DNF @ 51%.

I’m always on the hunt for more romance that features queer young people, especially bisexual nerds who like to write, since it makes me think about what life could have been like if I had grown up in an decade when being out of the closet was not only safer, but socially acceptable. I was also looking forward to this book after loving Never Ever Getting Back Together by the same author.

Although both books were written by the same author, there was a very different feel to both books, party because of the personalities of the characters involved, partly because of the way the characters in this book read much younger than the characters in NEGBT, and in the believability of the storylines—while NEGBT was highly unlikely to occur, it theoretically *could* still be within the realm of possibility, yet this one incorporated elements of magical realism that couldn’t actually happen in the real world without significant bending of the space-time continuum or a flux capacitor or something equally sciency sounding.

My biggest problem connecting to the book had absolutely no issue with the book itself. This is really best described as one of those books that just wasn’t a good fit for me personally. And if I was really pressed to find any solid reasons to explain why? There are two that pop into my head, and even after I think about them, which I’ve done for two days straight, they don’t change.

Reason number one is the one that was the blatantly obvious one for me—I was stressing and trying to distract myself from an upcoming surgery with a lighthearted read, yet my stressors were too big to be distracted from with a read this lighthearted. And the second reason is one that I’ve been trying not to admit to myself. It’s almost like admitting it, even if I’m only thinking it inside my head, but I’ve been fighting against saying that I might finally be outgrowing YA books. Hold on…let me rephrase that. YA books aren’t something that there is an age limit on, so I’m not outgrowing them per se, but rather they aren’t appealing to me as much lately.

Overall, this seems like a fun, lighthearted rom-com featuring a bisexual teenage girl who specializes in writing fanfic of her favorite fantasy TV show, but when the (fictional) main character of the show wakes up in her room assuring her that he’s her soul mate, she quickly realizes what most of us already know—the things we love and find romantic in books are not only *not* romantic in the real world, they’re actually pretty creepy. But don’t let my DNF experience with this one discourage you from giving it a read—it might just be the fluffy YA romance you’ve been waiting for! It might even be the perfect read for me too…as long as I wait until I’m more relaxed before trying it a second time.

The premise of this one sounds so fun but I don’t think it really worked for me. The magical guy was kind of off putting and is giving me second hand embarrassment! I do like this author so I would definitely give her another try. I think this will definitely resonate with those who grew up reading fan fic, but just not so much me :/

I loved this! From the title alone, I was sold. I went in almost completely blind, having enjoyed We are Never Ever Getting Back Together as well. For anyone who has read and enjoyed fan fiction, loves romance tropes, and a little magic this is for you.

This story is told in dual timelines from the perspective of Ivy. Ivy used to be best friends with Mack (and fell in love with her) but they have since had a falling out. Ivy has since befriended Henry over their shared love of their favorite show, H-MAD. Ivy loves the show so much that she even writes fanfic about H-MAD starring herself and the lead character Weston. Things go completely sideways one morning when she wakes up and realizes Weston is in her house! And not the actor who plays him, the actual character!

This story is about second chances, being careful what you wish for, and a joy for any fanfic reader. I especially laughed at the brief omegaverse mention. Overall, this is a cute sapphic friends to enemies to lovers story and I really enjoyed it!

3.5. I love the values of friendship and acceptance here, and the romance is sweet yet realistic (shout out to the queer rep!). The actual plot doesn't make much sense--there are holes that bothered me--but it's a fun read overall.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this title. I was not the target audience for this book. It read a little too young for me. I can recommend it for the YA audience.

I am a big Sophie Gonzales fan! This was such a fun book, and I thoroughly enjoyed both the found family aspect as well as the coming of age queer story that isn't solely focused on a coming out narrative. This insertion of magical realism made my reading experience feel like the best VR simulation I could think of. Very fun!

This book was good not great for me, unfortunately. The characters were frustrating to me, but I think it was a case of right book wrong time. Will pick it up again in the future!

DNF at 29% at the start of chapter 7. Unfortunately I don't think I was a good fit for this book. I loved the idea and was excited to see how it would plan out but I just couldnt buy it.

