A sweet, funny, and deeply relatable summer romance about learning to embrace failure, owning your passions, and discovering that the scariest part of falling in love is letting someone see the real you.
Olivia Knight's summer plan—binge-watching retro horror movies and anonymous online chatting with her horror-loving friend, Elm—was supposed to be a cozy escape from the anxiety of failing her NYU screenwriting application. But when Elm (aka Jake) unexpectedly sends a selfie and turns out to be impossibly cute, Olivia panics.
In a moment of pure, messy fear, she sends him a picture of her beautiful, confident best friend, Katie. It's just a harmless lie, right? They'll never meet in person.
Wrong.
Forced by her parents into a summer working at a zipline company in the Catskills, Olivia comes face-to-face with the real Jake—the boy she's been falling for online. Now, she's trapped: caught between the truth, the escalating lie, and the magnetic chemistry she shares with the boy who thinks she's someone else.
As Olivia navigates treacherous high ropes courses (despite her fear of heights!), a disastrous new job, fights with her best friend, and the absolute terror of her secret being exposed, she has to figure out if she can stop pretending to be the perfect girl online and start accepting the imperfect, smart, horror-movie-obsessed girl she truly is.
Praise
"A story of the lies we tell ourselves and other people even when the truth would be easier and more rewarding."Kirkus Reviews
—
"As she did in The Romantics (2016), Konen plays with genre tropes in clever and unpredictable ways. A summer romance that's as much about learning to be comfortable with yourself as it is about first love."Booklist
—
"Fans of fluffy rom-coms and fun-yet-predictable movies such as You’ve Got Mail will fall head over heels for Happy Messy Scary Love. Young adults will enjoy the over-the-top dad jokes offered up by Jake, and movie buffs will appreciate the film recommendations Olivia and Jake provide throughout the novel. This light romance will delight readers looking for something fun for their summer reading list."School Library Journal
—
