Book: Foolish Hearts
Author: Emma Mills
Published: December 5th, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
When Claudia accidentally eavesdrops on the epic breakup of Paige and Iris, the it-couple at her school, she finds herself in hot water with prickly, difficult Iris. Thrown together against their will in the class production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, along with the goofiest, cutest boy Claudia has ever known, Iris and Claudia are in for an eye-opening senior year.
Smart, funny, and thoroughly, wonderfully flawed, Claudia navigates a world of intense friendships and tentative romance in Foolish Hearts, a YA novel about expanding your horizons, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and accepting–and loving–people for who they really are.

This book raises the important question: Can you consider an author a favorite author after only reading two books by them? I mean seriously, Emma Mills is that good. I’m mad at myself for taking so long to read her books. I mentioned her newest release, Lucky Caller, in a post about upcoming releases and wanting to read their backlist. This was the first one I picked up and I’m so glad I did!

This book starts out with the best kind of high school drama that I live for in books because, to be completely honest, I’m a very nosy person. So when Claudia overhead the it couple break up, I was like yessss tell me everything!! And then the enemies to friends trope which I also love in books between Claudia and Iris was just so much fun to be apart of.

One of the best things about this book is the setting and plotline, which has a lot to do with a school play. I was in drama all through high school and while we didn’t do this play, I felt like I was back in rehearsals and those are some of the best times of my teenage years.

The love interest in this book was almost too sweet. I loved him immediately and was rooting for them all the way. What I loved about his character is that he had his own character arc outside of just falling in love with Claudia.

I’ve read a lot of YA contemporary that you can tell is written by adults. It doesn’t feel authentic because, well, as adults, we tend to lose most of our teenage self and it’s harder to get into the mind frame of a teenager, especially since being a teenager now is completely different than it was even ten years ago. Emma Mills’ books are incredibly believable because she writes complex stories.

Being a teenager is hard. It’s not just going to school, meeting someone, and then falling in love. It would be too easy to only write it like it is. But this book captures so much more than just a romantic love story. There is familial love and issues, platonic friendship love and hardship, and of course romantic love and the trials that come with love at a young age.

This book is beautiful and funny and just filled my heart with warmth.