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★★★★��
spoiler free

im am so exhausted and not in the mood to try to make an effort on this review, especially since this is just going to be a rant review. so, it's not going to be pretty😭 but anyways, this book was really good. it was actually so addicting and i could not put it down. i stayed up till 4am reading this because i knew that if i tried to sleep i wouldn't be able to, since i wouldn't be able to stop thinking about sadiejulius.

coming into this book, i had really high expectations and this book definitely delivered!! however, i still don't think its a five stars. i gave it five stars but my honest rating is probably a three stars. im usually pretty harsh with my ratings so i was surprised that i still decided to give it a five. so before i go to why i love this book so much, my two main reasons for thinking it should be three stars are the ending and sadie.

the ending left me very unsatisfied and i needed more sadiejulius. it left me wanting more. it for sure wasn't a cliffhanger but it was a huge let down. i read the whole book in one night only to not see sadiejulius get a proper ending. some people would argue that it is a 'proper' ending but i refuse to agree to that. in to all the boys i've loved before, i was really mad that the couple didnt get a proper ending and it was only a chapter but at least it was a fucking chapter...
the ending left me discontented enough that i should have reduced a star for that but i couldn't bring myself to that since the rest of this book was literally perfect.

my second reason for not thinking this book deserves the five stars i gave it is sadie wen. don't get me wrong. i love sadie sfm and i think she's an amazing main character who's so easy to relate to. usually, im very quick to judge fmcs and i hate so much when they need validation from everyone all the time and are kinda doormat fmcs. but sadie needing academic validation and just validation in general from everyone was so relatable. i think the problem i have is that it's usually done to a really bad extent or the author just executed it really badly but ann liang wrote this perfectly. you also see sadie being kind of a doormat and getting walked over by people all the time which would've annoyed me to death but then you see that she isn't actually like that and her snarky self coming out in the emails was so funny.

the reasons i didnt like sadie was because i thought she was really unreasonable at times and acted like a little kid. i love the academic rivals to lovers trope and i love the competing between sadie and julius but the reason that she started hating him was so stupid. he targeted her in a dodgeball game when they were six so she decided that she hated him😭 another reason i have is that she was so unecessarily mean to julius sometimes. i mean, this could just be my toxic self hating on anyone who says even the most remotely mean thing to him but sadie was unecessarily mean to him. yes, this is an enemies to lovers and yeah i love banter but sometimes it felt like she was just being a bitch for no reason. even after julius and her became civil, she'd randomly say mean shit to him which felt wrong, (view spoiler)[and in the ending when it was the senior trip and they were canoing, she was going to confess her feelings for him but when he told her that he didnt want her pity because he thought thats why she was being nice to him all of a sudden, she reacted in the worst way possible. the book could have ended so much quicker if she had heard him out and then still confessed and reasured him that she genuinely liked him instead of getting mad and proceeding to fight with him. (hide spoiler)]

anyways, lmao, though i just spent a whole paragraph ranting about why i didnt like her, at the end of the day, i still love sadie so much and the only thing i didnt like was how annoying she was at times.

moving onto the loml julius gong. he's smart and perfect and sweet and funnt and he is so much more than anyone could ask for. to say im obsessed with him is an understatement. he was so obsessed with sadie from the start just like i was obsessed with him from the start🤭 (also pls, no one accuse me of not liking sadie only because she stole my man from me because that is absolutely not true😔)
also the things he did for sadie omfg (view spoiler)[like punching danny and winning the race for her aaaa (hide spoiler)]. why aren't guys like this irl😭

okay, so, sadiejulius is actually everything ahh. they are the cutest most amazing couple ever and i fucking adore them. they're so sweet and i love their banter. also, the enemies to lovers for them ate. it was actually so good. other than the reason sadie started hating julius, everything was so perfect. breaking this down to only three scenes is so hard but my top three sadiejulius scenes are the bikeshed, the party, and the relay race. they were all so cute and for anyone wanting to know why my standards for a relationship are so high, it's because of julius gong and sadie wen. it's their fault.

overall, this book was amazing and im so so glad that i finally decided to read it. i will definitely be reading more ann liang in the future. and this is not a proper review but if i dont add some of these, i will actually combust, so here are my favorite quotes from this book-



"You're the only person worth paying attention to.��


“For ten years I thought I was preparing to destroy you, when really I was preparing to love you.��


“I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost.��


“You were right, Sadie Wen. I am completely, helplessly obsessed with you.��