It’s crazy that Weston is there, how his clothes change, how he was able to get all the stuff to take care of her in just a few seconds, and just in general I can’t suspend my belief enough to buy this story. Maybe if all of that didn’t happen (the clothes, remedies, distress message) I would go along with it. Like a Freaky Friday type of magic from the storm and her fanfic created a whole ass person out of thin air. But then to have him glitching while part of this reality? And I could even buy him glitching if other people couldn’t see or hear him. But they can, so he’s here and honestly it just doesn’t add up for me. And if I’m being honest, I feel the same way about the show as Mack does. Just putting up with it cuz Ivy likes it. I stuck around as long as I did because I liked Ivy. She’s fun. Her voice is strong and I wanted to see more about her and her mom. At first, I wanted to know what happened with Mack but there’s been a couple of teases so far and I’m less interested in the reason.

Mostly I think that this book is not for me and that’s because I’m not the target audience. I love YA but sometimes YA Contemporary and YA Romance are a miss for me.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in one day. It was a crazy, but fun book. I would definitely recommend this book.

Kerri Resnick sold me on this book. I love the cover and they did an incredible job with the design of it. It tells the story that I actually think it tells.

The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist works for a hetero romance, but not so much for a sapphic one. I wish Sophie Gonzales had put more of a foundation for Ivy and Mack to make it realistic. I know that they are teenagers, but they are ruled by their hormones so chemistry would have been good. Butterflies and nerves are what I remember from crushes in my teen years, so this would have been a key indicator for these two characters.

For some reason, I just couldn’t get into this story. I didn’t make a connection with the characters. Let me know what you think.

DNF at 38%. I was not reared on fan fiction, but that hasn't stopped me from trying some stories out that are based on that! This one for me, though, I just couldn't get into. It reads like a 90s/00s Disney movie, which is both good and bad.

I don't think it's a bad book, I'm just not wasting my time on St. Martin's e-ARC titles if they aren't capturing me fully. Which stinks because Sophie Gonzales has so many books I enjoy! Just couldn't stick it out for this one.

Thanks to them and Netgalley for the e-ARC.

Did Not Finish at 20%

I’ll be completely truthful with you guys: this book was a mistake for me to pick up.

You know when you think you have an idea of how a book is going to go, so you pick it up, only to realize that it is actually going a different way that should have been obvious from the description? That was The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist for me.

I found the idea of a girl who writes fanfiction and ends up having her favorite character come to life to be an interesting concept. I’m sure a lot of people out there wish they could interact with the characters from their favorite piece of media, and as someone constantly thinking about the world of their favorite book, I thought this would be a fun book to pick up!

And there was a lot I was intrigued by in this book.

For one, while I didn’t get far enough to understand the relationship between Ivy and her ex-best friend, Mack, I was interested in seeing how their relationship changed from being so close (to the point that Ivy used to have a crush on Mack) to being enemies.

I was also really enjoying the way this book kept jumping between the past and present to show their relationship. As I made my way through the book, the details of what happened between Ivy and Mack in their past were slowly revealed to me, interspersed with scenes of Ivy struggling to figure out what to do with her very fictional favorite character, Weston.

But beyond that, I couldn’t find much else to enjoy in this book.

For one, I did not like Weston. At all. To be fair on the book, the whole point is that the idea of Weston should be appealing to Ivy, but the actual man himself shouldn’t. We’re not really supposed to like Weston. But when we’re confronted by a man who is extremely clingy, aggressive, and possessive of Ivy and are stuck with a main character who is enamored by his presence alone, it becomes a little difficult to read about.

For two, the writing in this book, especially when about Weston and the things he says… pained me. That might be a plus to Sophie Gonzales’ writing, considering how the version of Weston in this book is based off of Ivy’s immature writing style, but the purple prose? At 20% of the way through the book, he says (and I quote) “As long as I’m with you, I could sleep on a bed of molten coals beneath a blanket of thorns, and I’d cry out not in pain, but in ecstasy.”

I can’t. I had to put the book down and never pick it up again from that line alone.

Also? This is me being very open and honest with you guys in a way that’s embarrassing, but I… thought Mack was a guy. Before I started actually reading this book, based off of the cover alone, I thought Mack was the blond boy on the cover.

That’s Ivy. On the cover. Our main character. Mack is a girl, and this is a SAPPHIC ROMANCE NOVEL.

But that just goes to show how incredibly wrong my assumptions of this book were before I picked it up.

This one’s my fault. I’m sorry.

Sophie Gonzales has upped her writing game in The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist, with an adorable story which will satisfy a multitude of literary genres, including young adult, LGBT, romance, fantasy/science-fiction and of course, her wicked sense of humor.

Ivy Winslow is looking forward to the upcoming week. Her parents will be away, and she will have the house all to herself. Of course, as a young girl in high school, she is being guarded by her former best friend Mack’s parents who live across the street. But for the most part she eagerly looks forward to eating junk food and watching her favorite show with her only friend, Henry.

