Sophie Gonzales

A bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her school friends is hired by the hot new kid to help him get his ex back. Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before - the new queer YA rom-com from Sophie Gonzales. 'Perfectly wonderful' - Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off. Darcy Phillips: Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes - for a fee. Uses her power for good. Most of the time. Really cannot stand the new Australian jock at school, Alexander Brougham. Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke...who is in love with someone else. Does not appreciate being blackmailed. But when Brougham catches Darcy in the act of collecting letters from locker 89 - out of which she's been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service - that's exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back. Darcy has good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she's behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there's a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again. Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who's already fallen for him once? What could possibly go wrong?

Perfect On Paper

"Perfectly wonderful.” —Becky Albertalli, New York Times–bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda In Sophie Gonzales' Perfect on Paper, Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before: a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the hot guy to help him get his ex back Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off. Darcy Phillips: • Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes—for a fee. • Uses her power for good. Most of the time. • Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham. • Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke...who is in love with someone else. • Does not appreciate being blackmailed. However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89—out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service—that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach—at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back. Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again. Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?

A Novel

Perfect on Paper

faith hurren

Bea 

jini

this is such a cute and fun read and it helped me to figure out some personal issues I have been struggling with for months.

Evelina

Okay so, I will admit, when I started reading Perfect On Paper, I didn't expect to like this book soo much. No specific reason for why I assumed that, but I'm so glad I was proven wrong. I even ended up rooting for Darcy and her now boyfriend because they were just so amazing. That guy wasn't some cold stoic person who treated Darcy or other people awfully, his friends weren't assholes too and they both compliment each other nicely. Darcy was being messy when it came to her best friend but I was very glad it all worked out in the end. I also was very surprised when I didn't ship Brooke and Darcy at all because I love wlw stories. All I can say is that the author did an amazing job with this book and Darcy and her relationships with others. I can't think of anything I didn't like or something I wish was different. Overall, 5 stars for such an amazing book.

lisa roeling 

this book talked about internalized biphobia and it was hitting a bit too close to home
i wish i had this book when i was younger
💗💜💙

grace richards

this book was okay, but the pacing was awful. the first half of the book is so slow to get into and then within the last half everything is happening all at once

amber baardsen

i loved it!
this is the second Sophie Gonzales book i’ve read(i just read OMD), because If this gets out is on the way in the mail and i wanted to see how i liked her other books first:)
and i really like her writing! it’s pretty simple but not a bore and i like how she brings up topics and stuff in a natural way in her books.
i think Perfect on Paper is a perfect read for someone who’s just stated reading(and if you’ve been reading for 10 years) especially since it’s a fiction.
i loved the characters and how she gave them debt and made a lot them lgbtq+ in a way that felt natural
i didn’t think i would like it that much because it’s a fiction, but i hardly noticed it! and i love how the romance was kinda a big sub-lot but not that it was everything you thought/read about. i loved the relationship between Darcy and Brougham(I LOVE BROUGHAM❤️❤️❤️)
- and a lot of people have said that the way she wrote Darcy’s bisexuality was very good
- just everything was relatively great and it was fast and cute and funny:)
(btw I LOVE AINSLEY❤️❤️❤️Please marry me)

Abi Baker

the way that darcy gives really good relationship advice to literally everybody but is so bloody obtuse when it comes to her own relationships honestly makes me want to scream

Jantien 

I loved how open they are about LGBTQIA+ and how normal it is in their daily life to be part of this community.

Rachel Evans

(4/5) 2 hours 57 minutes - A fun lighthearted read that provides a fresh view on bisexuality where the protagonist ends up in a straight-passing relationship, and issues surrounding this are discussed. I found all the character's likeable, although some of the side characters did feel slightly 2-dimensional. Brougham was a really good character in my opinion. The plot was engaging, if a little unrealistic. On the whole, I really liked reading this book.

