Slightly spoilery:

There was a phase heading into the last quarter of this book where I was getting genuinely angry because I was imagining Dockrill pulling the kind of ending that didn’t see Ella and Lowe get together. I saw these beautiful, flawed characters be too stubborn or too foolish to actually let the other know how they really felt. The agitation at realising Ella may never get what she wanted, may never be truly happy, whilst also knowing that Lowe definitely felt the same way, was almost too much to bear. So I ended up speed-reading the end because I was feeling so anxious and desperate.

Well thank goodness Dockrill stuck the landing because otherwise I’d be rioting.

This book is an explosion of feelings told in words that fly past you like a speeding train. A rollercoaster of hijinks, torment, fun and liveliness. I knew who Ella was. For a brief moment in time I was Ella. I’ve never read a crush conjured with ferocity like it.

I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.

At first I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the story, I wasn’t sure I was the right audience, but a few chapters in and I was totally hooked! Whatever your age, you can relate to Ella’s first love, her teenage angst, that fumbling around with how you really feel and not managing to say it to the one person you love and somehow know is your destiny. I loved the throwbacks to the early 2000s too. My daughters will adore this book. A really great story!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, HQ for an arc in exchange for a review.

3.5⭐️

‘30 is the biggest disappointment since sea monkeys’ - couldn’t be more relatable!

I really enjoyed the nostalgia at the beginning of this book, for probably the first 25% and then I really enjoyed the last 20% too. However the middle bit was dry and just felt like reading a teenage girls diary going on and on about the same boy.

Thank you Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a great book. Anyone who reads this will become nostalgic and definitely taken back to their teenage years
It was emotional, funny, light-hearted and above all so realistic. Ella and Lowe were wonderful characters

I have recommended this book to anyone and everyone who will listen. A fantastic story with heaps of heart, coupled with the most beautiful lyrical prose. Highly recommended!

Love You.

My first thought about this book is that the cover & the promotional imagery is stunning! I read the ebook and I’ve ordered a hardback copy because it’s beautiful! Fortunately so is Laura’s writing. As much as I loved this story it really is the delightful writing that stood out most to me - charming descriptions, honest reflections & genuine relatability. We go back in time with Ella & see her fall in love for the first time - with Lowe Archer. Laura takes us back there so well & the memories come flooding back for me reading this. Her friendships with Aoife, Bianca & the gang, her family drama, dealing with exams, leaving school, college, uni & never feeling quite like a real grown up. Ella loves Lowe - and we suspect Lowe loves Ella too - and yet neither of them focus on this love - they keep it secret & remain best friends. Ella’s life moves in a completely different direction to Lowe’s.
A real trip down memory lane - I really loved it.

The greatest almost love story ever told! Lowe and Ellie met as teenagers. Ellie fell in love immediately but for years they were just the best of friends. Ellie never fully gave herself emotionally to any one else as they never compared to Lowe who remains in her life; sometimes close by sometimes at a distance. Will they ever have their happy ending? This was such a great read.

(4.5 but goodreads doesn’t allow for .5)

i’ll be so real i cannot STAND miscommunication as a trope however when it’s a teenage crush? god i ate it up

this is maybe the most accurate portrayal of being a teenager and having a crush i’ve ever seen in my life. the bit about liking going to carpet shops to touch all the samples? literally me when i was 15.

extremely bittersweet and real i really adored reading about ella and lowe. i just wish the slow burn didn’t take up the entire book & there was more at the end.

impeccable tho.

Wow this book is going to give me one hell of a book hangover. I keep thinking about Ella & Lowe!! Such a slow burner which beautifully weaves 90's nostalgia with the will they wont they love story. I found myself sat there thinking I'm gonna have to read a bit more to see if they get it on now, I was literally screaming at my screen - JUST GET IT ON ALREADY!! Infuriatingly fabulous love story for anyone who lived and loved in the 90's.

“ It’s wonderful being a kid like that. You think trauma is just sliding off your skin, when really it is the opposite; it’s sinking in deep, like the most painful tattoo ink of a word or picture that you absolutely hate, directly into your nervous system, that nobody will ever see unless you one day are loved or desperate enough to show it.”

I knew I’d enjoy this book from others reviews but I didn’t realise how emotional it would make me and how bloody hard some of the quotes would hit. This feels like reading a love letter from younger you to older you, heartbreakingly beautiful

Also how stunning is this book in general 🫶🏻

Official rating ~ 4.5
A massive nostalgia hit. I might not have been a teen (for long) in the noughties but this took me back. The references might be 2000’s but, my god, regardless of decade, the experiences & emotions are all the same.

It’s brilliantly written with a beautiful, funny & relatable main character. Told via Now & Then, we follow Ella as figures out life as a teen and adult, friends, family & boys. And does she really fancy Moe from The Simpsons lol Honestly, this is a great book with some of the funniest lines I’ve read, such as:

“I pretty much decide that, for the time being, it’s probably safest if I just forget I own a fanny at all.” lol I can’t tell you how much I laughed reading this!

