Name: Love and Other Secrets
ISBN: 9781726094252

Christina Mandelski

"She needs his help landing a date. He wants her for himself"--Cover.

Love and Other Secrets

Star lacrosse player Alex “Kov” Koviak has it all. Or so everyone thinks. He’s real good at pretending his life is perfect...until he meets Bailey. The girl challenges him and pushes him and makes him laugh like he’s never laughed before. Their friendship is their little secret, and he’s happy to keep her to himself. Between school, two jobs, and trying to get into NYU film school, Bailey Banfield has zero time for a social life. But then she meets Alex in her express lane at the grocery store, and their secret friendship becomes the only place she can breathe. She refuses to complicate that with more. No matter how charming Alex can be. When Bailey decides to film outrageous promposals for her NYU application, she enlists Alex’s help to plan an over-the-top, epic promposal to someone else. Too bad the only prom date Alex wants anywhere near Bailey is him. For a guy who seems to have it all, he’s about to lose the only thing he’s ever wanted. Disclaimer: This Entangled Crush contains a cocky lacrosse player in over his head with his secret best friend, unexpected midnight kisses, swoon-worthy slow dancing, and movie-night cuddling that’ll make you ache. You’re going to want an Alex of your own! Each title in the First Kiss Hypothesis series is STANDALONE: * The First Kiss Hypothesis * Love and Other Secrets

Lacy W

A special thank you goes out to Entangled Teen and Netgalley for allowing me to read an eARC of this book early. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

tw: underage drinking, neglectful parents 

As I read books about teenagers falling in love, I've come to the realization that I am old as hell. Everything that happened in this book could have easily been solved if these two teens JUST COMMUNICATED. Don't get me wrong, the tension and drama makes for excellent stories but good lord. Halfway through the book, I was just begging for the release of the tension and just begging for them to do something. ANYTHING.

Alex and Bailey's lack of communication certainly made for an interesting story, as I mentioned above. But holy hell, it was starting to get so irritating. It was obvious they both really liked each other. They were super flirty with each other and everything but they just couldn't see it. Everybody else could so it but them. I wanted to shake them.

Another reason why this book reminded me of my age was the theme of promposal. The entire book was about Bailey's film project, which was about promposals. Back when I was in school, we didn't do promposals. We just asked the person if they wanted to go with us and they either said yes or no. It was interesting to see how the times have changed since I was in school. 

Maybe I should talk about the actual book and not my age. I loved that Bailey was so interested in film. Her aspiration was so amazing. She saw a lack of women film directors and wanted to change that. I hope teen girls see that and become inspired to go beyond the “gender boundaries” in jobs. 

Overall, this was good. It is part of the First Kiss Hypothesis world. But honestly, it could be read as a stand alone. If you are into tension and cute love stories, then this is the book for you!

Megan Lowe

This is a cute and sweet book.
Alex is a great character and Bailey is a great counterpoint.
I do think this book is a little young for me, more suited to a teen audience rather than anyone older than that.
The story is solid, with a heap of drama which keeps things interesting, but ultimately a little young for me.

Sahi K

The book is light and cute and fluffy like we expect from all YA contemporary romances. But the stakes or conflict never felt interesting enough for me to root for the characters. I also wish the development of their initial friendship was done better because that might have made me connect to them more. 

Overall, I recommend this book if you like the usual YA high school stories.

Jackie

** spoiler alert **
           This was such a cute and fun read! I love the world that Christina has created and I'm so happy that we were able to hear more about Nora and Eli from the first book! I'm going to be honest and say that neither Alex nor Bailey had stuck out to me with the first book but I did read that one about a year ago so I'll have to go back and do a reread so that I can see if anything sticks out between these two!!!
I never really understood the big deal with promposals but that could be because when I was in high school, no one did those and I only graduated six years ago! The idea of it all seemed interesting but I seriously wanted to bang Alex's and Bailey's heads together for the longest time throughout the book because JUST ADMIT THAT YOU LIKE EACH OTHER AND GET THIS OVER WITH SO I HAVE ANOTHER SHIP!!!! 😂 But then I thought about it and realized that if I were in the same position, I stay silent about my feelings 99.9% of the time. So if I admit that I like someone to their face, that took me quite a lot of guts.
I can't wait to see Christina expand even more on this world! (Especially since now I need more Bailey & Alex along with more Eli & Nora!)

Love and Other Secrets

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