I really did not understand what this book was trying to tell me, but it was done in a very preachy and patronising way. Parts of it were enjoyable but on the whole I didn’t get it.

Cute but felt a little gimmicky instead of having a niche that provided a really deep story - felt quite superficial instead and didn't get any further into the characters.

Advanced Reader copy - Enjoyed this book, really opened my eyes and made me seek out other similar books to read.

"36 Questions..." is a YA contemporary romance novel that follows two teenagers who get paired together for a psychological study meant to facilitate relationships through a question-and-answer process. Including texts, emails, doodles, and "script" formatting, the book is visually entertaining and dynamic, and actually made for a very fast read.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. Normally YA contemporary romance isn't my genre, but the premise interested me. I enjoyed both characters, thought they felt genuine, and generally believed the dialogue, which can really be so hard to capture. I also appreciated the subtleties in the author's writing. I could smell something amiss in Hildy's family early on, but I just couldn't piece it together fully. When the truth came out, I was genuinely surprised. It's usually pretty hard to surprise me, and I was fooled.

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, as I couldn't get into it - nothing against the author or book, just not to my personal taste. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

This is a classic case of coming into a book with too high expectations. I loved the premise of the book: Dr Aron's study on relationships is something I've found interesting for a while and it seemed like a good starting point for a meet-cute. Then everything went downhill. I just couldn't invest in Paul and Hildy as characters, let alone their romance. They were a little too close to standard tropes: Paul, the misunderstood bad boy, and Hildy had a lot of the manic pixie dream girl about her. Because I couldn't invest in them, I just couldn't invest in worrying about what secrets they were keeping from each other. Definitely a premise I would like to see done in future, just not the way this book handled it.

It is a fairly short book, easy to read.
With an interesting plot that is based on a real psychology study, the plot of this book gave me enough curiosity to give it a try (I had read TNYT's article a long time ago and had asked myself the same question, so I wanted to see how the author handled it).
More than a narrative, it is an incessant dialogue, there are not many narrated parts and I think that's what makes this story to lack substance.
The characters are decent, but there is no empathy, you feel that you are seeing everything from outside and you do not get involved in the story. The secondary characters are just to fill the book and are not really interesting or intriguing, the author tries to involve the family but does not succeed, it is all very superficial.
Outside of that, it is a sweet, short and predictable story that takes its three stars to be entertaining and get away from the conventional using this idea of the 36 questions.
For the rest, it is "boy meets girl, they hate each other, they love each other".
It lacked depth, it lacked development, it lacked to make us sympathize with the characters, get into their skin, in their story.
The story had great potential and I feel that if it is written from a different point (maybe with more narration) it could be much better.
For the rest, a simple reading of love to read a boring afternoon, without too big intrigues or impressive dramas, ordinary.

Will no longer be reading or reviewing this book due to lack of interest in the title, and the fact that the title has been archived.

This was such a lovely read after a reading slump. It's predictable and cliche, but it makes you feel so warm inside and I devoured it in a night!

Such a cute read, I really enjoyed it and I felt that it was not only a nice romance for young adults but older audiences as well.

I personally really struggled with this book as I simply did not like it - sorry. Hence I never finished it. However I do not think I am the right target market for it as I'm in my 40s and I felt this book was more for the young adult market. I also felt the way it is narrated very hard to follow.

This book wasn’t for me but, at 34, I’m not the target audience. I found it very predictable and didn’t feel it was realistic or enjoyable. It will no doubt be an enjoyable book for some, particularly the target age group but I was glad to finish this one.

Thank you to Vicki Grant, NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was potentially such a good read but fell flat through poor execution of the actual book. The characters were a predictable mismatch and the development of the plot held no surprises. I may have been expecting too much as this is a YA title but I can't imagine any of my pupils enjoying this book either.

I very rarely write a review for a book I didn’t like but for this I’m making an exception. I don’t know why I feel the need to say something about it. I’d normally just let it go but this time, I just can’t.

So in all honesty, I’m so disappointed about this book. The idea was fantastic, the story should have worked but it didn’t. It really didn’t. The cover is gorgeous as well.

