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Sadie and Sebastian have known each other since birth. They were friends and playmates, until they became rivals somewhere along the way. Finally, Sadie is at Maple Ride University, having secured her high school’s only spot to her dream school, and she doesn’t have to worry about Seb anymore. She’s ready to chase her dream of writing for Maple Ride’s highly respected zine, Newsbag, and work toward a career of being a comedy writer.
Unfortunately, Seb manages to secure a spot to Maple Ride last-minute from the waitlist, and they’re back to being rivals. Worst of all, he’s going to compete with her for the one (of course, just one) position open at Newsbag.
What’s possibly even worse is that as they are thrown together at this new place, Sadie starts getting flashes of attraction and even feelings for Seb. It’s confusing enough navigating college and learning new things about herself away from her chaotic, intense family without that too.
When they find out that Maple Ride’s club system is facing unfair funding and other issues from the college administration, they have to band together to fight it. As they do so, they find that spending time together is different now. It may be that they can figure out how to be friends instead of rivals intent on crushing each other. And perhaps more.
The Rival is probably my favorite Emma Lord young adult book since Tweet Cute. I suppose that’s in part due to the journalism angle (I’m a journalist). Tweet Cute also had rivalry going on, between families. Here, however, Sadie’s and Seb’s families are best friends. We get just enough demonstration about the families’ relationship and each family’s dynamics to set the stage for Sadie’s and Seb’s soul-searching but not enough to really get to know them and have fun with them. We do, however, get plenty of time to see Sadie and Seb grow individually and together. It’s at turns fun, sweet, and cute.
The one thing I didn’t like was the strong profanity.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 39 uses of strong language, around 100 instances of moderate profanity, 75 uses of mild language, and about 25 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing and some fairly mild talk about sex.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
