Thank you to Netgallery and the publisher for a copy to review.

I LOVED this book. Emma and Caleb are so cute. There were a few scenes that kinda didn’t make sense to me but overall really loved the writing. Id recommend to anyone and read more from the author in the future.

4.5 stars

This was another enjoyable book by Amanda Woody. It had a bit of a slow start, but ended up picking up and being very enjoyable. I loved both characters. Emma and Caleb were amazing and when they were together, even better! I loved seeing them interact with their banter and their hints of feelings. That’s the thing that is so great about enemies (or in this case ex best friends) to lovers that I love! I felt for both of them with all that was going on in their lives. They both had their own struggles and huge personalities but they worked so well together. I also loved the side characters. Juliet, Alice, Jas, and Caleb's mom they were all great! All of them fit so well with the story and again had great personalities. Such an enjoyable cast of characters. Enough about the characters and a little more on the plot. I liked it. The who competition bit felt a bit icky but I really liked how it played out in the end. It was really well done for an icky concept haha. Overall a great read and I can't wait to see what Amanda comes up with next.

Content warning: neglect, emotional abusive parent, runaway, bullying, homophobia, aphobia,


Thank you to @penguinteen for an ecopy in exchange for an honest review

3.5 stars

♡ Hurt/Comfort
♡ Second Chance
♡ Emotional Growth

This wasn’t fully what I was expecting. While I liked the friendship and the second chance vibe it had it was just honestly really slow-paced for a good portion of the book. Getting to know Caleb and Emma and their complex history for more than half of the book. Ex-best friends who could have easily been more—falling for the same girl and placing a bet that whoever the girl kissed first got to date her… obviously things don’t go as planned. Not going to lie I thought this was going to go in a poly relationship route but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I did like the demisexual and aro/ace representation though, the characters in general all had depth and good development as the story progressed.

Though there were a few things that felt a bit out of pocket. Emma randomly getting hit by a car for example then just getting up like nothing happened. The whole scene seemed unnecessary. However, the last few chapters seemed to get better, the book ended on a good note, and the humor was lovely!

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, Penguin Teen, and Viking Books for Young Readers for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Spice Level: mentioned (off page)
Angst Level: 💧(1/5)
POV: Duel, First Person
Release Date: 23, July 2024
Rep: Demisexual (Main Character), Bisexual (Main Character), Aro/Ace (Side Character), Mental Health, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC

⚠️ Content Warnings:
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Abandonment, Car accident, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Bullying, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Body shaming

This was one of the cutest friends to enemies to lovers books packed with lgbtqia+ representation. You get snippets of the past that help to understand why there was a rift and when there's a "competition" for another's heart... what better than to have their friends stage a reverse set up! I love how no matter what our two MCs have always held on to a love for one another, held onto knowing they are who they are because of the other. Nothing erased that.

cute little YA romance - love the diversity!!
I did not like the competition for a person's attention/affection. altho they addressed this in the book by the characters, it still rubbed me the wrong way

This book was adorable! I was wanting a fun, relaxing book and this was it, I loved the quirky cast of queer characters and the plot was so much fun and not predictable at all. I adored Caleb and Emma and loved that the traditional gender roles were flipped upside down. This was such a well-written story and I’d love to see more with this cast!

I loved Amanda Woody's debut but this book unfortunately didn't work for me. Like in THEO, both Emma and Caleb are dealing with intense home situations in this book, but I don't feel like the characters are well fleshed out beyond their traumatic home lives. It's especially hard to get to know them with their mutual crush, Julia, in the mix, as she dominates many of their interactions but doesn't add much to their character development.

I also found it hard to relate to the former friends narrative. They're high school seniors and were friends in 8th grade, but act like they still know each other intimately. Somehow this doesn't jive for me. Kids change so much between middle school and high school that they should be practically strangers at this point, but there's not much mention of how they've grown or changed in the time or what they've missed in each other's lives.

I was excited for this book and absolutely loved the cover. I wasn’t expecting the story to be as heavy as it was. Still, the challenges felt very realistic and kept me engaged in the story. I wasn’t a huge fan of all the past chapters but i thought it was a solid story. Caleb was very sweet but I wish the side characters offered a little more. The chemistry between the two characters was only okay and the issue that Emma faced seemed to resolve a bit too easily but other than that it’s a decent read. 3.5 stars.

Caleb and Emma used to be best friends until a sudden falling out led to them avoid speaking to each other at all costs. However, they can’t keep avoiding each other when they both have to confront a bully who’s targeting the new girl, Juliet. The ex-friends are both instantly drawn to Juliet and devise a competition to see who can win her over first.

I don’t know why the premise of two people competing over a mutual love interest ultimately for the other’s attention always sounds so compelling in a book description, only to be a bit disappointing in practice. To be fair, every character acknowledges how gross it is, but that doesn’t stop anything. Besides being slightly off-putting, it also doesn’t allow for the love interest, Juliet, to have a personality for most of the book because she’s only there to serve as a propellant for the two MCs relationship. Caleb and Emma seem to immediately fall in love with Juliet for no reason other than she’s pretty and so unbelievably ~quirky~. I understand why she felt so unconfident and was self-deprecating but it felt a bit grating to read, and I couldn’t understand why it was supposedly so endearing.

Like in Amanda Woody’s debut, They Hate Each Other, both MCs have heavy issues to deal with, and it’s nice to see how Caleb and Emma develop individually and support each other while working through everything. There were a few moments that made me laugh, and I know from THEO how funny Woody is, but I think maybe the whole quirkiness factor weighed that down in Exes & Foes. There wasn’t as much opportunity for their humor to shine through here.

My favorite character was hands down Caleb’s mom. She was about to make me cry with how loving, supportive, and caring she was, and I just really loved her. I also thought the friend group that started forming had a lot of potential, and I would’ve appreciated seeing more of them. Overall, I thought there were some sweet and interesting characters and dynamics that may have had more of a chance to shine with possibly a different handling of the premise and some further character development.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Exes & Foes by Amanda Woody is told from the point of view of high school seniors, Emma and Caleb, former best friends who haven’t spoken in four years since Emma cut him off without any explanation. When a new girl named Juliet moves to town and both of them find themselves attracted to her, Emma and Caleb strike up a competition to see who can win her over first. To spend time with Juliet, they are forced to endure each other’s company as well and pretty soon neither one of them is sure whether Juliet is the person they want to be with after all.
Certain aspects of this book were done really well; for instance, some sensitive topics such as emotional abuse by parents and friends as well as parental neglect were included and were handled with sensitivity and care. Sometimes serious issues are introduced into romances to explain characters’ behaviors only to be completely neglected or left on a surface level, but that was not the case here. Emma, Caleb, and even Juliet each had traumas that genuinely impacted their characterization and story arcs. From beginning to end, we got to see them open up about their struggles and work through them

Unfortunately, I did not feel attached to the characters. Caleb and Emma were fine as narrators but they were a little one-dimensional. Caleb was awkward, germaphobic, and kind and Emma was short-tempered, had low self-esteem, and was quick to fight anyone who insulted her or her friends. I didn’t feel like I knew anything about their personalities beyond that. Juliet was even more flat as the only information we got about her was that she was perky, talkative, and clumsy. Although these characters’ backstories and traumas were fleshed out well, who they actually were as people were not.

The couple of other side characters, Emma’s friend Alice and Caleb’s friend Jas might as well have not even been there as they were not developed at all and didn’t really contribute to the plot beyond filling out the friend group. However, I did love Caleb’s mom. She wasn’t present for that much of the book because she worked a lot, but she was such a supportive presence, not only in Caleb’s life but in Emma’s as well. It was so sweet to see her treat Emma as her own and assure her of her worth.

Emma and Caleb’s romance had some really sweet moments but overall I preferred them as friends. The way their relationship was written was very well-done in that I definitely believed in their history and the intensity of their feelings for each other. However, I think they had a lot to work through both as individuals and in terms of their relationship that should have taken precedence. I also thought they were a bit codependent. That might seem like a strange thing to say about two people who went four years without even speaking but the speed at which they became reliant on each other once they were back in each other’s lives and the degree to which they prioritized each other was a bit too much for two teenagers. This might be just a matter of personal preference but I’m not a fan of romances where the characters claim to not feel whole unless they’re together and that was the case here. I can understand highly valuing a person you love, especially for Emma and Caleb who didn’t have big support systems but ultimately that dynamic still doesn’t feel healthy to me. I think they should have built back up their friendship and focussed on themselves for far more time before entering a relationship.

That said, their chemistry was strong and I did really enjoy certain elements of their relationship. It felt realistic at the beginning when Emma and Caleb still claimed to not be friends but would constantly slip back and forth between arguing viciously one second to playfully bantering the next because their old habits were so ingrained in them. I loved the way they had each other’s backs even when they weren’t sure where they stood and that they accepted each other completely. I also loved the little things they would do for each other such as Caleb keeping Emma’s favorite ice cream flavor in his freezer or Emma bringing him his favorite candy when he was sad.

Their friendship/competition with Juliet could’ve been utilized better. It was nice that the three of them, along with Emma and Caleb’s respective best friends, formed a tight-knit group but so much of the book was spent with Emma and Caleb fighting over Juliet’s romantic affections (despite clearly being more interested in each other) that it felt like a plot device rather than a genuine friendship. Obviously, it was a plot device but if it was going to be such a big part of the book I wish the time would’ve been taken to more thoroughly develop Juliet as an individual as well as her friendships with Emma and Caleb rather than just using her to advance Emma and Caleb’s relationship. However, I absolutely loved the way Emma and Caleb listened to Juliet even when her interests differed from theirs and that they consistently assured her that being herself wasn’t “too much.”

Another significant theme in this book was bullying and I didn’t enjoy the way it was executed. It’s explained that Caleb has been bullied for basically his whole life largely because his mom likes to wear revealing clothes and bartends at a strip club. I’m not denying that bullying, even physical bullying such as pushing and fighting like Caleb experienced exists, or that people are sometimes bullied because of their parents. However, I found it hard to believe that high school seniors would go so far out of their way to make one person’s life miserable just because his mom wears tank tops and short shorts. Apparently, everybody Caleb ever went to school with outside of the main friend group made fun of him for this, beat him up, or attempted in some way to humiliate him and it felt like the kind of over-the-top bullying that occurred in 90s teen movies. There was a conversation towards the end of the book with Caleb’s mom about how it’s not a woman’s responsibility to dress in a way that makes others comfortable which was nice, but I wish it would’ve been included in a way that felt more natural rather than throwing it in as a response to a situation that was completely unrealistic.

This book was quick to get through and contained important messages and themes, as well as some very sweet moments of friendship but the flat characters, codependency in the romance, and overblown portrayal of bullying left something to be desired. If you’re interested in reading a young adult story that deals with parental neglect, emotional abuse, or difficult family dynamics I would recommend this one but if you simply want a cute young adult romance, there are more worthwhile ones out there.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This was so good. I didn’t know if I would like this going in, but I would give this ten stars if I could. Caleb and Emma used to be best friends, but now they can’t stand each other. Caleb is a strict rule follower, and Emma is a wild rule breaker. To make matters worse, they both have a crush on the new girl, Juliet. Caleb and Emma decide to compete for Juliet’s affection, and whoever she kisses first gets to date her. Juliet, of course, is not in on this. Caleb and Emma’s plans are slightly ruined when Juliet seems intent on hanging out with them at the same time. Hanging out all the time makes the two of them remember how close they used to be, and how much it hurt when they stopped being friends. In their efforts to win over Juliet though, they might be slowly falling… for each other. This was so good. Added to my list of favorite books. It’s also by the same author as They Hate Each Other. I love chaotic disaster bisexual books.

I just finished reading "Exes & Foes" and really liked it. The story is about Caleb and Emma, who used to be best friends but drifted apart. Now, they're both interested in the new girl, Juliet, and make a bet to see who she kisses first. While the competition for Juliet felt a bit off, the real highlight was Caleb and Emma's relationship. Their backstory, why they stopped being friends, and how they slowly reconnect were well done. Emma's issues with her abusive mother and Caleb's struggles with his dad added depth.

However, Juliet's character felt pretty flat. Despite being central to the plot, she didn't get much development beyond being quirky and pretty, which was disappointing. The book would have been better with more focus on her.

The best part was Caleb and Emma's evolving friendship. Their banter, falling back into old habits, and ultimate reconnection were highlights. The diverse representation, including demisexual and bisexual characters, was great and well-handled.

Although the start was slow and some side characters needed more depth, "Exes & Foes" is a charming, heartfelt read. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a mix of rivalry and romance. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC.

A fun read when Caleb and Emma, who used to like each other, decide they both might like Juliet. Caleb tells Emma you always steal my girls. Caleb and Emma decide to compete for Juliet, and they agree whoever Juliet kisses first can ask her out. As time goes on and the three spend some time together, Caleb’s mom tells Caleb that Emma fell in love with Caleb years ago. What?! How did he not know this. Will this change the competition? Will Caleb and Emma get back together? Will one of them decide they really like Juliet?

Synopsis: Two childhood friends turned enemies realize they both have a crush on the new girl in school. Not wanting to lose to each other, they make a bet that whoever she kisses first gets to be the one who dates her.
Emma and Caleb used to be childhood best friends until the became enemies. When a new girl moves town they both realize they have an interest in her. So all bets are off when they make a bet to see who she likes better and whoever the new girl kisses first gets a shot at dating her. Little do they know that by fighting over her will only bring them closer together.

Review:
(slight warning here that this book does contain some heavy topics throughout that deal with homophobia and parental neglect.)
Loved seeing how inclusive this book was in the range it had for all of the different character personalities. Also love seeing bi and demi rep, as well as throwing in tension of bi people who are attracted to the opposite gender – I personally feel like we could use more stories of bisexuals where the messy girl gets together with the neat freak guy. This book was cute while containing serious topics that the characters had to deal with such as their their parental relationships, but each time they dealt with it they would continually show up for each other.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7EzhXsplsP/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Emma and Caleb have known each other for most of their lives. Beginning as best friends but in Grade 8 things were seeming to take a turn into romance when Emma cut Caleb out of her life completely. 4 years later they now both have a crush on the new girl, Juliet. They decide to compete for her to see who should date her. As they begin to hang out more again and fall back into old routines, old feelings start to reemerge that were buried for 4 years. Maybe now is the time they can talk things out and see what happens....

This was such a great read. It's a YA touching on topics including: single mom, bullying, runaway teen dealing with homelessness, and so much representation (bisexuality, queer, lesbian, ace/aromantic). Highly recommend.

It makes my heart feel so full to see LGBTQ rep in YA books. I wish that I had books like this as a teen, with complex queer characters - characters who don't always make the right choice, characters who are messy, characters who are allowed to have a happy ending. It's great to see a nonbinary character, specifically. Even as YA fiction is getting more and more inclusive, I don't see many trans and nb characters yet, so it's great when I do see that representation. I found this book both charming and heart wrenching at times. It's a lovely story, and I would definitely recommend it to YA readers at my job.

sadly I had to dnf this book because I couldn’t get into the story. the summary and the cover were really good & caught my attention but there was something about the characters that I couldn’t get past. they were a bit annoying & there were some phrases in the dialogue that made the story fall flat.

Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers for allowing me to read this book early.This book is perfect for fans of childhood friends-strangers-to-lovers, healing from parental trauma, and themes of self-love and knowing your worth, definitely a worthy and wonderful read.

This was a funny, witty, and so, so real romance. Emma and Caleb are mere acquaintances now after a falling out in middle school. Now they both want the new girl, and decide to make a competition out of it. But the new gjrl, Juliet, throws a wrench in things and makes it interesting.

I was going to rant about this but I find I just don't have the energy. I was supposed to review this for Netgalley and the publisher, but I have a feeling they wouldn't want to see what I would originally have said. This is so disappointing, especially since I've enjoyed this author's other books. I just genuinely believe LBGTQ+ readers deserve better than the caricatures that were delivered here.