Sure, she misses her best friend Mack, who she spent almost every day with basically her whole life, but because of stupidness, jealousy and stubbornness on both girl’s part, they have stopped speaking. Yes, perhaps if Ivy was truly honest, she did have a bit of a crush on Mack, but she is sure it certainly was not reciprocated.

So, when Ivy goes to sleep that first night, she never would have imagined awaking to find a guy in her bedroom staring at her who says his name is Weston, but he looks identical to the main character of her favorite show, H-Mad. He seems to think they are in love and will live happily ever after. He has plans for the two of them. She has no idea what this is about and how this could have possibly happened. But Weston begins causing problems from the get-go.

With no one else to turn to, she finally tells Henry and gulp, yes Mack. She needs help trying to figure out how to get rid of Weston! At least by the time her parents get home! But Weston does not want to leave and will do anything in his power and yes, he does have powers to prevent Ivy and her friends from getting rid of him.

In reality what actually starts to occur is the three anti-friends decide to work together to get rid of Weston, and as they begin to get close to each other, open up to each other and discover you can leave your past issues behind forgive what has happened and what has been said, start anew with new friendships and even find confidence and yes, love. Poor Weston!

Thank you #NetGalley #WednesdayBooks #SophieGonzales #ThePerfectGuyDoesn’tExist for the advanced copy.

Rating: 2.75/5 Stars

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

I thought I was gonna love this because I loved Perfect on Paper, also by Sophie Gonzales, but I was mistaken. I wish I loved it. Honestly, it kinda broke my heart because Perfect on Paper meant so much to me and is one of my comfort reads.

All of the little details about the tv show, H-Mad were amazing and Sophie Gonzales' writing is amazing.

Henry was great...at first. I thought he was so fun but as the book went on he started to annoy me.

I think Ivy was great. Her character's growth was amazing and just felt...realistic? That might not be the right word.

Weston was so funny. Ivy just wrote fan fiction about Weston as an outlet for feelings which was so real of her. Especially when she wrote the enemies to lovers fanfic and was all like 'it was popular.' It served as a good reminder that if real men said not even half the stuff most fictional men from fantasy books say then we would call the cops.

About the romance...it wasn't my favorite. My mistake was I expected more romance than there was but that is 100% my fault. I also felt like Mack and Ivy honestly just worked better as friends.

The last book I read by Sophie Gonzales (the one before this) I loved so much so I definitely will be reading another book by her soon.

I giggled and snorted so many times reading this book – the satire is absolutely amazing. I loved the characters and felt so drawn into Ivy’s relationships with her best friend Henry and her ex-best-friend/ex-crush Mack.

The tension and the longing are so fantastic for a YA Romcom and to top it off, there’s so many relatable moments with Ivy’s nerdiness of writing fanfic and obsessing over her favorite TV show with her best friend. I couldn’t put it down and I had such a great time with the characters.

Did I mention this is gay? It’s super gay, I’m obsessed.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press | Wednesday Books for an E-ARC copy of this book!

I received a complinetary copy from the publisher and all opinions expressed are mine.

This is a feel good romance for fans of enemies to lovers and fan fiction. Imagine bringing your favourite fictional character to life.

The book follows Ivy who hapens to decide to stay in and binge watch her favorite tv show. A dream right? This goes according to plan until she wakes up to find Weston, the fictional main character of H-MAD, in her bedroom, claiming to be her soul mate. As bonkers as this is she asks her friend Mack to help find out why this is happening .Quite fast paced ,well written and characters well developed makes this an interesting read.

There’s a simple formula: Sophie Gonzales writes a book, and I read it. TPGDE is clearly no exception. This book feels like a love letter to fan culture, with the heavy emphasis on fandom and fanfiction aiding the romantic, platonic, and self-love stories at play. It’s also slightly bizarre enough that even though I am several years past 16 I felt very much like I could have been in Ivy’s shoes. It has the classic charm I’ve come to expect from Gonzales’s books, with very queer characters and friendships intertwined with romance. And it’s so fun to see the way all the characters and their relationships develop, especially once Weston enters the picture. This book was fun and funny while also dealing with some serious introspection from the characters, who are still very much teenage characters in the best way, all at one time. However, I need authors to stop coming up with fake fandoms that sound so cool because then I’m upset I can’t actually consume content from it!! All in all, this was a fun romance and self-growth story with the bizarreness of a fanfiction character come to life, and I’d definitely recommend it!

