ARC Review: The Best Laid Plans by Cameron Lund

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Best Laid Plans by Cameron Lund
Published by Razorbill on April 7, 2020
Genres: YA Contemporary Romance
Pages: 368
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating:
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High school senior Keely Collins takes on firsts, lasts, and everything in between in this sweet, sex-positive rom-com for fans of Meg Cabot and Jenny Han.

It seemed like a good plan at first.

When the only other virgin in her group of friends loses it at Keely’s own eighteenth birthday party, she’s inspired to take things into her own hands. She wants to have that experience too (well, not exactly like that–but with someone she trusts and actually likes), so she’s going to need to find the guy, and fast. Problem is, she’s known all the boys in her small high school forever, and it’s kinda hard to be into a guy when you watched him eat crayons in kindergarten. 

So she can’t believe her luck when she meets a ridiculously hot new guy named Dean. Not only does he look like he’s fallen out of a classic movie poster, but he drives a motorcycle, flirts with ease, and might actually be into her.

But Dean’s already in college, and Keely is convinced he’ll drop her if he finds out how inexperienced she is. That’s when she talks herself into a new plan: her lifelong best friend, Andrew, would never hurt or betray her, and he’s clearly been with enough girls that he can show her the ropes before she goes all the way with Dean. Of course, the plan only works if Andrew and Keely stay friends–just friends–so things are about to get complicated.

Cameron Lund’s delightful debut is a hilarious and heartfelt story of first loves, first friends, and first times–and how making them your own is all that really matters.

My Review:

Oh my goodness, I adored this book so much! I mean, it doesn’t hurt that very early in the book the main character announced herself as being a Hufflepuff, and as a proud Hufflepuff myself, that immediately made me even more invested in this story.

On the one hand this wasn’t completely original, you know it was the story of the boy who was the best friend having a crush on the main character and she never knew it. But I really liked how the author handled the situation. Because even though there were times that Andrew was maybe about to tell her or almost tell her, the way he handled it was realistic to me. A teen, feeling jealous, and her acting like she wasn’t interested at all, yeah, of course he’d do what he could to save face.

Along with the romance, there was a bit of mean girl business going on with Keely’s friends and the other girls in the school. One that wasn’t necessarily expected, but I kind of had a feeling about early on. There were times I was a little irritated with Keely too though, for being so obtuse about Dean, and his behavior. However, I guess with someone as inexperienced in all the ways that she was, it kind of makes sense. But then it doesn’t make sense, because she hung out with Andrew and his guy friends all the time it sounds like, so she knew how guys were. The things we find out about that situation later in the book do clear up her still being a little clueless though.

Another perfect sweet, escape from the reality of our world today read for me. I was able to read the whole thing in one day. Not that it was hard, I could barely put it down to do the things I needed to do for school. Highly recommended, and while I will definitely be buying a copy for my school library next fall, this is also an ARC I’ll want to keep on my own bookshelf!