SOPHIE LI

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 loved the main characters who were relatable and lovable. This novel was written in dual POV—Pepper, the overachieving daughter of a popular food chain CEO, who tried desperately to fit in at her new school while maintaining top grades, and Jack, the son of a family-run restaurant who lived in the shadow of his more successful twin brother. I loved Pepper and Jack from the first page to the last and beyond.

I liked that the characters, even the secondary ones like Pepper’s rival and Jack’s twin, had stories of their own and didn’t revolve around the main characters. I liked that there were no true villains in this book, and even those who seemed “bad” in the beginning had reasons behind their actions.

There was a lot of tension throughout the story, as Pepper and Jack got to know each other more and more over the course of their Twitter war. I liked watching their rivalry transform into something else.

The writing was hilarious. It was such a fun and quick read!

I loved the theme of this novel which revolved around finding and following one’s passion while balancing that with expectations of parents and others, which I remember was a big deal for me when I was graduating high school.

There was a lot of “small world syndrome” in this book… without getting into spoilers, basically everyone knew everyone in a way that didn’t feel realistic, if you know what I mean? One example was how Pepper and Jack happened to get into a Twitter war via their parent’s business Twitter accounts, when they also sat next to each other in class. What were the chances?

There was a lot going on in this book which I felt was messy— a Twitter war and an app where students of Stone Hall chatted anonymously (which meant Pepper had not one but two secret identities) not to mention some more unrelated plot points that popped up later. Some of it felt random.

4/5 fishies!

Overall I loved this fun and feel-good book which was such a breezy read and made me go “awwww” so many times.

Have you read this book? What are some of your favourite YA contemporary novels?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash