Rachel’s Random Resources is hosting a “book birthday” blitz for Dating the It Guy by Krysten Lindsay Hager. Be sure to check out other hosts on this blitz for spotlights, other reviews, and Q&As with the author.
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About the Book
Dating the It Guy
by Krysten Lindsay Hager
21 March 2017
Clean Reads
Genre: YA Contemporary
Page Count: 290
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Emme is a sophomore in high school who starts dating, Brendon Agretti, the popular senior who happens to be a senator’s son and well-known for his good looks. Emme feels out of her comfort zone in Brendon’s world and it doesn’t help that his picture perfect ex, Lauren, seems determined to get back into his life, along with every other girl who wants to be the future Mrs. Agretti. Emme is already conflicted due to the fact her last boyfriend cheated on her and her whole world is off kilter with her grandpa’s health issues. Life suddenly seems easier keeping Brendon away and relying on her crystals and horoscopes to guide her. Emme soon starts to realize she needs to focus less on the stars and more on her senses. Can Emme get over her insecurities and make her relationship work? Life sure is complicated when you’re dating the it guy.
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My Review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
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I was granted complimentary access to Dating the It Guy on Audible as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title through Rachel’s Random Resources. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
Emme is a high school student who’s dealing with all the usual teenage girl struggles (studies, social drama, dating) but also has grandparents at home in failing health to worry about. She’s trying to date the “It Guy” at school, Brendon, but it appears he isn’t done with his ex Lauren, and there’s altogether too much going on for Emme to handle the situation gracefully or rationally. What a mess!
Krysten write the grief and other mixed emotions of dealing with loved ones in failing health, and recently passed, extremely well. I cried along with Emme in so many scenes! I appreciate how raw and honest everything surrounding Emme’s home life situation was. The way grief was making her parents fight. The way no one really knew what to do without her grandmother present and healthy. The way she started mourning the loss of her grandfather prematurely when she realizes he’s not doing well either. It’s all so real and accurate, beautifully awful, and tragically perfect (or perfectly tragic?)
Emme’s many friends are supportive in varying degrees of competence and do their best to distract her from her troubles. I love that her girlfriends are 100% against Brendon once it looks like he’s still hug up on Lauren.
I found it difficult to keep all her friends straight and remember who was who, and there was a male friend who stepped in and treated her right when Brendon wasn’t. At points I thought this friend was interested in her and at points I thought maybe we were being told he was gay, and now I’m not sure, but it really felt like this was being set up as a “you should have been dating your friend all along” story, so every time she gave Brendon another chance I got progressively more annoyed with both of them. I know they’re teens, they’re running on hormones and impulses they don’t understand yet, but oh my goodness this was being set up as him being so clearly wrong for her and I wanted her to realize it and move on.
Without spoiling anything specific, I’ll say we find out at some point that one of these characters has seen and heard a lot of things from the wrong angle and misunderstood a lot, and thus at this point the story pulls a miscommunication trope finally talking to each other moment with the couple but I felt that it didn’t work because up until that point that’s not the story the audience was being told. Miscommunication works when the audience is in on it, and we aren’t.
I love this book for the family loss and grief aspect, but the romance is lukewarm and a little confusing. I recommend this to fans of YA contemporary fiction who want a very emotional story, or have a teen in their life who needs to work through similar grief and loss feelings as Emme, because that aspect of this book is well done and can probably help a reader sort out their own emotions.
About the Author
Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. She is the author of the young adult Cecily Taylor Series, the young adult Star Series, Dating the It Guy, and the preteen Landry’s True Colors Series.
Her debut novel, True Colors, won the Readers Favorite award for best preteen book and the Dayton Book Expo Bestseller Award for children/teens. Competing with the Star is a Readers’ Favorite Book Award Finalist. Best Friends…Forever? is a 2019 Readers’ Favorite Silver Medal Winner in the Children – Preteen genre. Landry in Like is a Literary Classics Gold Medal recipient and a 2020 Readers’ Favorite Bronze Medal Winner. She received her BA in English and master’s degree in liberal studies from the University of Michigan-Flint.
Krysten’s work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on Living Dayton.
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Thanks so much for being on the tour