What do you do when you fall in love with the same girl as your best friend?
Cupid's Revenge is a queer young adult novel by Wibke Brueggemann, that follows Tilly Taylor and her best friend Teddy. Tilly and Teddy grew up being inseparable as the two non-musical children of musicians, they found comfort in each other.
They also had Grace, their friend who died in an accident 3 years before the start of the story, an event that continues to haunt them to this day.
When Teddy convinces Tilly to join him for a charity theater audition to impress his current crush, Katherine Cooper-Bunting, Tilly finds herself joining to avoid the chaos in her own home.
Her parents have decided to move her Grandad in with them, after he has been struggling with the death of his wife and has been diagnosed with Dementia. Tilly is unsure of how to handle the new addition to the household and the stress it adds on her and her family. This leads to her bringing Grandad with to the theater, where he finds join in playing the piano for the group with Tilly helps with taping.
Through the whole thing, Tilly is trying to help show Katherine how amazing Teddy is, but instead finds herself falling in love with Katherine was well. After sharing a secret kiss with Katherine, Tilly doesn't want to break Teddy's heart while also protecting her own. Now she is surrounded by more secrets than she can handle and has to figure out who is the most important person to keep close to her.
Overall, I really enjoyed this story but there were moments where I found Tilly sort of obnoxious. There is an aspect to her that is very selfish, especially when it comes to talking with the rest of her family and especially her sister and mom. I think she feels so left out that she makes it worse by trying not to connect with them? When she starts to feel more connected with her Grandad, she seems happier and then it slowly get ruined as her parents come up again. Which is probably also a teenager thing to do as well.
I also think a lot of her stress could have been avoided by her talking to Teddy, or even Katherine talking to Teddy about how they felt a lot sooner. I feel like Teddy was treated pretty poorly and it took an accident for them to realize what they had done. When it comes to Katherine, Tilly's selfishness makes her 'out' Katherine before she is fully ready to talk, and though they make up in the end, it is hard to read something like that, especially when it was something that could have been avoided and discussed more.
This book was a solid 3-3.5/5 stars for me. I enjoyed most of the plot, but struggled with Tilly as a character sometimes.
It is scheduled to be published January 2, 2024.
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