Borrow My Heart

I don???t think I???ve ever been this disappointed in a book before. I loved some of Kasie West???s early works but recent releases haven???t lived up to the standard, and this one was the worst.

The writing is so amateurish I???m not even convinced she wrote it. The word ???said??? is supposed to be invisible to readers, but it was so overused it was like nails on a chalkboard for me and made the book a struggle to get through (to be fair, I did like the characters I was just so annoyed by the writing). Here???s an excerpt:

???Hopefully this video will make it so potential adopters will ???sign up for the next one,??? Asher said.
???I hope so,??? I said
???I don???t know,??? Chad said. ?????????People might be wary about something like this.???
???They might,??? Asher said in his good-natured way.

Wren and Asher were two characters I loved basically from the get-go. Asher's sweet personality and the way he gets just about everyone to like him almost instantly had me liking him easily. Wren was relatable with having her walls up and I liked seeing how she went from “nope I have x amount of rules. Can't break them” to “whoops, another rule broken for Asher.” Which, I mean, is understandable because Asher is very adorable.

Most of the secondary characters I liked. Kamala – Wren's friend – I really liked. She was funny and a good friend to Wren – cared, comforted her. Dale was just annoying all around – he didn't raise himself in my eyes at all. If other readers liked him – that's their choice. I suppose there was an instance here and there where he was sort of okay, but that happened when I had already made up my mind about him. That meant I wasn't interested in changing how I thought about him.

I quickly sussed out Wren's mom's personality when she first appeared on the page. I would groan every time she was in a scene because I knew whatever she said would hurt Wren. And she kept proving me right! I also got annoyed with Wren's sister because I felt like Wren should've been the older sister and Zoey the younger? Like Wren's personality is very much older sister – how she thinks, how she views their mom; while Zoey's is a younger sister's view (that's just my thoughts on the matter, of course). I liked Zoey slightly more at the end of the book and I wonder if the sequel will follow her or Kamala.

I love the fake dating trope – don't mind reading it over and over again and this was a cute one! I appreciated what was done here with social media – expectations, downfalls, and the various issues it can bring. I felt like it did a good deal of that without being too preachy – which could happen very quickly when an older author is writing teen fiction.

The reason (or one of them) why I like the fake dating trope is because I like seeing how the characters develop. Sometimes they're friends who agree to fake date but strangers fake dating (for whatever reasons) is also pretty popular. I'm good with either (strangers or friends) but I do enjoy strangers a tad bit better? You have them both trying to fit into each other's friendship groups and trying to establish that you are, in fact, dating this person while also getting to know them.

It's even funnier in this instance because Wren has to now act like she actually knows Asher and things about him (because she's filling in for Gemma) – even though they're are the strangers fake dating trope. It gave me a lot of second-hand embarrassment – which is another reason why I love the faking dating trope. There's something about awkward squawking at a book when a character is being awkward.

The plot was (mostly) sweet and the pacing easy. Very glad there's no animal harm/death in here – so so glad. West did a good job in making the animal characters their own characters – and they were sweet and I loved them. It's such a a quick read that you won't see the time flying by.

I didn't feel like the third act breakup was unwarranted – definitely something I knew was coming and I liked how it was handled. Wren should also go to therapy. I hope she gets that because she really needs it. I also liked how they made up – it didn't feel too unbelievable for me (I mean they're also teens so they wouldn't have all the emotional maturity feeling like most adult romances do).

Merged review:

Wren and Asher were two characters I loved basically from the get-go. Asher's sweet personality and the way he gets just about everyone to like him almost instantly had me liking him easily. Wren was relatable with having her walls up and I liked seeing how she went from “nope I have x amount of rules. Can't break them” to “whoops, another rule broken for Asher.” Which, I mean, is understandable because Asher is very adorable.

Most of the secondary characters I liked. Kamala – Wren's friend – I really liked. She was funny and a good friend to Wren – cared, comforted her. Dale was just annoying all around – he didn't raise himself in my eyes at all. If other readers liked him – that's their choice. I suppose there was an instance here and there where he was sort of okay, but that happened when I had already made up my mind about him. That meant I wasn't interested in changing how I thought about him.

I quickly sussed out Wren's mom's personality when she first appeared on the page. I would groan every time she was in a scene because I knew whatever she said would hurt Wren. And she kept proving me right! I also got annoyed with Wren's sister because I felt like Wren should've been the older sister and Zoey the younger? Like Wren's personality is very much older sister – how she thinks, how she views their mom; while Zoey's is a younger sister's view (that's just my thoughts on the matter, of course). I liked Zoey slightly more at the end of the book and I wonder if the sequel will follow her or Kamala.

I love the fake dating trope – don't mind reading it over and over again and this was a cute one! I appreciated what was done here with social media – expectations, downfalls, and the various issues it can bring. I felt like it did a good deal of that without being too preachy – which could happen very quickly when an older author is writing teen fiction.

The reason (or one of them) why I like the fake dating trope is because I like seeing how the characters develop. Sometimes they're friends who agree to fake date but strangers fake dating (for whatever reasons) is also pretty popular. I'm good with either (strangers or friends) but I do enjoy strangers a tad bit better? You have them both trying to fit into each other's friendship groups and trying to establish that you are, in fact, dating this person while also getting to know them.

It's even funnier in this instance because Wren has to now act like she actually knows Asher and things about him (because she's filling in for Gemma) – even though they're are the strangers fake dating trope. It gave me a lot of second-hand embarrassment – which is another reason why I love the faking dating trope. There's something about awkward squawking at a book when a character is being awkward.

The plot was (mostly) sweet and the pacing easy. Very glad there's no animal harm/death in here – so so glad. West did a good job in making the animal characters their own characters – and they were sweet and I loved them. It's such a a quick read that you won't see the time flying by.

I didn't feel like the third act breakup was unwarranted – definitely something I knew was coming and I liked how it was handled. Wren should also go to therapy. I hope she gets that because she really needs it. I also liked how they made up – it didn't feel too unbelievable for me (I mean they're also teens so they wouldn't have all the emotional maturity feeling like most adult romances do).