Title: Love, Comment, Subscribe
(Ponto Beach Reunion #1)
Author: Cathy Yardley
Genre: Contemporary romance, Youtubers
Release date: 01 Oct 2021
Blurb
Back in high school, Lily Wang wanted to be popular, but she considered herself lucky to be part of a tight group of oddballs and honors students called the Nerd Herd. Now, at twenty-eight, she feels like she’s finally on the cusp of succeeding as a beauty influencer—if she can hit five million subscribers, brands will take notice and she could get her own makeup line.
Fellow Nerd Herd alum Tobin Bui has had a lot of success as a YouTube gamer. But the road to online stardom has been rocky. First, he disappointed his parents by dropping out of college, and now, after years of pranks, skits, and playthroughs, he’s struggling to come up with new content to satisfy his ever-growing fan base. His agents say he needs cross-audience appeal, a new twist.
When Nerd Herd frenemy Lily approaches Tobin about teaming up to do a video to bolster her brand and reinvigorate his, he agrees. But when their first collab video goes viral, their relationship heats up too. With the whole internet watching, will these two former misfits finally realize they’re perfect together?
Review
This is a super fun, enjoyable read. The story flows easily and while it is a bit stereotypical at times, overall this is a cute, feel good romance.
I liked the set up - high school friends/enemies meet 10 years after graduation when their agents suggest they do a collaboration for their youtube channels. I don't really follow any youtubers and I found the behind-the-scenes very interesting.
I liked both Lily and Tobin and I found I could relate to their struggles regardless how different they were. They were opposites in many ways but had more similarities than appeared on the surface. I really liked how they brought the best in each other.
For a light-hearted romance this story had unexpected depths - undiagnosed ADHD and how it affects every aspect of one's life, family expectations and pressure, demands on content creators to produce new, imaginative, fun/clever content all the time. As a long-time blogger I felt some of their struggles very close to me. It's just a hobby for me, they make their living via Youtube but the pressure they were under felt very real to me.
I liked their diverse group of friends (enemies), both MCs are half-Asian and there are a bunch of queer characters as well. It read very natural too me, nothing felt force or out of place.
The greatest strength of the story for me was the idea of finding a balance in your life and making a relationship work despite the odds. Both Lily and Tobin need to put in the work to overcome their personal issues. Being together was no miracle cure though it did put things in perspective for both of them.
I admit to liking him a tiny bit more than her, she came off more closed off. His whole storyline was richer, more developed than hers imo. I appreciate the way his creative block was presented and his struggles to admit it and finally deal with it. He prioritized his mental health over work/fame/success and that is a such a powerful message to me.
my only complaint is that the ending was too neat, all issues were resolved in more or less fairytale manner. There are also some stereotypical representations in the story that could have been avoided. Still, overall I enjoyed this book a lot and can highly recommend it.
CW: undiagnosed ADHD, burnout
