How could you not love a rivals to lovers rom come. Was a fun, quick read on a day when I could get wrapped up the story. I love Emma Lord, and this did not disappoint. Can’t wait to read more.

This was a cute life time academic rival between Sadie and Seb. Their parents are best friends and they grew up together and went to school and competed as top student. We see them starting college and again, competing.

At college, they are both competing for the same job on the school paper. We see them breaking down the animosity and rediscover their friendship while growing into themselves.

The story is cute and the characters is very on point with college students. The supporting characters were great and added a fun element to the story.

Thank you @wednesdaybooks @netgalley for a copy of this.

I haven't read much YA recently, but I always enjoy a new Emma Lord novel. She is so good at writing fun, compelling young adult stories that pair sweet romances and friendships with stories of growing up, and I love that some of her work is set at college, not just high school. In The Rival, Lord begins with the start of freshman year, with protagonist Sadie beginning her quest to write for the popular student zine Newsbag. She's excited, on her own for the first time - and away from her beloved but overwhelming family - and also free of her lifelong family friend and longtime rival, Seb. That is, until he shows up on campus, and at the same Newsbag intro meeting, as a last-minute transfer. Sadie and Seb have secretly competed for years (which does feel a bit over the top and silly in the beginning), and now launch into a competition for the coveted new staff writer position at Newsbag. Out of the context of their hometown, high school, and families, though, their relationship starts to change as they also work on figuring out their new college identities. They get drawn into a larger story at Newsbag and around campus about the school budget, which was a fun subplot and way for both to grow into themselves. As usual, Lord populates the novel with fun roommates, editors, and other characters and quirky campus activities. Sadie and Seb are great, compelling anchors, though, and their relationship is really sweet; Lord excels at depicting their connection and how they move toward a relationship.

This was absolutely adorable. Growing up together when your parents are best friends and live next door to each other what else could happen but become rivals. Fighting for the same job in college you get rivals to lovers.

Thanks to Netgalley for inviting me to read this charming story.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Rival by Emma Lord follows Sadie and Seb, lifelong rivals who are both determined to secure spots at their college’s highly competitive student magazine. Sadie, who thought she’d won when she was accepted to her dream college, is taken by surprise when Seb, who was initially rejected, makes it off the waitlist. Their rivalry intensifies as they both aim for a place on the magazine’s staff, but their competitive dynamic begins to shift as they start to develop unexpected feelings for each other.

The novel is a sweet and charming rivals-to-lovers story with plenty of witty banter and chemistry between the protagonists. It fits comfortably between YA and NA age categories, offering a clean romance that doesn’t go beyond kissing, making it accessible to both young readers and adults. The characters’ evolving relationship, set against the backdrop of their ambitious academic pursuits, provides a fun, lighthearted read.

A big than you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A cute, clean young adult romance between two childhood friends, who had a falling out due to a misunderstanding and became academic rivals, In their first year of college, competing for one spot in the school zine, they battle against each other in the start but come together to save the zine and other students programs whose fund are being cut in favour for sports by crooked headmaster..

Will they or will they not get together felt repetitive in the book and something I thought should have been wrapped up quicker. I actually prefer the banters, zine competition, the tackling of the realistic issue in the college funding where both played essentials roles, and the resolution of characters respective family issues.

Emma Lord has such a talent for writing YA romances with compelling premises that don’t fall victim to oversimplification. (It’s why she’s one of my auto-read authors.) With her newest novel The Rival, she tells a sort of enemies-to-lovers romance that confronts the challenges of being a college freshman and the best way to stand up for a cause we believe in.

Sadie earned her high school’s single, coveted spot at Maple Ride University, winning out over her family friend—and secret, long-time rival—Seb, who’s attending a different, prestigious school. Sadie is determined to make her mark at Maple Ride and to earn the one staff position for a freshman at the college’s zine Newsbag, all as a way of setting up her comedy career.