There is also a moment in the book when Ella is having a chat with her Dad, believing at 15 she is old enough to hear the truth then instantly recognising that she isn’t. A simple scene but encapsulates being a teen. Wanting to be grown up but not yet ready to let go of your childhood innocence.

I have a love/hate with these kind of endings.
It’s got nothing to do with the story, it’s more to do with my feelings at the time of reading it.
And currently it’s not the ending I wanted.

On saying that, this is a gorgeous story giving an authentic representation of being a teenager and all that entails.

Thank you HQ & NetGalley, for this awesome arc.
Apologies for taking so long to read. So many things took their toll impacting upon my time & health (both mental & physical) that I hit a reading slump.

Look, I am not an avid romance reader. I don't have a particular trope I enjoy nor can I list tropes off by heart but every once in a while, a love story will come along and hold me tightly. So with that, my ex-stone cold heart and I, recommend that you read I Love You I Love You I Love You.


This one is for all the readers who:
Enjoy reading books slowly because otherwise they'll end too fast
Updates anyone within a 0.1 mile radius on the plot as they read
Gasp out loud
Refer to what's happening as they're reading out loud
Had a crush on someone in high school
Like me, love musical references in novels and let them guide you through the feelsiness of what you're reading

Oh and @HQStories have ever so kindly put together a Spotify playlist for you so you can listen whilst reading.

But there is no reason for a book to be this good!! This is like a convo of lit fic and your favorite romance. I loved it.

I thought I would relate to this book being the same age in 2000 as the main character but for some reason I just couldn't get into it. There was some nostalgic references that I liked but I just found it wasn't going anywhere. Not for me; sorry.

Oh I loved this book. So charming and funny and emotional. I loved present day Ella so much that I wasn’t sure about the flashbacks at first, but I ended up loving teen Ella too. Brilliant on all the tiny details of passionate teen friendships and first crushes and love.

I know the book was partly inspired by Laura Dockrill’s real life relationship. How lucky to have a love like that and be able to write about it like this.

I think I'm the wrong audience for this book. i only read it to the end as I'd been given a free copy for review and I'm sorry to say it's not for me.

I found the main characters annoying rather than interesting, Their "romance" disappointed me and too many times I was tempted to give up as I found little that interested me in this.

It was quite well written but just not my cup of tea, sorry

Remember those moments growing up with school friends when you would put glitter eyeshadow on and listen to Hit Me Baby One More Time and have house parties/chill in parks and gardens to socialise with schoolfriends during the weekends and then, you would reminisce/dish the dirt/spill the tea with the same friends during the school week and it turns out they like the same boy/girl you like? This book is all that and more. I was astounded with how accurately Laura Dockrill was able to capture teenage angst in this book, and the later angst/anxiety we have as adults remembering those same memories. We are *so* different to who we were back then...aren't we?

Ella has loved, effortlessly beautiful in his simple ways, Lowe, her schoolfriend since they were teenagers. Now in her 30s, Ella is dealing with adulthood, a relationship, a mortgage, her job, attending her partner's work events, trying to manage the hot mess that is her best friend from school...and all this with the fact that she continues to run into Lowe from time to time, having never gotten over those feelings she harbours for him since they first met. This book had me laughing and crying at how navigate life decisions as teenagers, and how we are affected by the ups and downs of life, what makes us happy and how we deal with grief and love.

This book is partly based on Dockrill's relationship with her husband so that was fun to know before I started reading, otherwise this is a work of fiction, with the writing style being choppy and contents is more quirky and lighthearted and yet which shocked me so many times with how relatable it felt.

There was descriptive writing which I felt longed the book out, and felt unnecessary but otherwise I did enjoy this read alot.

Thank you @HQ and @Netgalley for the advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest unedited review.

I understand that this author has previously written for children. This book was supposedly aimed at adults. For me, it is better aimed at love sick teenagers....endless descriptions of unexpressed emotions by the girl seemingly unable to express herself even when given the opportunity to achieve her goal of snaring her love object. However the ending was predictable if far too long in coming

Effective 'hidden/repressed love' story.

Who can't identify with Ella? Too shy/awkward/repressed to tell the boy she meets at 14 she's undeniably head over heels for him - we've all been there. Too scared in case he doesn't feel the same way, or holding back because a friend fancies him too. Ella has all of this to contend with, when she meets Lowe. And yet them become best friends, in the eyes of their confused friends, completely platonic.

The reader may read more into it than Ella allows herself to. But the story wends its way to adulthood (and back again, as the narrative vacillates between the now-engaged adult Ella and teenage Ella) and Lowe becomes the front man of one of the biggest music acts in the world. How can Ella suddenly tell Lowe how she really feels, when half the planet wants him too?

Realistic-feeling portrayal of yearning/longing, and trying to move on, but never quite managing. I loved teenage Ella and her adoration of her friend, and their sweet friendship as well, changing over the years as one of the other has partners, jealousies, as life takes them away from each other, as they lose contact and regain it.

A lovely heart-warming read.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

I laughed, I cried, I loved! This book has everything I didn’t realise I needed. The characters are relatable and realistic. The perfect story of the ups and downs to falling in love.