Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'The Friendship Fight' by Allie Sarah.

'The Friendship Fight' is your usual novel of this genre. I'll be honest, I enjoyed the writing style but there wasn't anything mindblowingly special about this book. If I didn't read it recently, I probably wouldn't even know what I had read. Would I read another book by this author? Maybe, who knows what the future holds.

Thank you Netgalley for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.

You never know how good a book is until you realise that you have read most of it within one night. I was so drawn into Trinity and the lives of the small group of students.

Though this book is mainly based around Raina, Jesse and Nicole, you get to see all of the characters grow throughout the second installment of this series. I do want to say, I feel like I am obsessed with Jesse. He is the sweetest, most caring character throughout this book and the way he treat Raina is the sweetest.

This book has topics that I feel should be within book a lot more especially when they are considered to be YA. I felt as though each topic was perfect for the book and helped bring the story together. I also appreciate how Judaism was spoken about within this book.

This was also a fluffy romance with a little drama which isn't overpowering at all. The trope for this book would be Friends-To-Lovers with a small enemy part just because of their past. I did enjoy this book a lot more than I expected and cannot wait to see how the series unfolds.

Publication date 2nd January 2024.

The friendship fight is a cute young adult romance with lots of diversity and representation. It's a great fun read and I enjoyed it

I could totally see my 7th grade students loving this book - it discusses a lot of relatable themes revolving around communication and relationships. The pacing could be improved as some parts dragged on quite a bit, but the characters were well-written and the plot had lots of ups and downs to keep you interested. While I read a lot of YA, this one is definitely aimed at a younger audience; I think middle schoolers and younger high schoolers would really enjoy this series. Thanks for the ARC!

Thank-you to the author and netgalley for the arc!
This book was fun to read . Had to skip sometimes because inner monologues were so long and boring.
I hate miscommunication trope and this was in it
All over not my fav but i liked it
And will read the next books of this series

The Friendship Fight by Allie Sarah 📕

💫 “It’s an idea” Jesse shrugged. “But I’m not thinking about college right now, Raina.” “Why not?” Raina asked. Jesse reached out to tilt her chin up until she was staring into his eyes. “Because I’m with you.”

Raina has a big crush on Jesse, who used to be her friend until recently when his best friend, Nicole, made it clear she really disliked Raina. Now they’re all studying Romeo and Juliet in school and Reina is being forced to pair up with Jesse for the project. Slowly, they start to rebuild their friendship and an unlikely trio starts to form between Raina, Jesse and Nicole.

My review 📖:

I really like how the book focuses on the importance of consent between two people. Jesse talks about how it’s important to ensure that before you kiss someone you ensure the other person wants to as well.

There are a lot of dynamics explored in this book: friendships, relationships, family drama, school life and religion. This is great if you enjoy depth to your stories.

This book is suitable for those aged between fourteen and seventeen. I normally enjoy reading YA but this one was just a little too young for me.

My Score: 3/5 ⭐️

Publication date 2nd January 2024.

Thank you #netgalley, #VictoryEditingNetGalleyCo-op and #SnowRidgePress for the eARC.

4⭐️

Representations:
-Jewish MC
-Dyslexic MC
- 🟢⚪️⚫️Aromantic SC
-💗💜💙Bisexual SC
-🏳️‍🌈Gay SC

TW: Homophobia, Antisemitism, Outing

First of all, thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

“The Friendship Fight” is a friends-to-lovers YA that takes place in a boarding school called Trinity.
I loved the platonic relationship between Nicole and Jesse and Raina and Jesse were so cute together.
I really appreciated how the author talked about Judaism, and I found the explanations very interesting.
This book has helped me learn a lot about Judaism, and I am very grateful for it.

I thought this book was good - I liked both the characters of Raina and Jesse. It has been a while since I read the first book in the series and it took me a bit to get back into the world and the dynamics of the characters.
3/5 stars

i really really liked this book, a good and soft read about frienship and how you can resolve a drama.
3.5/5

Thank you to Net Galley & Snowridge Press for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review!!
This has been posted to my GoodReads and will also be posted to my page @readingrosies on the 26th October.

Just wanted to start this review by saying I absolutely loved this book! I read it over two evenings as it was such an easy read, I didn’t want to put it down - I was fully immersed in the characters and their lives at Trinity.
The real family/found family theme in this book was tugging at my heart strings, I adored how the group loved and supported each other through their troubles and their feelings.
The topics that were discussed in this book were also done amazingly - the LGBTQIA+ inclusion and talks on Judaism were such a lovely and interesting part of the story.

I have so much love for Raina and Jesse’s characters, and just the overall level of wholesome/fluffy romance without having to bring any explicit themes into it. I especially enjoyed how Jesse dealt with Raina’s boundaries and the importance of explicit consent. It was such an important factor of what captured my adoration for this book.

The platonic soulmate relationship between Jesse and Nicole was also something I really enjoyed about this book. It’s not often a male and female character are shown with such a strong/close relationship without the main plot point being a love triangle where one of the two girls is eventually completely frozen out and forgotten about. The way the relationship between Raina and Nicole was slowly developed was also really lovely to see.

