Borrow My Heart - Review

Borrow My Heart (Borrow My Heart, # 1)

By: Kasie West

Expected Publication: June 13th 2023 by Delacorte Press

320 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

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Goodreads description--When a girl overhears a guy getting verbally destroyed by his friends for being catfished, she jumps in to save the day--and pretends to be his online crush. A young adult romance from the critically acclaimed author of Places We've Never Been.

Wren is used to being called a control freak. She doesn't care; sticking to the list of rules she created for herself helps her navigate life. But when a cute guy named Asher walks through the door of her neighborhood coffee shop, the rulebook goes out the window.

Asher is cute, charming . . . and being catfished by his online crush. So Wren makes an uncharacteristically impulsive decision--she pretends to be the girl he's waiting for to save him from embarrassment. Suddenly she's fake-dating a boy she knows nothing about. And it's . . . amazing.

It's not long before Asher has her breaking even more of her own rules. But will he forgive her when he finds out she's not who she says she is? Wren's not so sure. . . . After all, rules exist for a reason.

Kasie West is an auto-read author for me. I've got two books of hers that I need to go back and finish, but I always know that I'll enjoy her books. That being said, I don't always love characters that live by a strict set of rules. It seems that Wren's rules are mostly assigned to her dating life, which up until now has been really minimal. Her rules have sort of gotten in the way. I liked the way Kasie West worked this though. Wren has her rules in place because of her mom. Her mom left her father, Wren, and her sister several years ago. Her mom is flighty and unpredictable at every turn. The only thing predictable about her is that she's unreliable and she will ultimately let Wren down.

One thing the description got wrong is that Asher only has one friend ragging him in the coffee shop about whether or not his online catfish will show up. Wren feels like his friend is particularly harsh so she heads out back, changes clothes (she happens to have a change on her), and re-enters through the front pretending to be Gemma. Wren is waiting for an opportunity to talk to Asher without his friend so she can explain and let him down easily, but he never seems to be without his blasted friend Dale. Thus she uses this as an excuse to carry on pretending to be Gemma.

Wren also works at a local pet shelter. Before meeting Asher she'd been interested in Chad, a coworker at the shelter. Chad hadn't shown much interest in her until Asher starts volunteering. Wren's boss assigns Wren the task of personally seeing that their longest resident dog, Bean, gets adopted. Wren and Bean have a bit of a connection, but Bean can't seem to get a similar connection with any visitor that comes in looking to adopt a pet. Wren's father is allergic so she's a no-go on adopting him herself. Bean was truly at the heart of the story. And I wanted to meet him myself to see if he'd approve of or reject me. Because Bean approves of Asher, he joins the crusade to get Bean adopted.

There was one part where all of the conflicts in the book were coming to a head at the same time and I literally teared up for Wren. I don't often tear up in Kasie West's books, or any book really. I didn't quite cry, but man I felt for her with everything hitting at the same time. Great writing.

Borrow My Heart was such a good read. Kasie West explained all the questions I had except two. What happened to the real Gemma? And did Asher ever stop talking to her? All else was addressed and done so in a way that satisfied my curiosity and didn't feel forced. I noticed that this was book 1 in a series so I'm hoping that book 2 will follow Kami and Dale. Borrow My Heart gets 4 Stars. Have you read Borrow My Heart? What did you think? Let me know!