I think it would have worked if they were adults, or if we were given clear details. I couldn’t grasp if Hildy was supposed to be 16 or 18, in high school or college/uni or… God knows what. She was naive, childish, self centred and I just didn’t like her. I really didn’t like her. I found her irritating and whiney, someone needed to tell her to sort it out. Paul didn’t set the page alight either to be fair but he was described as the extremely attractive man. Nope, didn’t feel it. I just found him grumpy, humourless, a tad annoying and a little stalkerish. Mind you, Hildy wasn’t any better on the stalking front either.

You get where I’m going with this review yet? I just think that there was an amazing amount of potential but it just didn’t live up to my silly high expectations.

There are maybe 2 or 3 things I did like about it, surprisingly. One of them was the layout of the story, what I mean is the way it was written when it was just Hildy and Paul. It was easy to keep track of who was who and what was being said. Another thing I liked was the actual idea of the story. 36 questions, that’s all it’s supposed to take but we learnt more about the characters in those 36 questions than we would have normally. Unfortunately, that is all I can think of what I liked about the book.

Overall, if it was written differently, or at least the characters were written differently, I think this book could have been something. I found it boring, slightly predictable and I really didn’t like the characters. Shame really as it really could have been an incredible story.

Paul and Hildy partake in a university study about thirty six questions that are asked between strangers to see if they fall in love by the end of the study.



Paul originally takes part as you get paid to do so while Hildy is curious about the study. As the pair delve through the questions, asking deeper and more hard hitting ones as time wares on, the pair become friends but are they closer to more than that?



A strange but intriguing premise which to me wasn't as fun as I expected it to be. Their getting to know each other while obviously forced seemed promising but didn't draw me in and I found myself quite bored with the storyline to be truthful unfortunately.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

A bittersweet and perceptive story about a young couple who meet through a university social experiment. Quirky and likeable characters made this an enjoyable read.

There is a set of questions that if two strangers ask each other each question, they will fall in love. Apparently.

This book is based on that set of questions: "36 questions that changed my mind about you", by Vicki Grant. The set up is that it is a college experiment - a call for strangers to ask each other the questions in exchange for $40 each. Betty & Bobby (fake names) meet and instantly dislike each other. Told from Betty/Hildy's point of view, Bobby/Paul is not her type at all. Tough, muscly, short on words and even less concerned about proper grammar. The session does not go well and she ends up storming out after throwing her fish at him.

She finds, though, that she can't stop thinking about him. How they would have answered the rest of the questions. What else he would have drawn. She wishes she knew his real name, and then she gets a message on facebook from 'Bob', who has also been thinking of her. And the $40.

The story is a time honoured classic of boy meets girl/girl hates boy (and vice versa) etc. I found that their story was more nuanced and more complicated than I expected, and the background of Hildy's home life demonstrated that they are more alike than they first thought.

I enjoyed the description of the weather - I know that sounds strange but there's a snowstorm at one point and it was tangible. I could almost feel the chill from the outside coming in.

A great read and I read it in one sitting (perhaps because I was on a plane!) but definitely one I'd recommend to someone looking for an unchallenging romantic story with a little bit of bite. Thanks to Netgalley and Hot Key Books for the advance digital copy!

I couldn't complete this book in all honesty. It wasn't a bad book by any means but I just felt it was a little young for me. I also wasn't overly thrilled by the style of writing either. I would possibly recommend it to a younger person but no one of my own age. But thinking about a younger, teen audience, I think it would be well liked.

I was sceptical about this book but I have to say i thoroughly enjoyed it. The charachters are good and the story unveils itself gradually. A total escapism book. Summer beach reading.

I read this for an honest review for Netgalley
Boring and predictable.
Whimsical girl forced to spend time with tear away rebellious boy. As the title suggests there are questions that are asked and answered- I was confused as to why the questions were not asked in one go???
I probably will buy this book for the library but not until it is reduced in price. I think older teens who do not necessarily like reading or long stories that need some concentration to remember the plot then this may be a book for them.
I did learn once finished reading this that the published paper book may have the doodles talked about in the story drawn into it. That may possibly be a reason to give it an extra star. It would add a little depth to the story- make me care a little more.