Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

by Hannah Bonam-Young – I was very excited to win a copy of the rerelease of this book (with a new cover and bonus content) in a Goodreads giveaway! Many thanks to @authorhannahby and @penguinrandomhouse for the book.

Lane isn’t happy – all her friends are coupled up, she isn’t excited about her job, and now she’s another year older. After lots of birthday drinking, she impulsively buys a giant school bus with plans to convert it into her home. The only problem is she has no experience doing that. Luckily, her best friend Matt is great at it, and he’d do anything for Lane…because he’s been secretly pining for her for ages. Unfortunately for him, Lane isn’t interested in love. Seeing how devastated her mom was when her dad died convinced her that she never wanted to be in a position to feel that kind of pain. But Lane is also kinda over dating apps and random hookups. When Matt agrees to a no-strings-attached-friends-with-benefits situation, Lane knows she won’t catch feelings, and Matt has promised he won’t either. Guess what? Everyone’s catching feelings.

There are so many great things about this book. There is a ton of humor, including a crazy road trip, a doomed wedding, meddling families, and wacky friends. But there are also many big emotions – mourning the death of a parent, the heartbreak of feeling like you love someone more than they love you, facing hard-to-hear truths, heartfelt love letters, and the importance of therapy. This is my second book by Bonam-Young – I am so happy to have discovered her beautifully complex characters and stories. The audiobook (of the original minus the bonus content) is one of those where you can’t believe there is a single narrator because of how talented they are.