A fresh, irresistible rom-com from debut author Emma Lord about the chances we take, the paths life can lead us on, and how love can be found in the opposite place you expected.
TWEET CUTE by EMMA LORD
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA romance
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: January 21, 2020
Synopsis:
Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.
Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.
All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built.
As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate ― people on the internet are shipping them?? ― their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.
Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.
All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built.
As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate ― people on the internet are shipping them?? ― their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.
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"Tweet Cute delivers in every possible way: a perfect enemies-to-lovers romance, a whip-smart plotline, and endearingly real characters. I devoured it.” - Francesca Zappia, author of Eliza and Her Monsters
"Sweet and fun! An adorable debut that updates a classic romantic trope with a buzzy twist." - Jenn Bennett, author of Alex, Approximately and Serious Moonlight
“A witty rom-com reinvention for the Twitter age, Tweet Cute pairs delicious online rivalry with deeply relatable insights on family pressure and growing up. This fresh, funny read had us hitting ‘favorite’ from page one.” - Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, authors of Always Never Yours and If I’m Being Honest
Follow her: Twitter | Goodreads
Praise for Tweet Cute:
"Tweet Cute delivers in every possible way: a perfect enemies-to-lovers romance, a whip-smart plotline, and endearingly real characters. I devoured it.” - Francesca Zappia, author of Eliza and Her Monsters
"Sweet and fun! An adorable debut that updates a classic romantic trope with a buzzy twist." - Jenn Bennett, author of Alex, Approximately and Serious Moonlight
“A witty rom-com reinvention for the Twitter age, Tweet Cute pairs delicious online rivalry with deeply relatable insights on family pressure and growing up. This fresh, funny read had us hitting ‘favorite’ from page one.” - Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, authors of Always Never Yours and If I’m Being Honest
EXCERPT
JACK
“Look.” I glance into the classroom, where Ethan is thoroughly distracted by Stephen and no longer keeping an eye on us. “I may have . . . overreacted.”
Pepper shakes her head. “I told you. I get it. It’s your family.”
“Yeah. But it’s also—well, to be honest, this has been kind of good for business.”
Pepper’s brow furrows, that one little crease returning. “What, the tweets?”
“Yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck, sheepish. “Actually, we had a line out the door yesterday. It was kind of intense.”
“That’s . . . that’s good, right?”
The tone of my voice is clearly not matching up with the words I’m saying, but if I’m being honest, I’m still wary of this whole overnight business boom. And if I’m being honest, I’m even more wary of Pepper. If this really is as much of a family business as she claims it is—to the point where she’s helping run the Twitter handle, when even I know enough about corporate Twitter accounts to know entire teams of experienced people get paid to do that—then she might have had more of a hand in this whole recipe theft thing than she’s letting on.
The fact of the matter is, I can’t trust her. To the point of not knowing whether I can even trust her knowing how our business is doing, or just how badly we need it.
“Yeah, um, I guess.” I try to make it sound noncommittal. My acting skills, much like my breakfast-packing skills, leave much to be desired.
“So . . .”
“So.”
Pepper presses her lips into a thin line, a question in her eyes.
“So, I guess—if your mom really wants you to keep tweeting . . .”
“Wait. Yesterday you were pissed. Two minutes ago you were pissed.”
“I am pissed. You stole from us,” I reiterate. “You stole from an eighty-five-year-old woman.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, but still. You’re them, and I’m . . . her. It’s like a choose your fighter situation, and we just happen to be the ones up to bat.”
“So you’re saying—you don’t not want me to keep this up?”
“The way I see it, you don’t have to make your mom mad, and we get a few more customers in the door too.”
Pepper takes a breath like she’s going to say something, like she’s going to correct me, but after a moment, she lets it go. Her face can’t quite settle on an expression, toeing the line between dread and relief.
“You’re sure?”
I answer by opening the container she handed me. The smell that immediately wafts out of it should honestly be illegal; it stops kids I’ve never even spoken to in their tracks.
“Are you a witch?” I ask, reaching in and taking a bite of one. It’s like Monster Cake, the Sequel—freaking Christmas in my mouth. I already want more before I’ve even managed to chew. My eyes close as if I’m experiencing an actual drug high—and maybe I am, because I forget myself entirely and say, “This might even be better than our Kitchen Sink Macaroons.”
“Kitchen Sink Macaroons?”
Eyes open again. Yikes. Note to self: dessert is the greatest weapon in Pepper’s arsenal. I swallow my bite so I can answer her.
“It’s kind of well-known, at least in the East Village. It even got in some Hub Seed roundup once. I’d tell you to try some, but you might steal the recipe, so.”
Pepper smiles, then—actually smiles, instead of the little smirk she usually does. It’s not startling, but what it does to me in that moment kind of is.
Before I can examine the unfamiliar lurch in my stomach, the bell rings and knocks the smile right off her face. I follow just behind her, wondering why it suddenly seems too hot in here, like they cranked the air up for December instead of October. I dismiss it by the time I get to my desk—probably just all the Twitter drama and the glory of So Sorry Blondies getting to my head.
“One rule,” she says, as we sit in the last two desks in the back of the room.
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“We don’t take any of it personally.” She leans forward on her desk, leveling with me, her bangs falling into her face. “No more getting mad at each other. Cheese and state.”
“What happens on Twitter stays on Twitter,” I say with a nod of agreement. “Okay, then, second rule: no kid gloves.”
Mrs. Fairchild is giving that stern look over the room that never quite successfully quiets anyone down. Pepper frowns, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I mean—no going easy on each other. If we’re going to play at this, we’re both going to give it our A game, okay? No holding back because we’re . . .”
