Review: Dating Sarah Cooper by Siera Maley

Katie Hammontree and Sarah Cooper have been best friends since the 2nd grade. Katie's welcoming, tight-knit family is a convenient substitute for Sarah when her distant parents aren't around, and Sarah's abrasive, goal-oriented personality gels well with Katie's more laid-back approach to life.
But when a misunderstanding leads to the two of them being mistaken for a couple and Sarah uses the situation to her advantage, Katie finds herself on a roller coaster ride of ambiguous sexuality and confusing feelings. How far will Sarah go to keep up the charade, and why does kissing her make Katie feel more alive than kissing her ex-boyfriend Austin ever did? And how will their new circle of gay friends react when the truth comes out?

My Review: 5 Stars

I got my copy in the mail around 4 in the afternoon, and probably started it around 7 the same evening, and I was finished it by 11 that night.  That should give a bit of an indication of how much I was unable to put this book down.  This book was light, fluffy, fun, and adorable.  It had characters and relationships that I loved.  It was just so great. 

I loved how this book was very tropey at parts, but played with the tropes in new ways that I loved.  Two of my favorite tropes are best friends to romance and fake dating that ends up becoming real, and this book had both so that was a win.  These are tropes that I probably wouldn't get tired of anyway but this book puts an extra refreshing spin on them by using them in a f/f romance.  I loved the progression of the romance.  It's pretty predictable in guessing that they'll end together but it's the journey to that that is important so I didn't mind that I knew they'd end up together.  It was great to watch Katie realize that her feelings were Sarah were becoming real, instead of just acting and to be pretty sure, since we aren't in Sarah's head, that she feels the same way.  Yet Katie was afraid to tell Sarah because she thought the whole thing was acting for Sarah.  And the entire fake relationship was great.  They were so adorable and good at faking being a couple that it didn't seem like much of a stretch for them to become a real one.

I didn't agree with all of Sarah's choices, especially dragging Katie into the whole fake couple thing and lying to everyone about it.  Katie didn't want this, and sure, it did end up working out well for the two of them, but that doesn't mean she should have done it in the first place.  For a while it still seemed like Sarah was using Katie to get to a boy, which she probably should have stopped doing as soon as she realized her feelings for Katie were real.  But I guess she was just afraid of rejection and thought Katie was really straight.  It was confusing for both of them, of course.

If you like YA contemporary, read this book.

Katie