Author: Emma Lord
Rating: 4/5
Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for letting me receive a digital copy of this book before its official release date.
Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming — mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.
Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.
All’s fair in love and cheese — that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life — on an anonymous chat app Jack built.
As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate — people on the internet are shipping them?? — their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.
I was super surprised to have received this young adult book since the English or American version of NetGalley and their publishers seem to prefer native speaking reviewers these days. I was very glad, even more so when I finished Tweet Cute and would now consider it one of my favorite young adult books that I've read in 2019 (even though it releases in 2020).
I've been a huge fan of Twitter once myself and so I was totally up for the idea of two teens fighting in name of their parents' companies via that platform. Usually, I'm always a bit sceptical when it comes to teens in books and the use of social media. Simply because in most cases, it ends in grief, sadness or something even worse. But Tweet Cute is so light, yet at parts to complex, I loved the book so much, it was so fun to read and then you reach these emotional parts that make you either swoon or want to scream.
Pepper and Jack are the cutest, I couldn't agree more with the fandom that's developing during the story. I was shipping them right from the start, despite how less you'd think they have in common at first. That's only the first impression you get, but the further the story goes on, there's no way denying these two would be good for each other. Pepper being a baking queen and one of the stars of the swim team, Jack being the nerdy type of guy, creating apps but telling no one about it.
And Jack's love for developing apps is what gets them together in the first place without even knowing it. He created an app, so that students at their school could communicate without actually knowing who's on the other side and after a while, their identities are being revealed. It can't be really considered a dating app, because the chats can be about anything, really. Anyway, Pepper and Jack are on that app as well and though Jack could easily reveal who's talking to him, he keeps it all a secret, so he doesn't know it's Pepper he's been sending messages to. But on that certain app, they get along better than in real life and definitely better than on Twitter.
Until both come to realise, maybe they like each other. And oh, it's so cute! And the author includes so many important things - like standing up to your parents, following your dreams, no matter what. There are so many lessons taught in this book and all within a couple of pages. I'm gushing and I don't care. I fell for this story and could see myself strolling along with Pepper and Jack through the city, I could see myself walking into Big League Burger and yelling at Pepper's mom. I dived into the story and I think whenever that truly happens, it's a good thing.
So why only the four stars? I'd say because it's still not my favorite favorite. For a debut novel, it's literally perfect, no doubt. I'd say I'm looking forward to reading more by this author and hope to give her a five-star-review someday.
