Wish You Weren't Here
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
Juliette doesn’t hate Priya Pendley.
At least, not in the way teen movies say she should hate the hot popular girl. They don’t do cat fights, love triangles, or betrayal. To survive their intertwined small town lives, they agree to a truce: complete group projects without fighting, don’t gossip to mutual friends, and stand on opposite sides of photos so it’s easy to crop each other out.
Priya seems to have everything during the school year—social media stardom, the handsome track captain boyfriend, and millions of adoring fans. And Juliette is at peace with that, because she has Fogridge Sleepaway Camp, the one place she never feels like “too much.”
But Juliette’s dreams of five Priya-free weeks in paradise are shattered when her rival shows up on move-in day... as her cabinmate, no less. Juliette is determined to enjoy her final summer at camp, even if it means (gag) tolerating Priya Pendley, but fate seems has other plans. If Juliette can’t find something to like about her situation—and about Priya—she risks hating the only home she’s ever had, right before she says goodbye to it forever.
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This was a very cute & quick read but it feels underdeveloped in a multitude of ways which leads it to be unsatisfying
I wish not only the characters but also some plotlines/conflicts were fleshed out more because it feels a bit choppy at times
This novel is more so a love letter to summer camp than it is about the romance so if that's your thing you will probably eat this up, but I was expecting more of the romance and I didn't get what I wanted from that
The relationship dynamic between the two characters was confusing for me. it was very much a one-sided hatred kind of thing on Juliette's part rather than it being a mutual “rivals” thing. it just seemed like Juliette's dislike of Priya was driven by insecurity rather than actual reasoning if that makes sense? but Priya played into it by cropping Juliette out of pictures and keeping a distance but she didn't even have a problem with Juliette? it was a friendly dynamic because they still invited each other to things & were always in each other's spaces so the negative interactions felt unnecessary
I wish the characterization was better in this story, everything felt surface level and there was a lot of telling not showing
When the characters finally do “get together” it's not seamless & I didn't find myself connecting to them or the romance at that point. it all felt very rushed
PUB DATE: June 4th, 2024
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for the ARC copy of Wish You Weren't Here in exchange for an honest review.
This ended up being a DNF. Couldn't keep my interest, and gave up around chapter 7/8. I'm surprised because I was really interested in the synopsis, and this being a sapphic coming of age romance.
DNF 20% - Couldn't stop thinking about the teenage library members behind me in the queue who would probably enjoy this much more than I would. Happy this exists, just not what I'm looking for right now.
