Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

Celine Bangura has her life plan, destiny board, and senior year plans all mapped out: She's going to continue to ace her grades, apply for a special leadership program with her attorney idol, and get into a prestigious law firm so she can flaunt her success in the face of her absent father who abandoned her for another family.Her plan does *not* include having school football star (UK football) and high achiever Bradley Graeme along on the interview for this special program, or spending weeks in the forest with him. Bradley used to be her best friend, but just when Celine was coming into her own as a social media star dealing with conspiracy theories and owning her own focused driven academic career, Bradley abandoned her for popular and fashionable friends.Or so she thought.This one was so fun. Celine has spikey edges and often assumes the worst. Her reasons for being on her focused path often blind her to good decisions. We get Bradley's POV as well, and he makes assumptions based on lack of self confidence about Celine's motivations due to a history of OCD and intrusive thoughts.Bradley was one of the most compelling characters because we got to deal with his intrusive thoughts along with him. Sometimes poignant and ridiculous, sometimes anxiety producing, but it made for believable reasons why he acts the way he does.Half a star for plot driven actions like breaking curfew I found it hard to believe Celine would risk and not enough of her conspiracy theory stuff.This is a fairly sweet romance mostly with kissing and a bit of reference to heavy petting.

I was about 35% into this book when I went and preordered it because it was giving me SO MUCH JOY I need to have it in my hands as soon as I can. I don't typically like contemporary YA romances but with Talia Hibbert writing it I was hoping I would enjoy it and my expectations were blown!This book follows our two main characters Bradley a popular, football player who has OCD and Celine who is obsessed with conspiracy theories and with becoming a powerful lawyer. Brad and Celine used to be best buds back in their younger years but had a falling out and have been bitter rivals ever since. In their last year of high school Celine and Brad both find themselves signed up for a survival course where they have to not only survive the woods but each other if they want a chance at winning the scholarship grand prize.I adore these characters and you can tell they were written with thought and care. I feel like a lot of YA characters can come off gimmicky or stereotypes of teenagers but this book the characters felt natural and real. Celine's journey with accepting love and the feelings she had towards her father were very relatable to me and had me crying thinking of the times as a teen I felt the exact same way. Her mother's words to her at the end were just perfect and I LOVE HER!! Brad's OCD and bisexuality were written very naturally and with respect. Having a glimpse into how people who have OCD can still have intrusive thoughts even if they seem to have it "managed" was very interesting and I thought it was great to see how Brad uses different techniques to cope with the OCD.The banter between the two main characters was SO FUN! I can't decide if I liked their banter when they hated each other or loved each other more. The romance was so sweet and real.My only wish was that the ending was... more! I personally needed confirmation on a few things. Overall VERY much enjoyed and I can't wait for my friends and family to read it!

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is such a cute book. It’s an enemies to lovers trope, which is one of my favorites, with the added twist of them having been childhood best friends before they became enemies. The ending is exactly how I wanted it to be, but the path to getting there was pretty convoluted and steeped in a common worry that the other just doesn’t feel the same way. I recommend this book to teens and up who enjoy a sweet, clean romance.

The media could not be loaded.  this book was such a great time. Such a fun escape I love the little moments that the two main characters have with each other. Everythings so sweet and that’s with sometimes you miss in more mature novels; you missed the sweet moments and get straight to the action, but I really love this and how the characters were developed. generally one of my favorite authors these days. top two and not number two.

Such an amazing story. Funny, adorable, sweet and very insightful. Definitely worth the read. I'm not a huge fan of YA anymore, but I'm so happy I gave this a chance.

I just adore Talia Hibbert’s writing style and while I prefer her adult books, this book it totally adorable. I enjoyed this balanced with the more serious aspects of the story like having OCD, anxiety, and Daddy issues. A completely charming story and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading YA again.

I love me a Ta!ia Hilbert book. She is my favorite contemporary author. I am not a YA. I don't typically read or enjoy YA. But, I WILK read anything Talia writes. Except a mystery... That is a bridge too far. This book was well written and full of Talia-typical cleverness that I love, but the angst was strong. Which is probably true for the youths, but too much for me. I really hope she return adult fair with a quickness. The kids had their fun.

Wow! What a beautiful book. So well written. Amazing protagonists, swoon worthy chemistry, and great character growth. And of course let's not forget the equally endearing secondary characters. I simply loved this one. Perfect book for when you want something light hearted, fun, and dreamy...

4.5/5⭑This was a fantastic debut YA novel and I know for a fact, if I had read it when I was 16/17, I would’ve loved it as much as I loved it as an adult.The friends to enemies to lovers vibes were immaculate. I love a bit of petty rivalry between old friends and this delivered it perfectly.The plot aspect of the camping/expedition task was honestly giving me Duke of Edinburgh (Silver Award🤪) flashbacks and it felt like I was doing it all over again but this time with a bit of romance!If you’re unsure if you want to read anything by Talia Hibbert, this is the perfect book to start with. You get an idea of her excellent writing style and her quirky banter between characters will always be spot on.I think we all know the only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was the TikTok mentions. I am more forgiving to it in this book bc it’s YA but I still hate pop culture references😅Tropes;Childhood Friends to Enemies To LoversReverse Grumpy x SunshineGuy Falls FirstPlus Size RepOCD RepDual POV

A few months ago I was looking through Amazon looking for new books and guess what I spy a Talia Hibbert YA Romance that so had to go on my wish list. I had already read the Brown Sisters Books and know that when Talia writes about disability is always on the money. I know this after reading Get a Life Chloe Brown I got an EArc of it and even though I was excited it took me a long time to read it as I knew it could well trigger me. You see at that time I was going through the process of being diagnosed and her book helped me to begin to come to terms with it.Now let me just talk about the main characters of Celine and Bradley were top notch and the banter between them and their side characters was on an epic scale. I also loved the glossary at the front of the book that had me howling with laughter and it clearly showed that Talia was having a great time and I love that.if you are expecting me to tell you more about the book then I am afraid to disappoint you by saying this will not happen. Instead I will tell you that I loved this book so much I bought it for my Kindle as Talia is an auto buy author for me. If Talia wrote a shopping list out I would read that too. Please can we have more books from this world maybe following other characters as it be sad if it was a standalone. You already know what star rating I am going to give yep 5 stars and I knew that after just reading the glossary that I was in for a great time and I did.

Book came damaged.However I love celine and brad so so so so much they own my heart. i enjoyed this book so much !! i relate to both brad and celine so so much. heavy on celine my baby. i really love how talia illustrated parental abandonment and it make me realise so much for myself as a person. i feel more educated on OCD as well brad’s story was so touching i almost felt as if i was in his shoes. their story is so beautifully written i love it

A really cute read for a younger audience