There’s a twist, of course. Seb, who was waitlisted, has shown up on campus. And he also wants to join the Newsbag staff.

Sadie had looked forward to escaping the constant challenges of her rivalry with Seb but also of establishing a new, true college identity, the one she had never been able to live out when she was with our family. With them? Well, they’re A. LOT. And Sadie always finds herself in the role of mediator, smoothing things over, evening out everyone’s emotions. Now? She may want to be a lot, too.

That’s the initial setup. Add in a budget controversy in which the college is pulling money away from extracurriculars like Newsbag to fund their sports teams, and there’s the perfect recipe for a compelling, complicated, wonderful YA novel.

The romance is at the center of the book here, but it’s not the only focus. There are wonderful conversations about Sadie and Seb’s challenges as they leave their families—they’re excited to be on their own, homesick for their families, ready to carve out new identities, but not quite prepared to leave who they were behind. There are great considerations of friendship, of how to be an advocate and an ally without dismissing the concerns of those who may be affected by change. There’s a fantastic subplot about romantic relationships—Sadie is completely inexperienced and, now that she’s in college, is having a hard time moving past the feeling that she is the ONLY one who is in her same position.

That may sound like too much, but Emma Lord makes it work. The Rival navigates these various threads easily, with humor and empathy and swoony romance. It epitomizes everything I love about Lord’s writing.

I love everything that Emma Lord has written and this book is no different. Sadie and Seb are high school rivals who have now moved on to college. While they once again are pit against each other for the one available staff spot for the zine they discover what all public school librarians have known for years, the athletics program is the root of all evil. Will they join forces to make changes, will they remain rivals or will they become something more? I enjoyed every minute of this read. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced preview.

Sadie and Seb grew up as next-door neighbors and are now at college together. The book's premise is that they've been competing with each other all their lives and are now competing for the same spot on the campus newspaper. I should have stopped after one or two chapters but decided to embrace the book as an over-the-top cliched movie script. That was a mistake because this was an overall mess that wasted my time. I think even teen romance readers looking for a mindless read will be too frustrated to enjoy this book.

📖+🎧: The Rival, a standalone

✍🏾 Author: Emma Lord- I read The Getaway List and gave it 5⭐

🗣️ Narrator: Jesse Vilinsky voices all the characters with standouts from Sadie and Seb. The reading style brought the text to life, and the author and narrator worked together perfectly. The pacing and flow allowed me to get lost in the story. The narrator paused and announced new chapters and there was a table of contents which helped me follow along.

🏃🏾‍➡️Run Time: 11:16

📅Publication date: 1-21-25 | Read 1-10-25

📃 # of pages: 320 e-book

Genre:
* YA/College
*Rom-Com
*Contemporary

Tropes:
*enemies to lovers
*academic rivals
*coming of age
*family drama
*1st love
* LGBTQIA+rep

👆🏾POV: 1st person

🌎 Setting: Maple Ride, VA

Summary: Sadie has finally beaten Seb getting into Maple Ride University, while he is wait-listed. They have been academic rivals since 3rd grade but are forced to be around each other because their parents are BFFs. Sadie is surprised to find Seb has been accepted to MRU and they compete for a staff writing position on the college zine Newsbag-one of the most prestigious in the country.


👩🏾 Heroine: Sadie Brighton- communication major, family is dramatic, and she is the peacekeeper.

👨🏾 Hero: Sebastian "Seb" Anderson-engineering major, has popular Instagram channel "Adam's Apple"

🎭 Other Characters:
* Christina-Sadie's BFF and roommate-cross country track star
* Amara and Rowan-co staff writers for "Newsbag" magazine.
* Joey-baseball scholarship, entertainment writer, a sophomore
*Marley(oldest) + Hadley (youngest)- Sadie's sisters
*Colby-Seb's father

🤔 My Thoughts: This was a little nostalgic thinking about my first year away at college. I was extremely shy and cried when my mom and sister pulled off and left me. I went home every weekend for months until I found my place as a staff writer on my school paper- The Quad. I loved the competitive spirit between Seb and Sadie and how it evolved. The student activism added a bigger scope to the story-funding for athletes, scholarships, and the magazine. Christina was the MVP arguing with Sadie about her experience at college.

