AMAZINGGGG!!!!!!! This book was very well written and I loved every page of it!

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this book!

I received this arc from NetGalley and Publisher BooksGoSocial, The Accidental Boyfriend. Gabriel Wade is a child actor prodigy, his current role playing a werewolf on a tv sitcom. Jessica Thorne is an up and coming teen author, whose first book is days away from debuting. So, how exactly do these two end up in a fake dating contract? Lori Freeland writes a beautifully tragic story of the lives of these two strangers who have more in common than they think, and their journey to find themselves and love. This book will be give you all the feels. I laughed, cried, and fell in love with the characters and their stories. Beautifully written.

I went I to this book expecting it to be a fairly lighthearted YA romance. It reality, it touches on some deeper issues, such as complex family dynamics, anxiety, parentification, dementia, and feelings of abandonment. It is heartwarming and has a little bit of a twist I didn't expect. I really enjoyed it overall.

Heartwarming YA story with likable main and side characters. I found a good dose of humor in the book but the characters also showed vulnerability and each dealt with it in their own way.

I found the ending really satisfying which made me enjoy the book more. Would definitely recommend if you are looking for something nice and heartwarming, but still fast paced enough to keep you gripped!

I really liked this book! I thought after they got together the book would end, and it seemed to drag on, i almost DNFed. glad i didn't though! solid ending, nice character arcs. it was a bit too spicy for me, but i was able to skip the spicier scenes. nothing explicit, i'm just not comfy with "getting hot and heavy" as gabe says.

A lovely warm romance. The perfect mix of sweetness with deeper and more intense topics. I appreciated that the deeper concepts weren’t ones that are often discussed in romance books. I also thought the more complicated topics were discussed in a way which made them easy to digest. I loved Gabe, he was very likeable and had me kicking my feet. Jess was very relatable and also living out every teenage girls dream. It became a real page turner, waiting to see how they overcame/ worked through all the different aspects of their lives. Overall the book left me feeling warm and happy, I loved it!

I normally hate insta loves but this book does it really well! This book is perfect for those who love Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter!!

Going in I thought it would be a very pg kind of like Camp Rock vibes but it was so cute with emotional aspects. The adults around the main characters could be really frustrating. Overall, would recommend!

Okay, so I’ve now read three books in two weeks with a love interest named Gabe🙈, but this one was different—because, for once, Gabe is actually alive👻 and the FL didn’t cheat on her partner with him🤬. Progress😝.

Going into this, I fully expected a cheesy🧀 kids' book based on the cover📓, but wow, was I wrong👎🏽. I ended up really enjoying it👏🏽. The story didn’t disappoint, and it got me in my feelings—I smiled, laughed, and even almost cried👁️👄👁️ (I held back, but it was close). And The cover. I don’t like it😪, but honestly, I’d still buy the book.

One thing I really loved was the diary entries📝 and quotes at the start of each chapter. They added a nice touch, like a little peek👀 into Jess’s mind. Speaking of Jess, she claimed🗣️ she thought🧠 about Gabe all the time (At the end), but let’s be real—she literally admitted that some days, he occupied her thoughts for less than an hour. But sure, Jess, whatever you say🎉.

Now, onto the worst part🤮: Victoria. She does not understand boundaries🚫. She’s out here supplying Gabe with alcohol🥃 like she forgot he’s underage, and then she has the nerve to be upset😡 when he shows up drunk🥴? Make it make sense. And don’t even get me started on how she kept pushing Jess and Gabe to sleep together when Jess clearly wasn’t ready💥. Like, hello? Jess is 17. Relax.

Also, a fun little plot twist for me👤—I was shocked to find out Gabe’s sister is older than him❤️‍🩹. The way she was acting, I fully assumed she was a whiny 14-year-old. She had zero personality💩, so I guess that tracks.

Overall, this book surprised me in the best way🔥. Would I recommend it? Absolutely💯. Would I change the cover💝? Immediately🫂.

Thanks Netgalley and the author for the ARC😝💝🎉

Pre Thoughts:
- YA Romance Read


Post thoughts
The Diary. entries Featured at the beginning of Each of Jess's chapters are a great addition. (Red this in one sitting, quite an easy read)

Some aspects i was not too fond of ( Gabe).

Tropes
= Fake dating
- Dual POV
- Meet Cute

Thank you Netgallery for the opportunity to review this ARC, this is my own and honest thoughts.

