ISBN: 978-1250750433
Published by Wednesday Books, 2020
Genre/Format: Romance/ Paperback, Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Awards
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2021
Reading Level Ages 14+ (Booklist)
Plot Summary: Meet Pepper, a highly ambitious teenager who is top in her senior class, captain of the swim team and co-creator of a baking blog with her older sister. Meet Jack, a high school senior at the same school, dive team captain and secret app developer. He also happens to be the most popular guy---WAIT! That's not Jack, that's his identical twin brother, Ethan. Jack's family runs a popular deli in New York and Pepper's family founded a national burger chain. The two businesses get into a Twitter war over a special grilled cheese sandwich and the social media geniuses behind the tweets are, unbeknownst to them, none other than Jack and Pepper. And so begins a modern retelling of the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie, You've Got Mail (itself a retelling of the 1940s classic, The Shop Around the Corner), in which the two main characters are at war with their words while falling in love with each other in real life.
Author Background: Tweet Cute is Emma Lord's first novel. She works as a digital media editor in New York City.
Critical Evaluation: Told from the alternative viewpoints of Jack and Pepper, Tweet Cute is an enjoyable romance novel for teens. All of the characters, not just Pepper and Jack, are well-written, detailed, and flawed, not simply stereotypes that are often found in the genre. Although it is a romance novel with a happy ending, the most important growth that occurs is with Jack and Pepper's own self-discovery.
Speed-Round Book Talk: Jack and Pepper, unbeknownst to each other, get sucked into a Twitter war over a special grilled cheese sandwich. Will their friendship in real life be ruined if they discover the truth? Or is all fair in love and grilled cheese?
Library Program: Although grilled cheese is at the center of the twitter war in Tweet Cute, baked goods play a major role in the book, too. We'll have a movie night watching You've Got Mail while the teens munch on Monster Cake (link to recipe below).
Potential Challenges: This book has mostly white characters; certainly all the main characters are white, so some might take issue with its lack of diversity. My rebuttal is that there are many YA books now that are diverse and inclusive and that it's ok for straight white teens to feel represented, too. And, yes, historically most romance novels were written for and about white women, but this blog is only concerned with recent publications and, therefore, there is room in this collection for all, including white people.
Reason for Inclusion: This is a fun romance novel and might even become a go-to book for reluctant readers. Additionally, its connection to old movies means that it already has a place reserved for it in the genre.
Click on the photo for Emma Lord's Tweet Cute Monster Cake Recipe
References
Emma Lord. (nd). Emma Lord. https://www.emmalordwriting.com
Lord, E. (2020). Monster Cake. Emma Lord.
soundfan. (2011). You've Got Mail (1998) - Official Movie Trailer. You Tube.
Video Detective. (2014). The Shop Around The Corner Trailer 1940. You Tube.
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