RIVALRY NEVER FELT SO RIGHT

It's officially the weekend, and there is no better way to start the weekend than filling your shelves or E-reader😍📚❤.

This is Readers Recs: Here are 8 books which feature ACADEMIC RIVALS TO LOVERS to fill your never-ending TBR 🤭🤭. Tension and rivalry has never felt so right!! Let's get to the list: 

1. TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW BY RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON 

BLURB: Today, she hates him. It’s the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests. While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she’d love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.

Tonight, she puts up with him. When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they’re the last players left—and then they’ll destroy each other. 

As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he’s much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she’s sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams. Tomorrow…maybe she’s already fallen for him.

GOODREADS RATING: 4.1/5

Check out my review of TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW

2. HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND UNFAIRLY CUTE BY TALIA HIBBERT 

BLURB: This story is about a quirky content creator and a clean-cut athlete testing their abilities to survive the great outdoors—and each other.

Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.

Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption—yet, she’s still not cool enough for the popular kids’ table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that’s how Celine sees it.)

These days, there’s nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she’s surprised to find Brad right beside her.

Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?

GOODREADS RATING: 3.7/5

3. BEGIN AGAIN BY EMMA LORD 

BLURB: Filled with a friend group that feels like family, an empowering journey of finding your own way, and a Just Kiss Already! romance, Begin Again is an unforgettable novel of love and starting again.

As usual, Andie Rose has a plan: transfer to the hyper competitive Blue Ridge State and chase her lifelong goal of becoming an iconic self-help figure. All it will take is ruthless organization, hard work, and her trademark unrelenting enthusiasm to pull it all together.

But the moment Andie arrives, her plans go off the rails. Her rocky relationship with her boyfriend Connor only gets more complicated and she meets Milo who disrupts all her ideas about love and relationships.

Sometimes, when all your plans are rubble at your feet, you find out what you're made of.

GOODREADS RATING: 3.7/5

4. NOT HERE TO BE LIKED BY MICHELLE QUACH 

BLURB: Falling in love wasn't part of the plan.

Eliza Quan fully expects to be voted the next editor-in-chief of her school paper. She works hard, she respects the facts, and she has the most experience. 

Len DiMartile is an injured star baseball player who seems to have joined the paper just to have something to do. Naturally, the staff picks Len to be their next leader. 

Because while they may respect Eliza, they don't particularly like her - but right now, Eliza is not here to be liked. She's here to win.But someone does like Eliza. A lot.Shame it's the boy standing in the way of her becoming editor-in-chief....

GOODREADS RATING: 3.6/5

5. IF YOU COULD SEE THE SUN BY ANN LIANG 

BLURB: In this genre-bending , speculative YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets.

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible.

When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.

But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

GOODREADS RATING: 4.0/5

6. DEBATING DARCY BY SAYANTANI DASGUPTA 

BLURB:  It is a truth universally acknowledged that Leela Bose plays to win.

A life-long speech competitor, Leela loves nothing more than crushing the competition, all while wearing a smile. But when she meets the incorrigible Firoze Darcy, a debater from an elitist private school, Leela can’t stand him. Unfortunately, he’ll be competing in the state league, so their paths are set to collide.

But why attempt to tolerate Firoze when Leela can one-up him? The situation is more complicated than Leela anticipated, though, and her participation in the tournament reveals that she might have tragically misjudged the debaters -- including Firoze Darcy -- and more than just her own winning streak is at stake...her heart is, too.

GOODREADS RATING: 3.5/5

7. THIS MAY END BADLY BY SAMANTHA MARKUM 

BLURB: Pranking mastermind Doe and her motley band of Weston girls are determined to win the century-long war against Winfield Academy before the clock ticks down on their senior year. But when their headmistress announces that The Weston School will merge with its rival the following year, their longtime feud spirals into chaos.

To protect the school that has been her safe haven since her parents’ divorce, Doe puts together a plan to prove once and for all that Winfield boys and Weston girls just don’t mix, starting with a direct hit at Three, Winfield’s boy king and her nemesis. In a desperate move to win, Doe strikes a bargain with Three’s cousin, Wells: If he fake dates her to get under Three’s skin, she’ll help him get back his rightful family heirloom from Three.

As the pranks escalate, so do her feelings for her fake boyfriend, and Doe spins lie after lie to keep up her end of the deal. But when a teacher long suspected of inappropriate behavior messes with a younger Weston girl, Doe has to decide what’s more important: winning a rivalry, or joining forces to protect something far more critical than a prank war legacy.

This May End Badly is a story about friendship, falling in love, and crossing pretty much every line presented to you—and how to atone when you do

GOODREADS RATING: 3.9/5

8. MADE IN KOREA BY SARAH SUK 

BLURB:Frankly in Love meets Shark Tank in this feel-good romantic comedy about two entrepreneurial Korean American teens who butt heads—and maybe fall in love—while running competing Korean beauty businesses at their high school.

There’s nothing Valerie Kwon loves more than making a good sale. Together with her cousin Charlie, they run V&C K-BEAUTY, their school’s most successful student-run enterprise. With each sale, Valerie gets closer to taking her beloved and adventurous halmeoni to her dream city, Paris.

Enter the new kid in class, Wes Jung, who is determined to pursue music after graduation despite his parents’ major disapproval. When his classmates clamor to buy the K-pop branded beauty products his mom gave him to “make new friends,” he sees an opportunity—one that may be the key to help him pay for the music school tuition he knows his parents won’t cover…

​What he doesn’t realize, though, is that he is now V&C K-BEAUTY’s biggest competitor.

Stakes are high as Valerie and Wes try to outsell each other, make the most money, and take the throne for the best business in school—all while trying to resist the undeniable spark that’s crackling between them. From hiring spies to all-or-nothing bets, the competition is much more than either of them bargained for.

But one thing is clear: only one Korean business can come out on top.

GOODREADS RATING: 3.8/5

And with that we have come to the end of this list but that doesn't mean the recommendations have to stop here😍🥺! Check out other book recs;

>>>READ IN COLOR: PURPLE EDITION 💜💜💜

>>>TRAPPED IN TIME 🔁♾

>>>LOOKING FOR YOUR NEXT FAVE YA BOOK?

Until next friday 👋, Stay bookish and wonderful 📚🥰