I really liked how the plot around the locker changed and how Darcy got to be her true self. A lot of important but silenced topics were talked about. I didn’t enjoy how it was all a Love triangle and how she went from „i love my best friend and i definitely wanna marry her one day.“ to „i love the boy who wanted me to help him get back with his ex.“

Marie

“Perfectly wonderful.” —Becky Albertalli, New York Times–bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda “An electrifying love story.” —Booklist In Sophie Gonzales' Perfect on Paper, Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before: a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the hot guy to help him get his ex back Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off. Darcy Phillips: • Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes—for a fee. • Uses her power for good. Most of the time. • Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham. • Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke...who is in love with someone else. • Does not appreciate being blackmailed. However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89—out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service—that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach—at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back. Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again. Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?

Raye Parker

The discussions of biphobia and bisexuality in general hit kinda close to home and, in my opinion, were amazingly written and handled in the book <3

sydney

reread: this book hits a lot harder now knowing things about myself that i didn’t know the first time 

I received an ARC through net galley.

I honestly can't put into words how good this book is, it's just so good. 

The book is very lighthearted and fun but also had very serious moments and topics. I loved when they took the time in the Q&Q club to talk about biphobia, it's very serious and I'm glad that the book addressed it.

Their relationship was just so fun and relatable. She was so scared because she thought she was in love her best friend and she didn't even realize she liked him. They are so cute.

Lillian

idk i tried to like this one cause messy bi girl mc but also i think i just didn't rlly connect with any of the characters...they're fine ig.

2.5

When asked about Perfect on Paper, I've pitched it as queer-centric Sex Education but with a lot more relationship advice carried out in complete secrecy. As someone going through a tough time, who latched onto attachment styles and intellcutalising everything to fit into boxes so things make more sense, this read came at a perfect time. Our main character identifies as bisexual, going through a tough time of her own - dealing with a crush on her best friend who doesn't seem to reciprocate - with another problem headed her way in the form of Brougham, a fellow student looking to fix his relationship with his ex-girlfriend in exchange for maintaining Darcy's secret of locker 89. The conversations revolving around queer teens, especially in the context of both sexuality and identity, were essential and were done with utmost respect and care, which I greatly enjoyed. The Queer Questioning Club felt like an actual integral part to Darcy's growth as a character, with a focus of its own, giving readers insight into problems queer teens may face at school and the author did a great job at making it a device important to both them and the story as opposed to having it feel like a throwaway, mentioned here and there, to move the plot forward. 

Similarly, Darcy's responses to questions sent in by her peers were, not included at the start of most chapters, but referenced and used to further the plot in a way that felt meaningful. As someone, again, going through a tough time, in the context of the 'love/romance' department, this was actually super helpful. I am not too great at contexualising cues other people may give and it helps to see other characters, even fictional, deal with problems similiar to my own as a way to move forward, partly inspired by them. Additionally, yes, the one part where Darcy's sister calls her out for intellecualising everything to avoid feeling the emotions attached felt like a callout and I am thankful to the author because I needed to hear that, yep. Also the 36 questions to feel closer to someone? As someone who's not great at conversations or moving it along, I again thank the author for introducing me to this gem.


The banter between Brougham and Darcy was to die for, balanced equally with tender moments of vulnerability between the two. They got enough time together as they did apart, for it to still be Darcy's story as much as it was the story of her romance. I loved how the author integrated some very cute moments (cue: the rain scene followed by the movie) with moments where the characters opened up, let their guard down and just talked. As I grow older, I find myself wanting more and more of characters that just connect and this definitely served its purpose. 

Also that one chapter on biphobia and feeling not 'queer enough' for dating someone of the opposite gender was just TOO real and i am really happy the author addressed biphobia, rampant both in and outside the community.

Sidenote because I am kinda tired of how much I've written but Brooke was just not it, idc.

genie !!

Steph L 

A fun and important YA contemporary 

I loved this so much. I loved the story because I felt Darcy grew as a character and learned a lot about her friends and herself as the story progressed. The characters were multi dimensional and I loved reading about them. The writing was perfect for what kind of story this was. The romance in this was sweet and as a reader, I was curious what direction this would go. The last star is for personal enjoyment.