Book 16 of 2024 - ☑️! Thank you so much to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books & Sophie Gonzales for the ARC of The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist by Sophie Gonzales in exchange for my honest review.

This is my 2nd Sophie Gonzales book (If This Gets Out was the first book of hers that I read, and thought it was really well-written). I tend to be more picky about YA novels, and while I liked If This Gets Out a bit better, The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist was an enjoyable read. This friends-to-enemies-to-lovers, magical realism, multiple timelne YA Romance follows Ivy Winslow - a teenager obsessed with the fictional TV show H-MAD, who loves hanging out with her best friend (and equally H-MAD obsessed) Henry and who skillfully avoids her former best friend and crush turned enemy, Mack. When Ivy’s parents go out of town, Ivy must deal with her TV show crush, Weston, come to life from the way she depicted him in fan-fiction, when her parents go out of town. Bonus points for representation in the book - both race/ethnicity and LGBTQIA+.

I know this won’t be my last Sophie Gonzales book. 3/5 🌟 overall, and since this was a YA book, a 🌶️ rating is not applicable. 📺 🪄💻 #NetGalley #ThePerfectGuyDoesntExist

In The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist by Sophie Gonzales, fanfic writer Ivy Winslow has the house to herself for a week while her parents are away. Her plans to hang out with Henry, her best friend, and binge-watch her favorite fantasy TV show while avoiding Mack, her former best friend-turned-enemy, go awry when Ivy wakes up to find Weston, the gorgeous, fictional main character of H-MAD, in her bedroom, claiming that he’s her soul mate.

Gonzales’ writing is lively, crisp, and vibrant, with detailed descriptions. She develops her complex, fascinating, messy, and conflicted characters through funny, snarky, emotional, sweet, witty banter and interactions. I love that you never know exactly where her characters will be at the story’s conclusion. You hope, but you don’t know for sure because she throws surprising twists and turns into the story—she takes the time to develop efficiently—that makes you doubt that the characters will get the happy ending you want for them.

Somehow, Ivy’s fanfic writing brings Weston from her stories to life. But after spending time with him, Ivy discovers that the qualities and tropes she swoons over in her stories are not quite so romantic in reality. Even worse, having her fanfic/TV crush come to life causes her incredibly frustrating real-world problems. To figure out why Weston is here and how to either get him back to where he belongs or help him settle into life in the real world, Ivy teams up with Henry and Mack, grudgingly, after avoiding her is more challenging than she thought it would be. Now that Mack is in her life again, Ivy must reconsider whether Weston—this “perfect guy” she created—is the one who’s perfect for her or if she’s been blind to the person who is genuinely ideal for her all this time.

Gonzales explores Ivy and Mack’s and Ivy and Henry’s relationships by alternating between the present and flashbacks. She smoothly manages these transitions without affecting the novel’s pacing and tone, which is surprisingly a bit dark at times but works for the story. I love Ivy’s relationship with Henry and how they could be honest with each other as friends should be, but people find it difficult to achieve most of the time. I wish we could have seen more of Ivy and Mack’s friendship before the fractures started to show. Their relationship is primarily antagonistic or in the early stages of falling apart. We don’t get to see much of the happy, healthy, deep friendship we presume they used to share—a crucial part of the story that was missing. But sometimes, seeing people at their worst and how they interact tells you more about who they are and whether they can make it through the good and bad times. Gonzales’ character interactions are one of the best parts of her writing and books. More interactions between Mack and Ivy would have improved the development and exploration of their friendship/relationship. It was missing for me in the novel.

The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist is nothing like I expected, which shouldn’t surprise me because Gonzales always gives me an entertaining read— unlike anything I’ve read or thought it would be. However, my expectations for this one were so high, and I wanted something more romance-focused throughout the book. Give Gonzales all the kudos for writing the story she needed and wanted to tell, even though it may not have been the story I was hoping for or expected. That said, I did mostly enjoy the journey her multilayered story and flawed, hot-mess characters took me on. A thoughtful, funny, suspenseful, sweet, witty, angsty, and fast-paced YA romance, The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist is an entertaining read that explores friendship, unrequited love, first love, fandom culture, sexual identity, coming out, belonging, romantic escape, and writing.

3.5 stars

An advanced review copy was provided by Wednesday Books via Netgalley for review.

I am participating in the St. Martin's Press boycott. I will not be publicly reviewing this title until St. Martin's Press addresses reader concerns.