In Real Life by Jessica Love is a sweet, whirlwind romance about taking chances and discovering who you are. Hannah spontaneously sets out to meet her online best friend, Nick, only to find that reality doesn’t always match expectations. Fun, heartfelt, and relatable, it’s a perfect read for fans of contemporary YA romance.

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

In Real Life by Jessica Love is very, very cute. A little cliche, but sometimes that's exactly what you want! I love stories where a friendship is built online. I have many very important internet-only friendships, so this book tugged at that part of me and made me want to check in with all my friends. And I really love that Hannah and Nick go from friends to more. It's every teen's dream! Or at least, it was mine. The romance made a lot of sense for teens. The couple has misunderstandings and drama and that slow burn that is agonizing, but wonderful at the same time. Loved it.

Unfortunately I did not get on with this book and therefore cannot rate it very highly. I really struggled to connect with the characters and storyline.

Nicely written and entertaining YA contemporary story that is defiantly timely with internet friends!
I found it a bit too overly fluffy for my personal taste, but its a nice read overall

I actually found myself really enjoying this book – to the point that I almost gave up sleep for it and I read through it so quickly, it was awesome. Not that many books do that to me these days because sleep is always more important, lol.

In the beginning, I just really wanted to know what Nick hid from Hannah so I literally stayed up until I got that part, satisfied my curiosity for that night and went to bed. I guess what he hid wasn’t a complete surprise but I was a little surprised about the girlfriend aspect. I definitely wasn’t surprised about the band part though.

I’m not sure if I’m a fan of Nick or Hanna, to be honest, even though I enjoyed the plot and the romance between. Firstly, Nick came off as a player to me. Even though he’s supposed to be sensitive and a private person but the fact that he hid the fact that he had a girlfriend and even once Hannah found out, he couldn’t help himself and tried some lame lines on her, made me think that he wasn’t such a good guy after all. For me, I was like, seriously buddy? Stop trying to stare oogly at Hannah yet kiss your girlfriend in the next instance.

And then, Hannah. I was not a fan of her either. I found her a little immature and annoying, to be honest. Her sister and friend went with her to help Nick and while they helped her, they also enjoyed their time in Vegas. However, rather than letting her sister and friend enjoy themselves, Hannah basically threw a fit at them because they weren’t focusing 100% on her and her Nick crisis.

However, disregarding the two main characters, I did enjoy the overall plot a lot. I found the idea of a digital romance and then meeting in real life to be very romantic. Especially with the fact that I grew up with everyone cautioning me to be wary of strangers online and don’t go meeting random people after meeting them virtually. And even though technically Hannah’s sister met Nick’s brother and made the introduction, you never really know what someone is like. A virtual personality can always be extremely different from an “in real life” personality.

I also read this review on Goodreads where this girl complained about how Nick cheated on his girlfriend with Hannah and essentially vented on how that’s not okay and stuff. However, to be fair, he never actually did anything with Hannah other than say some smooth lines to her. He didn’t even kiss her even though he wanted to. The first time they kissed was after he broke up with Frankie. So I don’t know why she was so upset in that review – I just thought it was hilarious for her to be so upset over something that wasn’t even there.


Anyways, overall, I really did enjoy the book. I do think the characters could have been improved a little bit but that didn’t really cause a huge dent in the general of things.

Review on my old blog: http://botanical-studies.tumblr.com/post/141435929344/title-in-real-life-author-jessica-love-pages

I loved this novel and would definitely recommend to readers looking for a coming-of-age novel that is both gripping and heartwarming.

Solid set-up, a modern setting, potential in its premise - this book could've been awesome. Some of the story was interesting and I always like a bit of exploration of character dynamics. Unfortunately, I found the execution ultimately didn't match up to the premise. Fans of Leila Sales' Tonight the Streets Are Ours might have better luck with this.