Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

*Spoiler free*

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.

Two teens have a grilled cheese war on Twitter that goes viral. I honestly felt like I was legally obligated to read this, as a teen who has a Twitter account. It’s such a cool idea and it feels so original! It takes something that happens all the time in real life and puts in a YA book. It’s amazing.

I went into this book expecting it to be sweet and maybe a little funny, but I as definitely not expecting this to be one of the CUTEST FREAKING BOOKS ever. I’m surprised sweetness isn’t leaking out of my pours just from reading this. It’s packed full of absolute adorableness between the characters, and on top of that, it’s completely full of amazing desserts. Pepper is a baker, and wow oh wow is she talented. So many amazing desserts, so many.

I love Pepper and Jack’s names. I find it freaking hilarious. It’s a book about a grilled cheese war and the main character’s names are Pepper and Jack. Oh, it’s so brilliantly subtle and not subtle at all. I love it. I don’t just love their names. Pepper and Jack are amazing characters. They’re both so confused and so awkward. They’re trying to figure out life and stumbling through it like normal teenagers. They’re extremely stressed and have so much to think about. They felt so real and I just want to hug them both.

I connected with Pepper a lot. She has such a fear of failure and that’s something I struggle with. She’s trying to figure out what she wants to do in life and she’s hasn’t quite got it all figured out. She’s trying to juggle so many things, all while being the picture of togetherness. She’s also so sweet, and so caring, and so adorable. I wasn’t expecting to like Jack as much as I did. I don’t know why, but I was expecting him to be kind of an artificial character. But, he really surprised me. He’s just as awkward and confused as anybody. He has his own troubles and worries. He’s also a huge dork, which I love haha.

I also really loved the side characters! Some of them might be annoying sometimes, and some might only show up here and there, but they all add their own touch to the story. I loved seeing them whenever they came up.

I love the trope where two characters are talking anonymously online, they fall in love together in real life, and don’t realize they’re talking together online. This book takes that and DOUBLES IT. There’s the upper layer, with the Twitter war, which was fantastic. Then, there’s the layer where Pepper and Jack are talking online anonymously, which was even more fantastic! Once the Twitter war got started and started being hilariously snarky, there was still the online talking, and Pepper and Jack hanging out in real life. There were so many balls in their air and it was just really great.

Lord managed to take complicated characters, with complicated live, and put them in a complicated plot. And managed to keep everything in a straight line and easy to understand. I wasn’t overwhelmed at any point, which I think is a huge accomplishment.

New York causes me major anxiety. It’s just so big and there are so many people and so many buildings. It’s sensory overload for me. Somehow, this book made me like New York. It managed to paint New York in a light where I would actually be a place to live. I’m kind of floored just typing that because I didn’t think that was possible. Honestly, I think it’s because everything else in this book was so cute and so adorable that I was able to focus on that and the setting played into that. Plus, Pepper doesn’t like to travel very far because she gets overwhelmed, which I could really relate too haha.

Both Jack and Pepper had their own emotional growth and development. They grow together and they grow and in their own separate ways. I think it’s really impressive that it managed to be done so well, inside one book. There’s so much emotion packed inside it and it was really awesome to see all of it done so well.

I can’t wait to hug this book. It’s so freaking cute. It’s so cute that I could say it’s so cute forever and I would never get tired of it. This book fits so many real world things inside a spectacular romcom. I just really loved it a lot.

Tweet Cute comes out Janurary 21, 2020! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy in the meantime!

Thank you for reading!