First thing’s first: thank you Netgalley for the ALC of this book!
I Wish You Would was a coming of age story told from Natalia and Ethan’s point of view. Best friends who are secretly in love with each other are working through a miscommunication that has put a wedge into their friendship. Natalia accidentally loses several private letters on a senior sleepover and her and Ethan work to collect them all before they’re discovered.
This was pretty good, but Ethan was uncomfortably dramatic. I have to remind myself that I was probably in the running for Most Dramatic Person To Ever Exist when I was 17, but like oof dude. I will have two ratings for this book: how I would have rated it as a 15 year old and how I would rate it now, as an adult. Obviously 15 year old me liked this book much better than adult me. I think the characters were believably high schoolers and the supporting cast was interesting and lovable. They didn’t feel like an afterthought and they were interwoven into the story well.
15 year old me rates it: 4⭐️
Adult me rates it: 3⭐️

YA romance full of angst, social disparity, and misunderstandings set in the backdrop of a senior class camp out.

It's a best friends-to misunderstood aquaintances- to lovers kind of story.
The protagonist has severe anxiety, which creates behavioral choices that create drama.
Is it a comedy? Not really. It's too real.
Is it romantic? Yeah, it is, so read it!

Thank you to the MacMillan Audio for the advanced release of this title in exchange for my honest review.

I was definitely interested in this book until about 50% when i started to lose interest. I went in knowing this book was a bit young for me, but was hoping there would be enough depth that I could overlook that. Honestly though, there wasn’t. Just wasn’t for me.

This is cute and fine for what it is. It relied a little too much on lack of communication just on all counts for me. Usually I give more leeway for that in YA books, but it was seriously like not a single character was talking to anyone about anything and it felt a little too much. The plot was cute, we did similar things at my high school in terms of bonding at the beginning of both freshman and senior year so I liked revisiting those memories through this book.

For the audiobook, my biggest complaint was the difference in how fast each narrator was talking. It was like I kept having to adjust the speed because our male narrator spoke so much slower and it needed to be sped up whenever we switched.

This was cute for what it was! Felt very YA at times but that’s ok! The narrators were really good and I enjoyed listening! A very sweet friends to lovers romance 🥰

This was a cute book. I did feel that it was slow at times. I’m not the biggest fan of miscommunication trope but it did work here since this was a YA novel!

Thank you macmillian audio for the ALC