The Accidental Boyfriend by Lori Freeland
Sweet, fun, and full of charm, The Accidental Boyfriend is a delightful romance that brings humor and heart to the fake-dating trope. Lori Freeland creates lovable characters with undeniable chemistry, making this novel a perfect comfort read for fans of lighthearted romance.

A sweet YA read! I really enjoyed the characters and their development and thought the plot was well built. Humor, romance, what’s not to love?!

If you loved the Disney movie, Starstruck, pick up this heartwarming YA romance. I loved the anxiety representation in this story with Jess and how gentle Gabe was with her. A sweet story, I loved the beauty and vulnerability of Jess and Gabe's romance.

Thanks to Netgalley and The Publisher for an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a charming and fun romance. The story of two unlikely people coming together through a mix-up is filled with humor, warmth, and great chemistry between the leads. It’s a quick, feel-good read that I thoroughly enjoyed, perfect for fans of lighthearted romance. While it’s a bit predictable, it’s still a delightful escape.

This was such a cute book to read. It was a bit confusing about their backgrounds and that only got really explained at the middle of the story. Their meet cute was adorable. It was a predictable book to read but sometimes we just need books like that in our life. It was a great YA romance about an actor who falls in love with a girl he just met. It was so good to read how they were both there for each other when they had difficult moment. They just need to touch the other to calm down which was sweet.

This book is perfect. I loved Jess and Gabe from the very first pages. This book made me laugh, cry, and swoon. An easy 5 star read for me.

SPOILERS AHEAD
This was sadly a no for me, the premise seemed good and I wanted to like it but some factors really made this hard to like as a whole. The main issue to me was all of the problematic adults, Vi being the worst of all. She was so inattentive to Jess and was only focused on herself, she supplied the underage MMC with alcohol knowing he had issues with it before, the gross misconduct with her Jess's father and encouraging her to be a harlot when it clearly all makes her uncomfortable and she's 17. The fact that she had the nerve to be hurt with Jess finally called her out on some of the nonsense she's been doing I was outraged. Vi was unprofessional in every way and should never have been her agent or anywhere near a public relations job like that when she was also making comments on the MMC who's barley 18 and his body. Jess's father was also trash considering how absentee he was and again the gross situation with Vi which made no sense to what we glimpsed from his character. I hated them both and wish they were never involved in the book, it might've been a lot better without them and any scenes they had. on Gabe's end his situation wasn't much better with the adults around him, how can he be expected to make serious decisions with the power of attorney when A. he's barely an adult, and B. isn't given all the information from other adults because they're "protecting him" it's too conflicting. Adding on to that, his sister is also being completely unreasonable, and she's actually the older one but someone can't be trusted to make serious decisions so it falls on Gabe. I really didn't like her either with her ultimatums and pushing him to drink the bottles of alcohol Vi left for him (which he hadn't touched at all) also knowing he has an issue with it. The whole thing was just an endless car crash sorry to say, which is unfortunate because the main couple parts were actually good at times; though I'm over incredibly sheltered female leads where every little thing is scandalous to them.

The Accidental Boyfriend was a heartwarming YA contemporary romance.

Jess, a teenage author just about to release her debut novel falls into the arms (literally) of the one and only Gabriel who stars in the successful show The Pack (think teen wolf).

I love a meet cute and this did not disappoint. I loved the way the author brought the depth of these characters to not make them come across as just being difficult for the sake of it.

An easy and enjoyable read.

The premise of this story immediately caught my interest. However, it did not deliver.

One of my main criticisms for this book is Gabriel. I found him to be borderline creepy and predatory in his interactions with Jess. He constantly ignored her boundaries and made advances on her time and time again, which clearly made her uncomfortable. I did not find him charming in the slightest.

There was also the issue of adults freely and knowingly providing underage children alcohol. I found this incredibly bizarre, unethical, and unrealistic.

There were also some issues with the writing, which I found quite distracting.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I love how the dedication was for teen wolf fans, It brought me a lot of nostalgic feelings right off the bat for me! Loved the diary entries in the beginning of the chapters, it really drew me in more.I love a good meet cute and the way Gabe and Jess initially met did not disappoint!
- Dual POV
- Meet cute
- Quick fun read
- Fake dating
-Humour
-Author and Actor
I had a blast with this one!