Title: Call Your Boyfriend
Author: Olivia A. Cole & Ashley Woodfolk
Genres: Contemporary/Romance
Pages: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Review Copy: ARC by publisher
Availability: Available now
Summary: Cynical but sensitive Beau Carl is on a mission. She needs to know if ultra-popular Maia Moon—the girl she’s been secretly hooking up with for months—really has feelings for her. But when she shows up at the last big party of the year before prom, she sees Maia about to kiss someone else.
Sweet, inexperienced Charm Montgomery is the “someone else.” And she’s ecstatic that she’s been reading Maia’s flirty behavior in their tutoring sessions correctly. But when the kiss is interrupted and Maia accepts an elaborate promposal from her douchey, popular boyfriend just a few days later, both Charm and Beau end up heartbroken.
There’s only one thing for them to do—get her back. And the only way to do that is for Beau to tutor Charm on how she can get their former crush to fall for her so hard that Maia will dump her ex…and then get dumped for once.
As their plan starts working, Beau and Charm grow closer too, in a way neither expected. But are either of them ready to let go of their scheme to take a chance on something a little sweeter—and scarier—than revenge?
Review: I’m a fan of both Olivia Cole and Ashley Woodfolk, so when given the opportunity to preview their collaboration I jumped. I was excited for this novel as the premise is a trope that I enjoy. What is more fun than seeing two heartbroken people work together to get revenge on the one who hurt them, but end up falling for each other instead? Wait…that came out wrong. Reading healing come in the form of new love makes for a fun time.
The novel is told in dual perspectives between Beau and Charm. I’m honestly not sure who I liked more. Both Beau and Charm had awesome moments and both had moments where I was annoyed with them. Both girls are confident in being queer so it was frustrating to see how they were both taken in by the ubiquitous Maia was using them to sort out her own issues. Granted, that peak high school behavior but it was nice to see Charm, especially, grow into understanding and embracing her self-worth as her relationship with Beau grew as well. I guess you could also say “Call Your Boyfriend” is also a “friends to lovers” trope because Charm and Beau through their revenge plan, the two develop a true friendship first. While they are not completely honest with each other (obviously) they do open up to each other in ways that haven’t opened up to others and share their hopes and dreams with each other. Both girls are on the cusp of adulthood which is both a time of excitement, but also a time high anxiety as teens are trying to decide what direction they want their life to go, at the same time dealing with parental expectations that sometimes contradict what the teen may want. Both Charm and Beau are in this exact position and they bond over this feeling. They “see” each other and I enjoyed the fact that their relationship grew from this notion, rather than their commitment to the Plan.
While I did enjoy most of the novel, what left me with a “meh” feeling is that the book just kind of ends. I thought I had more to the story so when I realized I was on the last page I thought “that’s it?”. I was confused. I feel like the novel needed an epilogue as, to me, the story didn’t feel finished. Was the main conflict resolved, yes, but I needed to know what happened after and this lack of knowing has been unsettling.
The writing of the novel was definitely solid, as expected from Cole and Woodfolk, so I hope they plan to collaborate again in the future.