Book Tour: Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli

Contrary to popular belief, best friends Kate Garfield and Anderson Walker are not codependent. Carpooling to and from theater rehearsals? Environmentally sound and efficient. Consulting each other on every single life decision? Basic good judgment. Pining for the same guys from afar? Shared crushes are more fun anyway.

But when Kate and Andy’s latest long-distance crush shows up at their school, everything goes off script. Matt Olsson is talented and sweet, and Kate likes him. She really likes him. The only problem? So does Anderson.

Turns out, communal crushes aren’t so fun when real feelings are involved. This one might even bring the curtains down on Kate and Anderson’s friendship.

Thank you to The Write Reads and the publisher for the free copy in exchange for a review as part of the blog tour.

I watched Love, Simon a bunch of times already and I know I’ll watch it a few times more. But that was all I knew from Becky Albertalli. Now, movies don’t always reflect the book, but that was what I was expecting. And it was pretty spot on.

Kate in Waiting is a page-turner, with Kate and Andy at the centre. Their friends, Raina and Brandie, hang around like moons, and meteor Matt strikes the planet of Kate and Andy. It shakes them both to the core, so much that their friendship might be over?! That’s what you get from crushing on the same boy as your best friend.

The characters are adorable, each one of them clearly their own person, no matter how small their part is. The plot is fairly predictable but that’s okay. I fully expected this to be a tropey romance. The only thing that threw me off a little was the dialogue. There was too much fluff. The dialogue is a bit too real in some instances, bordering on the annoying side. Especially this one character who has trouble keeping his mouth shut. He jumps around from one thing to the other without blinking or catching his breath. I get that it was a point, but it still annoyed me a little.

Still, this doesn’t take away much from the overall story. It’s fast-paced and skips over all the boring stuff. Sometimes I wish I could read a little more about what happened, but that’s okay.

I give Kate in Waiting four stars. I really enjoyed it, and I’ll be sure to watch the movie if/when it comes out. Overall it’s exactly what you’d expect from a contemporary romance. A cute story about a girl and boy. And another boy. And maybe another.