Rating: 4/5⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice level 1/5🔥 kissing only

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books, Macmillan Audio, and Emma Lord for this ARC and ALC! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions are my own.

I’m usually a big fan of Emma Lord and was surprised this one didn’t do much to captivate me. I almost felt like The Rival was too similar in ways to some of her other books and it left me feeling like it was a struggle to engage. I’m still a big Emma Lord fan and plan to give some of her other books a try in the future.

This enemies-to-friends-to-dating YA story reminded me yet again that Emma Lord writes some of the absolute best young adult books on the market. In this one, our main character (Sadie) is a college freshman at the school of her dreams, getting ready to try out for the school zine she's been following for years, and living in the dorm with her best friend, Christina. She's thrown for a loop when her neighbor/frenemy/soulmate, Seb, suddenly appears at the zine tryout meeting...since he didn't get into the school. Except he did. He got off the wait list and this leads to the two of them competing for the one available spot on the zine staff. There's also family drama, "freshman year at college is hard" drama, and a lot of pancakes in the cutest way possible. And an alphabet party that I now want to try to throw in my 40s.

I feel like a quote from chapter 11 sums it up best: "Keep your friends close and your lifelong academic rivals you've imagined kissing multiple times against your will closer." (This was a review copy so I'm sorry if this line changes slightly in final book!)

Highly recommended to anyone who is getting ready to go to college, who remembers the transition to college fondly and wants to smile, or who hated their transition to college and wants to overwrite it with adorable dialogue.

CW: intense young adult stress, lots of will-they-or-won't-they-or-when-will-they kiss (no adult content)

From the day they met, Sadie and Seb have been competing with one another on every little thing. Sadie through that college was when she would finally be able to escape and reinvent herself outside her competitions with Seb. Low and behold, Seb is also attending the same college and they are competing for the same writing position on the school's famous zine. This one is for the slow burn lovers. Throughout their competition, they discover there are bigger problems that need to be addressed than who will get the spot with the zine. Sadie's journey to embracing her writing and admitting to her family about her writing passions was beautifully written. I found both characters to be relatable throughout the book. The story's pace keeps you immersed and not wanting to put the book down. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the free eARC. All opinions are my own.

Instagram review will be live 20Jan25

The Rival by Emma Lord is a college coming-of-age story that focuses on two academic rivals who are family friends. Our main character thinks she's free of him until she arrives on her college campus and finds herself covered in his smoothie. They're both going for a single spot at the newspaper on campus, and through their competition, they champion greater causes on campus, get to know one another better, and ultimately realize their feelings are less like loathing and more like something else.

While I enjoyed this book, I couldn't help but feel that it was just trying to be far too quirky for its own good. Everything on the college campus felt a bit over the top and unrealistic, a kind of picture-book version of what college is really like.

I gave this book a three-star rating because I enjoyed it and thought it was okay, but I wouldn't read it again or recommend it to a friend.

This was really cute! It felt a bit like a middle ground between YA and Adult. I really loved the story and the characters. I have read every book Emma Lord has written and I will continue to read them until she stops publishing. She is incredible.

First, thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC.

I wanted to love this, but I just didn't. While it was very cute in parts, and very swoony in parts, I didn't feel the stakes in the romance because it was made clear from the first chapter that the main characters were going to get together and everyone in their lives knew it. Even the moments where they had fights or issues felt fleeting because everything was going to get wrapped up beautifully. I realize the HEA is the point, but it would be nice to not see it coming from page one. Additionally, all of the conflicts, like the big fight between Sadie and Christina, felt so thin.

