Book Review: The Girlfriend Request by Jodie Andrefski

The Girlfriend Request by Jodie Andrefski

Published by Entangled Teen: Crush on January 11, 2016

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Pages: 244 – paperback

Format Read: eARC

Source: Entangled Teen Crush

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Blurb:

Updating best friend to girlfriend is more than a change of status…

Emma has been best friends with Eli since she moved to his neighborhood ten years ago. Tired of being cast in the role of the girl next door, Emma creates a fake Facebook profile in the hopes of starting an online friendship with Eli, which would hopefully lead to more. Like…way more. From friend request to In a Relationship–it all seemed so completely logical when she’d planned it.

Eli can’t figure out what Emma is up to. He’s pretty sure she’s the one behind the Facebook profile, but then again, why would she do something so drastic instead of just admitting she wants to be more than friends? And who the heck is this new guy he saw her with? Eli starts to think that just maybe…he missed his chance with the girl next door.

Two best friends, one outlandish ruse. Their status is about to become way more than It’s Complicated…

This Entangled Teen Crush book contains one fake Facebook profile, two best friends who secretly crave each other, and a dreaded sex talk with parents…boy crush in the room included. Pushing a relationship beyond the friend zone has never been so crazy…

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Review:

*Thanks to Entangled Teen Crush for providing me with an early e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

I had extremely high hopes for this book. I requested this because I thought it’d be this cute, fluffy, well-written story, but unfortunately that did not happen. Instead, it turned to be a mishmash of outdated, cliché YA tropes. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love the ‘best-friends-turned-lovers’ trope, but this one just didn’t do it for me. There were so many frustrating bouts of miscommunication, stupid decisions, and annoying lines. It was all just so painful.

First of all, can we just talk about the main character Emma? Her actions are soo dense! She makes the stupidest decisions and says the stupidest things, i.e. “I quickly reminded myself that I wasn’t some creepo stalker; I just wanted to get a guy to fall in love with me.” Mhm, that’s what all creeps say. She created a fake FB profile to make her best friend Eli fall in love with her and then later on freaks out when he says he wants to ask the “fake girl” out EVEN THOUGH SHE KNOWS THE GIRL ISN’T REAL ANYWAY. IT’S PRACTICALLY HER. Plus, wasn’t that your plan from the beginning….? Honestly, so dense.

Typically, there’s at least some semblance of character development in a book that helps it redeem itself. Unfortunately, that did not seem to be the case here. Emma continues to make brash decisions and overcomplicates simple matters ’till the very end. She created a lot of unnecessary drama between her and Eli, which really put me off. It was just too much for me.

I never even formed a connection with any of the characters, except maybe Jake – I liked him. I felt detachment toward the other characters, and by the time I was halfway through the book, I didn’t really care what happened to them anymore.

Also, half the time, I wanted to punch myself in the face due to the oh-so-conveniently placed mishaps. They were all so cliché and convenient that I could’ve practically guessed what was going to happen throughout the whole book with my eyes closed.

I’d also like to add that this could’ve been a really good story that included deception, but there were too many missed opportunities. Instead of using them, the author chose to select trivial, unnecessary matters to focus on. I felt like this just caused the story to drag on and resulted in an unstable plot.

The one redeemable aspect of this book was the writing. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t this masterpiece of meaningful, flowery words, but it’s actually what kept me reading. It’s what made me keep swiping to next page. It was articulate and easy to read, coherent and fluent, and generally… nice. Normally, I wouldn’t even look twice at it, but in a book where half the things were poorly done, this average writing stood out.

Overall, I’d like to say that this book was definitely not up to par with what I was expecting. The characters fell flat, and the plot was unstable. It got painful. I’ve seen a few people around who’ve enjoyed this and called it a “cute, fluffy” read, so you could give this a try based on their opinion. This isn’t for me, though.

Rating: 2 fish