He really was beautiful. And despite what I’d thought of him when I met him, now that I knew him, I was quite sure he might be the most beautiful person I’d ever met in my life.


4.5 stars
I cried exactly 4 times while reading this book. Which is a lot for me, considering I usually shed tears like one or zero times while reading.
Whelp! I really need to get back to reading more YA books because I didn't realise how much I miss those good old days. 
Saying this book was good would be understatement. This book was amazing. Like really. I felt so... Seen? Understood? Loved? All of the above, while reading it. 
It deals with some very interesting and helpful topics. This is one of the rare books where I actully got interested in the plot. I really liked it and thought that the whole locker thing was very much unique.
I don't even want to get started with Darcy and Brougham because this review would be too long... to summarize my feelings towards them: THEY HAVE MY WHOLE HEART I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN HOW MUCH!!!!


okay now quotes! i just picked out a few so this review won't contain actual spoilers 

You don’t *need* anything from your boyfriend. You want it. Saying we *need* something from someone else makes us feel like we can’t live without them, or they completely control how we feel, which is not true. When you say you *need* him to do xyz, what I’m hearing is that your real need is to feel loved, and special, and wanted. 


  Brougham watched me intensely, not reacting, but not breaking eye contact, either. For the first time, I understood why Ainsley found him attractive. That stare made me feel like I was telling the most interesting story in the world.
 


  “Okay. Well. What color are his eyes?”
“This really pretty dark-blue color. Navy, I think.”
“What does he think of Phish Food?”
“He prefers tiramisu.”
“When was the last time you saw him smile?”
I responded without missing a beat. “When he asked if I’d be upset if he didn’t get back with Winona.”
Ainsley went silent for a while. When I peeked back at her, she was staring at me with one knowing eyebrow raised.
Then I got it. “Oh wow. I might like him.”
“Yeah, I think you might.”
Okay. Shit. I might.
I might like Alexander Brougham.
I had feelings for Alexander Brougham.
Alexander Brougham, with his arguments and his perpetually serious face and his rudeness.
Alexander Brougham, with his vulnerability, and his perceptiveness, and his ability to make everything I said feel weighted and important.
Alexander Brougham with his too-blue eyes and the prettiest, rarest smile and delicate fingers.
Alexander Brougham, with his wild car karaoke, and his love of horror movies, and his impulsive decisions to sit in a tree on a cliff in the rain.
 

“And I guess I could technically choose to just never act on my crushes when they’re not on a guy, but what the fuck? And the implication is that I’m less queer than others, because, you know, I can just go straight and not deal with any oppression at all, easy. Like being with a guy magically makes me straight. Like it’s a competition, or a ranking, and I need to stop speaking on queer issues because am I really queer? Really, though? And I want to clarify that this person didn’t say any of that, but that’s just how it felt. And maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be gay or lesbian, but I do know some people will never understand what it’s like to be queer and to blush every time you join in on a conversation about it because you feel like you’re treading on people’s toes, because when they say ‘queer’ they don’t mean you.”

this was alot better than i expected & brougham my beloved <3 !!

i enjoyed this a lot!! darcy and brougham were written so well and that made them really relatable. the lgbtqia+ representation was amazing (esp bisexual rep), and i loved how the book approached the topic on biphobia. i enjoyed the discussion on attachment styles too!! overall this was an amazing read, and i highly recommend this one!

marilynn

Livia

A few hours ago, I fully contemplated on giving this a 4.5, but after smiling like an idiot until now and the giddiness I felt when I finished it, the only logical thing is to give this 5 stars, at least until I change my mind again. I love how this book tackles biphobia and bisexual erasure, plus the characters are all flawed and they make mistakes, which is understandable for teenagers. At the end, they all get what they deserved and learned from it instead of brushing it off, and I like that. Alexander and Darcy are so adorable, especially Alex. He's such a sweetheart and I LOVE his australian accent so much. This book is now officially one of my comfort reads.

this was really cute and fun! if you are looking for a nice ya rom com, this is perfect. it takes a lot of the tropes of the genre and executes them excellently, while simultaneously not rewarding harmful behaviour.

there is a great diversity of characters too and i liked that it noted / discussed their experiences as non-white / lgbt+ / non-upper class people. i thought it was a surprisingly good reflection of the environment young people live in.