I'll absolutely get this for my library because I know kids who will enjoy it, but it was just fine for me.

**Thank you to Wednesday Books for this free digital review copy.**

Emma Lord's YA rom-com's have been a hit for me in the past, and The Rival was no exception. The characters' snappy sarcasm and comedic timing entertained me from start to finish (and this is coming from a person who notoriously doesn't care for comedy, much to my husband's chagrin). I highlighted lots of lines that make me chuckle, such as, "My carefully chosen floral blue first-day-of-college dress has pit stains deeper than most emotions." Sadie's desperation to make her mark and fit in as she begins her college adventure is what every freshman feels, on some level, and watching each of the characters come into their own was a happy little adventure. I appreciated how the book was able to explore Sadie's relationships with her parents and sisters, her best friend, her new college friends, and Sebastian without it feeling like too much.

There was real, believable conflict, but also a happy ending — exactly what you want from this type of book. The results of the back-and-forth between Sadie and Sebastian was never truly in question, but it wasn't annoying (mostly — I had a few moments of complaint, and a few guesses that I completely missed the mark on). It was actually sweet seeing them fully realize their feelings and want to face them maturely instead of just diving into something without giving it appropriate thought. But it probably helps that everyone around them, both new and old friends, expected the inevitable and was all for it.

This would be a great fall read, but really fun for any time of the year!

A late bloomer, coming of age story about two childhood rivals who continue their rivalry into college to compete for the only slot at the school paper.

Another miss for me. This was a college romance that was (1) too self aware that it was a RomCom, and (2) had almost no relatability for me. The whole thing was quite hyperbolic. I found the conflicts to be petty or nonsensical. I found it required a lot of suspension of disbelief for some plot points, which is hard for me in contemporary stories. The late bloomer aspect was actually kind of sweet, but the take away was weird.

Content : kissing only romantic content, characters are diverse and LGBT+ forward (straight FMC, bi MMC, a married lesbian couple, and a they/them character), quite a bit of profanity.

Thank you for the advance digital copy of this book from the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for making it available.

My review is currently up on Goodreads.

Sadie and Seb have lived next door to each other for their whole lives. When they were little, they were the best of friends, until a prank went wrong. Then they became the biggest rivals in school, with Sadie coming out on top with the coveted spot at her dream college with a chance to be a staff reporter for their zine, Newsbag. But this wouldn't be a romance if things went the way Sadie wanted, so Seb ends up off the waitlist and competing with her for the writing position...and of course, sparks fly!

This was a great rivals to lovers, frenemies to lovers, forced proximity, boy/girl next door story...pick your favorite trope. The book gets right to the Sadie/Seb rivalry, and doesn't slow down. The pacing was great, and the story was somewhat predictable (what romance isn't?) but it also had an interesting plot. There aren't a lot of college-age romances featuring writers (that I know of, anyway). I really enjoyed this book, it was different from other romances that I've read recently. Sadie and Seb having to work together while also competing against each other played well on the page. They had great chemistry and banter.

I also want to note that there was LGBTQIA+ representation. Seb is bisexual, although it's not a main plotline, only referenced to a few times. There's also a nin-binary character and a lesbian couple, so if that's something you're looking for, this has it.

All in all, this was an excellent read focusing on finding yourself, family, friends, and being a team. If you enjoy a good rival romance with frenemies or a nice boy/girl next door will-they-won't-they story, then this one's for you!

Sadie is finally free of her nemesis, Seb, the boy next door who has been challenging her since birth, as she embarks on her freshman year at Maple Ride University. However she is shocked to find him off the enrollment waitlist and once again competing with her for a coveted spot on the prestigious college zine staff. With a plot that has very few surprises–one could see the enemies to lovers ending playing out from page one–this story dragged in several places, but ultimately left me feeling positive about the book as a whole. It’s worth noting that this ranks about a zero on the spicy scale, so give this to teens who are after a clean rom/com.