Friends, I almost say. No, I’m going to say. But then—
“I’d appreciate it if even one of you acknowledged the bell with your silence,” Mrs. Fairchild grumbles.
I turn to Pepper, expecting to find her snapping to attention the way she always does when an adult comes within a hundred feet of disciplining her. But her eyes are still intent on me, like she is sizing something up—like she’s looking forward to something I haven’t anticipated yet.
“All right. No taking it personally. And no holding back.”
She holds her hand out for me to shake again, under the desk so Mrs. Fairchild won’t see it. I smile and shake my head, wondering how someone can be so aggressively seventeen and seventy-five at the same time, and then I take it. Her hand is warm and small in mine, but her grip is surprisingly firm, with a pressure that almost feels like she’s still got her fingers wrapped around mine even after we let go.
I turn back to the whiteboard, a ghost of a smirk on my face. “Let the games begin.”
About the Author
Emma Lord is a digital media editor and writer living in New York City, where she spends whatever time she isn’t writing either running or belting show tunes in community theater. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a major in psychology and a minor in how to tilt your computer screen so nobody will notice you updating your fan fiction from the back row. She was raised on glitter, grilled cheese, and a whole lot of love. Her sun sign is Hufflepuff, but she is a Gryffindor rising. TWEET CUTE is her debut novel. You can find her geeking out online at @dilemmalord on Twitter.Follow her: Twitter | Goodreads
REVIEW
Tweet Cute by Emma LordMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tweet Cute was just as the cover suggests: exceptionally cute! If a book had the proverbial chubby baby cheeks I'd be pinching them like an insufferable relative. I had quite a few disappointments with the adorable illustrated covers last year, but this was one of the cases where I was just as enchanted with the inside as the outside. The writing was comparable to one of my favorite YA authors, Ginger Scott who I've been reading for many years. It was such an impressive first offering for a debut author, and I'll definitely be looking out for what she has to offer in the future.
This is a YA rom-com with an enemies to lovers trope. Jack and Pepper are both students at Stone Hall Academy, an elite private school in New York. While they share many classes together, that's about all they share in common-at least that's what they think. On the surface, they couldn't be more different. She is that student who sits at the front of the class, has a perfect GPA, leads the swim team, and is laser focused on making it into Columbia. Her family is well off, and they own a rapidly growing fast-food chain called Big League Burger. Jack doesn't take life too seriously, and takes great joy in provoking Pepper's ire with his playful "pepperoni" nickname. Although he picks on her a bit, it's all in good fun and never mean spirited. His family also owns a restaurant, but it's a family run small business that's currently not bringing in much profit.
Jack has a reputation for being a carefree jokester, but in reality no one really knows his talents or dreams extend beyond his family's expectations. With high school graduation inching closer, he feels the weight of his future pressing down on him. His father has made it abundantly clear that he would be the perfect candidate to take over the reins of Girl Cheesing, and his altogether perfect twin will have the freedom to move onto bigger things. He secretly feels inferior to Ethan-the popular one whom he's always mistaken for. Instead of being his mirror image, it's more like Ethan is the sunlight and he's the shadow. So he keeps his talents, ambitions, and dreams locked up tight and never lets on that he's hurt inside. Probably the biggest thing he's hiding? The fact that he's the creator of the social messaging app, Weazel his whole school is using.
Jack is the kind of person who fills silences. The kind of person who doesn’t necessarily command attention, but always seems to sneak it from you anyway.
Through Weazel, he's unknowingly been chatting with none other than Pepper. They have a great rapport through their anonymous conversations and feel comfortable telling each other things they can't with the most important people in their lives. I loved their sassy banter back and forth, and enjoyed the irony that they were getting along so well with the person whom they verbally spar with in a whole other way. On twitter, they both fall into a combative, competitive mud slinging match after Big League Burger seems to steal Girl Cheesing's sandwich idea.
I have to admit that for most of the book I was really annoyed at Pepper's mother for not only her nonchalance over their theft of a competitor's recipe, but pushing her daughter into a childish game online. Not only was she selfish in not caring about the effect it was having on her grades, but she made it clear she was never really comfortable doing it in the first place. I couldn't understand why she would be so obtuse as to ignore her daughter's needs in order to tarnish the reputation of a family and their livelihood. However, her mother is hiding some things that shed a whole new light on the entire situation and I ended up sympathizing with her some in the end.
The twitter battles become an all-out war, but both agree that whatever they say online won't affect their real-life growing relationship. Their attraction grows slowly right alongside their mystery friendship on his app, and neither have any idea the two people each were crushing on were the same person. It was a very sweet and innocent romance tangled up in a lot of outside conflict. As they start to fall for each other, a secret will come out about their families that may keep them apart for good. Jack and Pepper must both have the courage to stand up to their parents, and stand up for themselves. There is dirty laundry to be aired, and damaged relationships to finally be mended.
She turns her head so slowly to look at me that for a moment I am stricken with the weird unfamiliarity of being seen—no, not seen. Recognized.
These two were just delightful. Their relationship was so quirky, and their names utterly perfect for the cheesy (in a good way) theme of the book. I mean, come on! Their couple name is Pepperjack!! I also really adored Jack's sassy grandmother and would've loved to have seen a little more page time from her. My reasoning for giving this a four instead of a five was that there were sections of the book that I felt that the plot wasn't moving forward much. I think some of the page count could have been cut out and it would have made for a smoother paced read. But overall, this was a solid, well-written debut by Emma Lord!
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