Date Me, Bryson Keller

Update: I did end up reading the manga and I just don't see it. The premise is very alike but that's where the similarities end. The characters, the plot progression, basically everything is very different from the manga. The people review-bombing this book because of that are simply unfair.

I'm uncomfortable placing judgment on this book based on the plagiarism allegations because:

1. I don't rate books I didn't read at least a decent portion of so I can tell if it's for me or not and rarely find it's justified to rate books you haven't read. In this case, I read it from start to finish, and it wasn't bad for a YA. Most users claiming plagiarism quote second-hand sources. They haven't even read the book to make a true comparison with the manga.
2. I have yet to see receipts from these reviews denouncing plagiarism. I'll give you that; the synopsis sounds identical to the manga, and that's a little on the nose, however:
a. Author does admit to being inspired by the manga in the book's acknowledgments. One reviewer raged on that the author only admitted to it after being called out, yet the manga is literally mentioned in the author's notes.
b. Manga and novels are completely different environments.
c. Pleanty of fan-fiction work has been traditionally published as ‘original.'
d. I can't get my hands on the manga, so I can't compare the two other than the premise. One reviewer mentioned reading both and that they are very different except for the premise of fake dating for 7 days based on a dare.
e. One could argue that the fake dating trope is so widely spread that it's hard when something is a reinterpretation or a rip-off.
f. In the end, I just don't have enough data on the matter to be able to take a clear stance on this.

Going back to the actual book. I thought it was just fine. The characters were sweet, and I enjoyed the story overall. I would have preferred it if it were less instalovey and more suspenseful. I wasn't a fan of the angst at the end either.