A sweet and funny debut novel about falling for someone when you least expect it . . . and finding out that real life romance is better than anything on screen.
Emma is a die-hard romantic. She loves a meet-cute Netflix movie, her pet, Lady Catulet, and dreaming up the Gay Rom Com of her heart for the film festival competition she and her friends are entering. If only they’d listen to her ideas. . .
Sophia is pragmatic. She’s big into boycotts, namely 1) relationships, 2) teen boys and their BO (reason #2347683 she’s a lesbian), and 3) Emma’s nauseating ideas. Forget starry-eyed romance, Sophia knows what will win: an artistic film with a message.
Cue the drama. The movie is doomed before they even start shooting . . . until a real-life plot twist unfolds behind the camera when Emma and Sophia start seeing each other through a different lens. Suddenly their rivalry is starting to feel like an actual rom-com.
GOODREADS — BLACKWELL’S* — INDIEBOUND
Book info:
Title: I Think I Love You
Author: Auriane Desombre
Publisher: Underlined
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Representation:
bisexual main character, lesbian main character, wlw relationship, side character suffering from syncope
Content and Trigger warnings:
divorce, fainting, homophobia, (public) humiliation, illness, misogyny, stress
A huge thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours for having me and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy. Check out the whole tour by clicking on this link.
My review
If you’ve been following for some time, then you must have read that I Think I Love You was one of my most anticipated releases in 2021. I was so happy when I got to take part in this book tour!
Unfortunately, I Think I Love You didn’t really meet all of my expectations… I had some trouble at first caring about the characters, as Emma and Sophia — the main characters — are quite annoying on their own, both self-absorbed and obstinate. Then, for the first third of the book, the story focuses more on the straight love story of two side characters than on the sapphic romance we were promised. And when we finally get to be introduced to this said sapphic romance, it is done clumsily. Plus, one side character is pretty much an asshole from beginning to end and I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the resolution… But!
Despite that clumsiness, I Think I Love You features a cute sapphic romance: even if Emma and Sophia are difficult on their own, together they give off cute vibes that I very much enjoyed! I really liked the scenes they shared (holding hands under a blanket! how cute!) and it shadowed quite efficiently the minor inconveniences. Emma and Sophia both open to one another and grow from that, and seeing this kind of « classic » story as an LGBTQ+ romance was nice. We need more stories like this one! The book also highlights the importance of queer representation in mainstream media. I liked the idea of a film competition, and how they both treated it — both their film projects were interesting! It was a cute romance and if you can pass over those clumsy moments, I Think I Love You is a nice book: and I’ll give you 5 reasons to read it too!
5 reasons to read I Think I Love You
1. The sapphic representation
Emma is bisexual, Sophia is lesbian, and both these terms are used on-page and several times throughout the book. It’s heart-warming to read about two teenagers proud of who they are — even if Emma is not out to her parents — but they’re not afraid of affirming who they are. Emma is even working on a rom-com featuring a bisexual woman and is super motivated about creating stories for bisexual people like her. The representation plays a big part in this book, for the characters and the reader: and we love that.
2. The parents
I love when parents are present and supportive in young adult books. Emma has a strong bond with her parents, and so had Sophia before her parents’ divorce. Emma’s parents and Sophia’s dad are present and care for their daughters: several scenes features the girls talking with their parents, and I just love that kind of scene. And it was so nice to have parents love and support their LBGTQ+ daughters!
3. The film competition
That was one of my favorite aspects of the book, and I feel like there isn’t much book to focus on this subject. Emma, Sophia, and their friends are entering a film competition and each team works on their projects. It takes a whole part of the book, even the majority of it, and I really liked reading about how they worked, filmed, and created the short movie of their dreams. Each project reflects the personality of their directors, and it was so cool seeing the projects evolved at the same time as Emma and Sophia.
4. The scenery
The story takes place in NYC in the summer, and the teens have to film two movies for a festival: we then follow them around the city as they work on their project. For someone who has never been to NYC, it was a very nice tour of the city, the scenery was quite vivid and brought a cool breeze to the story. It was a nice plus!
5. Because I said so.
And that’s a pretty good reason.
Auriane is the author of I Think I Love You, and works as a middle school teacher and freelance editor. She holds an MA in English Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing for Children & Young Adults. She lives in Los Angeles with her dog, Sammy, who is a certified bad boy
website — twitter — instagram — goodreads
ursa reads 
Unfortunate that it didn’t meet all of your expectations! I agree, when sapphic romance is promised and not given completely, we feel cheated.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
totally agree! i think, overall, the book and its sapphic romance deserved maybe « more », like more pages so it could take more place (i don’t know if it’s understandable?) but it was nice nonetheless!
J’aimeJ’aime