received an e-arc of this book from NetGalley and Joy Revolution. I always appreciate Talia’s ability to write about the complexities of mental health while keeping a book upbeat. This book is no different, Brad suffers from OCD while his estranged childhood best friend Celine suffers from abandonment and perfectionism. The story follows them become friends once again after years apart and eventually more than friends.

I found this to be a cute read and I cannot wait to gift my teenage niece a copy so we can talk about it together.

I love Bradley and Celine so much. This story follows two high schoolers as they figure out who they are and what they want, despite feeling pushed in another direction because of—or in spite of—a parent's influence. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is hilarious in some parts and emotional in others, and so much fun throughout.

Thank you to Joy Revolution and NetGalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

highly suspicious and unfairly cute was an absolute delight! both celine and brad are very well-developed characters and very realistic teenagers. talia hibbert's writing is perfect for a YA romance: she's funny, flirty, a little messy at times, and very honest. brad's experiences with OCD are frank and great representation of teenagers with mental illness. celine's hard-headed, tunnel-vision school and career plans show how dedicated and passionate she is, and her desire to hate brad despite all the evidence showing she really doesn't is so teenager-ish of her. i love it. the two of them are so earnest yet stubborn, i immediately fell in love with them and their "rivalry." i committed a major public transit faux pas and laughed out loud on a silent bus because of this book. it was that funny. full of heart, humor and a little bit of hate, talia hibbert's YA debut is not to be missed!!

I have read Hibbert's Brown Sister series so was interested to see how she would transition to a YA story and I think she did an excellent job. Bradley and Celine's story was so cute! They use to be best friends in their younger years but have since become enemies, though. When circumstances lead them both to sign up for the same wilderness retreat, they are forced into proximity and agree to a truce but soon that truce starts to develop into something more. A perfect light-hearted romance.

“What am I going to do, put my hands on his cheeks and kiss his annoying face? Of course I’m not. You have to be sensible about feelings like this, or they’ll run away with you. Liking someone this much is a dangerous game because what do you do when they’re gone?”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is—in fact—unfairly cute. I want to pinch its cheeks, buy it a cozy blanket, and protect it from all the bad things in the world. I don’t read a ton of young adult, but I loved every page of this read. The witty back-and-forth banter between Celine and Bradley is infused with Hibbert’s fun genius, and I screamed like that one Kermit the frog meme at every single interaction between these cuties. Celine is a lot how I imagine Hibbert’s Dani Brown would have been as a teenager—quick witted, sarcastic, scowling, and doing everything she can to hide her soft, scary feelings.

Bradley and Celine were once best friends, but now they hate each other’s guts. Bradley abandoned Celine to become a popular jock (according to Celine), and Celine refused to be anything but the center of the universe (according to Bradley). But when the two must work as a team on a survivalist retreat in the wilderness, they dig up their messy past too. Can they heal their friendship, or will fear keep them apart?

FAT REP: Celine’s fatness is clearly stated, but not at all the focus of the story! Which I love in a YA format. Other fat girls will read about Celine and love her. They’ll also see how loved she is by Bradley.

🌲 Friends to enemies to friends to lovers
🌲Academic rivals to lovers
🌲 Grumpy/Sunshine
🌲 Hero with OCD
🌲 Young Adult Romance

HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND UNFAIRLY CUTE releases January 3, 2023. It will be an EXCELLENT read to kick off the new year 💘 Thank you to Joy Revolution and Netgalley for the ARC!