10/10 would recommend.

anna

rep: bi girl mc, trans sc, Vietnamese-American lesbian sc, bi sc, gay sc, pan nonbinary sc
tw: biphobia, internalised biphobia, toxic parents, drugs, alcohol, vomiting

If you’ve read Only Mostly Devastated, you probably more or less know what to expect here: teens who are allowed to make questionable choices & mistakes, and to learn from them; great dynamics between characters, be it friends, family or romantic partners; and of course great writing. 

Perfect on Paper offers all that, and more.

Let’s start with the writing. Gonzales’ style is very clean, which is to say: it’s not purple prose, it’s not clunky, it doesn’t feel like it’s unpolished. It’s clean. It’s also fresh, and really does make you believe the characters are teens. And funny. Probably helps that my sense of humour clearly aligns with the author’s, but the point stands.

The fact that the writing is so good, also translates into all the characters being well developed, superbly fleshed out. Which is possibly my favourite part of the book. Because I don’t just mean that yeah, it’s very easy to feel like you know all those people you’re reading about & like they’re real people. I mean that they are people, they do things they regret later, they keep secrets they know they shouldn’t, they hurt others. None of them are perfect, least of all Darcy. And that’s beautiful, frankly, since in real life no one is perfect either.

Darcy is an amazing main character. She’s kind of messy, in love with her best friend, and thinks she’s smarter than everyone else (at least a little bit). She doesn’t end the story like that, though. When I say all those characters grow and learn, I’m dead serious.

Darcy has all the answers. She knows how to solve everyone else’s love problems. She reads one letter, and she’s already an expert about any given situation. And like with everything, there are a lot of sides to look at this from. Yes, the advice she anonymously gives people is usually spot on. No, she can’t really know a person’s full story from a few facts they decided to put in a note - but the narrative calls her out on this. Yes, it’s made clear that it’s easier to figure out what to do when you’re not emotionally invested & that’s one of the reasons why Darcy is so successful. No, she can’t really take her own advice. 

When it comes to her own love life, Darcy reads too much into things or just doesn’t notice stuff, all depending on the outcome she’s hoping for. None of that smart assessment of situation she displays when telling others what to do. Very little logic, a lot of wishful thinking. Which, honestly, makes perfect sense.

Darcy is also bisexual, and to be honest, that’s where the book truly gets to shine. You can clearly tell it’s an ownvoices story, with all the care taken to portray bisexuality. Not only in the very clear way of how the plot unfolds: Darcy is in love with a girl and then later falls for a boy (that’s not a spoiler, right? y’all must have been expecting that). There are also discussions, internal monologues about what bisexuality actually is and how biphobia comes into play. I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book with bi rep this good.

And yes, the Boy. Brougham is just… so sweet. Basically always willing to help, to spend time with someone, make them feel better. But even more importantly, Brougham puts a lot of weight on other people’s feelings, opinions, boundaries. In a phrase, he respects people. If Darcy tells him she doesn’t enjoy something, he’ll stop. A revolutionary concept, yes, I know.

That’s just to show you, though, what an important part relationships play in Perfect on Paper. Obviously the romantic ones, given the whole premise of the book. Even with those, Gonzales took some turns you might not be expecting; some happy endings that don’t look like them from the start. But different kinds of relationships aren’t downplayed at all. Darcy and her sister are a major point in the story. Parents are actually visible here, and while they’re not always perfect, the narrative actually talks about that.

Perfect on Paper is a perfectly wholesome story about imperfect people. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you yearn. It might even make you learn something. Most of all, it will make you feel loved.

Perfect On Paper

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