Overall, I’m super impressed with this book and absolutely adore it! <3

5/5 stars - I enjoyed everything about this book.

Thank you to SnowRidge Press for the ARC.

Raina has a secret crush on Jesse Ashcroft. She gets stuck with him doing a project about Romeo & Juliet. She would rather be anywhere else but doing this project with him.

This is a good read about friendships & repairing them when an urgent matter comes up. I also thought this had some HS drama.

I read The Gossip Games by Allie Sarah earlier this year and LOVED it, so when I got approved for this e-arc I was so excited and I started it almost immediately.

The Friendship Fight is the second book in the Trinity High series by Allie Sarah and follows Raina and Jesse. Raina and Jesse were supposed to be close friends but they haven’t spoken at all recently and while her mum is getting on at her about schoolwork and her dad’s job is struggling she is stuck with Jesse and his best friend Nicole due to meddling English teachers.

There was a lot I loved about this book and I’m SO glad it didn’t disappoint. One of my absolute favourite things about this series is the characters. In a lot of ways I relate more to Gracie in The Gossip Games but that didn’t hinder my enjoyment or love for the characters. Raina is an amazing character, there were quite a few different things I loved about her - she’s a really kind person and while she’s always there for her friends she knows when she has to step back and let them figure things out themselves, it was also really nice to read as she figured out how she wants to balance her life, friends, school and religion. She had quite a valid set of struggles she was facing with her life specifically how she felt about her religion and her parents along with her life. It was also nice to see that nobody pressured her to make decisions or sacrifice something while she was figuring things out. Jesse was also a great character and I truly do love him and his cousins. There were a few things that happened especially at the start of the book that he did that frustrated me but by the end of the book I could understand him and was no longer feeling the same way. Jesse is an amazing friend to all his (decent) cousins and all his friends who aren’t related to him just as much. He is human and he makes mistakes but when he knows that he has he does all he can to fix it and feels so bad. Getting to know Jesse more in this book was great and I am a massive fan of his character now. I can’t really say anything about his relationship with Raina without having spoilers for the book but I truly loved how he ended up treating her and also how much his friendship to Nicole and Raina both mean to him.

One of the other things I loved about this book which wasn’t as much of a focus in The Gossip Games was the Jewish rep and how much you learn about Judaism throughout the story. Allie herself is Jewish and that shines through in the book, the internal debate that Raina goes through doesn’t feel staged - it feels like something that many teens do go through and as someone who isn’t religious and hasn’t learned much about Judaism before I really liked learning about it in this way. Something that Allie has previously mentioned to me that this has was a bit of a challenge to get the right tone across and make it feel right for readers and Raina and I feel like she did it so well and I was left with more questions wanting to do my own research about what Raina has to do as a Jew and that is a fantastic thing to be left with as a reader. When you don’t know a religion or anything about it I think reading is a great way to learn about it in a way that you take the information in, in a situational way, and have fun doing so.

I feel like I mentioned this when I talked about Raina and Jesse but I loved the friendship and relationships a lot in here. When I read The Gossip Games I fell in love with Gracie and Dean and the relationship that they have (along with most of the other characters like Jesse, Theo and Zara) and the same has happened while I read The Friendship Fight reading about Jesse and Raina. Nicole and Jesse’s friendship was really interesting to read and I really liked Nicole’s character arc. It felt very deserved and was well done - not disregarding what she had done to other characters but understanding why she did so and seeing the positives she brings to other people. As you see Raina and Jesse’s relationship evolve you also see how Jesse and Nicole’s relationship needs to evolve and how the two can work together. These relationships feel perfect for the characters and I love how much they come together.

Another things that I may not have loved in the book but was really important and I’m glad was included was the homophobia that while the main characters don’t face other key characters definitely do. There are a few members of the Ashcroft family that are openly homophobic and maybe while they don’t all say it, you can see it. It was interesting to see how the queer characters did tackle it and while some struggled with it a lot more, their reactions felt so real and as there is a third book still to come and as there is a specific event that is yet to occur, I’m hoping this will continue to get explored more in the final book. We have yet to have a book focus on one of our queer characters so while I’m hoping to see this event explored I’m also hoping to have a book follow one of the queer characters and what they do face with their family and the ‘traditional’ views they hold.

I have a few characters I’m hoping that book 3 will follow and I’m definitely disappointed that it’ll be the last book in the series because I love these characters so much and want a book that follows them all. I am so ready for book 3 and I am so ready for the excitement of learning more about it even if it’s not scheduled to release for almost, if not a year. I really highly recommend this series and am so ready to have my hands on a paperback that I can annotate and just turn into my own. Allie is definitely one of the authors that I class as one of my top tier, auto-buy authors that write books that mean the world to me. I will never stop shouting about these books and will always highly recommend them because they do truly mean so much for me. If you have not read The Gossip Games yet please do because I’d love to be able to speak to more people about it and if you have please pre-order this book. The Friendship Fight is one of my most anticipated releases for 2024 and is due to be released on the 2nd Janauary 2024.

Thank you Netgalley, Snowridge Press and Allie Sarah for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.