This was my favourite book in the world when I was 14 and I still love it. It's just fun and funny and local and the characters and plot feel so close to home and wonderful. The sarcasm and humour were revolutionary for teenage Grace and so many of the jokes are still just a great time for adult Grace. The tandem story plotline and writing style is so fun and interesting. Rebecca Sparrow and Nick Earls and both amazing authors for capturing the Queensland teen in print and I particularly love their reading of the audiobook, which I checked out at least 100 times from my local library in high school.

3.5 stars. The extra 0.5 for the wit lol

was rolling about laughing at one point. literal, actual rolling happened. could not breathe from laughing so much.

Comparisons to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist will be inevitable, but this book (also by Rebecca Sparrow, which doesn't show up on the listing) is a whole other creature entirely. Like Nick and Norah, it is written in alternate chapters by Earls (Joel) and Sparrow (Cat), but it extends over a couple of weeks, not one night, and is very different in tone and content.

What I really liked about it was the sort of internal hypertext--or meta text, I forget which one I mean--which is the story Joel and Cat have to write in alternate chapters for a school assignment. Both their relationship and the creative process is laid bare in these hilarious mini-chapters, which are also an extremely funny take on what girls and boys respectively like to read.

Almost flawless plotting, great characterisation and just a terrifically entertaining read. Probably my number one YA for 2007.

OMG such a freaking good book.... could not put it down all day... as seen by the fact i read it in a day :D honestly would love more from these characters, and I definitely plan on checking out both authors and books they have written solo :) and can I please get me a Joel?????

This book was fine... I think my favourite part was the fact that it is so goddamn Australian.

I don't know why this book has such bad ratings! It is amazing!!
I read it while on holidays in the N.T, Australia, and I totally loved it!!
Highly recommend it to lovers of YA, teen fiction, frenemies and plots where the two heroes/heroines start off hating each other and fall in love!!!!

Axxx

r/whatsthatbook helped me find this absolute staple of my high school reading experience. I might have to re-read it to see if it was as wild as I remember it being.

It was a really easy read. I read it with my sister and we both really liked it.

I really enjoyed this book. I've read a lot of books written by Australian authors and to be honest, they are not really that interesting. However, this story was a very unexpected but nice change from all the others. It was interesting, certainly not dull and most of all, actually made me want to keep reading.

I could tell from the start that there was some romance going on between the two but didn't quite know how it was going to end.

Spoiler

I'm not quite sure how I feel about leaving said romance till the last page of the book, but it gave the story quite a nice, sweet ending.

As this book was written 8 years ago and I still enjoyed it, it proves that this is a timeless book that doesn't get old no matter when you read it.

So if you see this book somewhere, I strongly reccomend reading it.