I recently read What Are Friends For? By indie author Sarah Sutton. This book is a young adult friends to lovers romance trope. This review will contain spoilers to plot points in the book so this is your spoiler warning. Read at your own risk!
Summary: The book starts with the main characters Remi and Elijah shopping together. Remi and Elijah have been best friends since the third grade. They do everything together and have amazing chemistry together. Right off the bat, you see the potential for these two to fall in love then you find out that Elijah has a girlfriend named Savannah, Sav for short. Remi feels indifferent toward Savannah. She's unsure whether to try to be her friend or if Savannah is being salty on purpose. The rest of the shopping trip consists of going to the underwear section. All while making Elijah uncomfortable because he knows his best friend’s bra size. Then to the perfume section. Where Remi forces her best friend to smell her leading to him getting uncomfortable again. They then go get ice cream together in the middle of winter. (Elijah is a lot like me in the sense that ice cream is perfect any time of the year!) While reading this first chapter you can definitely see a potential of feelings build up. There is conflict in the first chapter when Remi asks Elijah how he is doing after his older brother was recently arrested. Elijah gets cold with Remi and doesn't know how to express his feelings toward the subject. (This conflict will arise throughout the rest of the book. I just wanted to give you a heads-up of what's to come.) Chapter one sets up the story nicely. You meet our main characters, you get to know about their past, conflict arises and you get a light-hearted fun read. I won't be breaking down the rest of the chapters like I did the first but I will continue to bring up parts of the story to convey a point. Remi is in her senior year and all she wants is to date her crush Jeremy. She decides to go to his house party that evening and do some flirting. Her other best friend, Eloise joins her. Drinks, talking and simple flirting leads to Eloise suggesting to play a game of Lip-locker. (A game similar to 7 minutes in heaven but the difference is your blindfolded). Eloise convinced Jeremy to play with Remi. Eloise walks Remi to the room and Remi waits. She feels nervous but excited to finally kiss her long time crush. When he enters the room they kiss. She claims it's the best kiss she's ever had. It goes well until she hits her head on a shelf. When Jeremy checks on her she realizes that Jeremy doesn't sound like himself. She takes off her blindfold and sees Elijah standing in front of her. Her stomach churns and she assures him she's okay then runs for it. It was at that point that her feelings toward Jeremy depleted and she struggled with the feelings she is developing for Elijah. Remi and Elijah’s relationship drastically changes from just friends to extremely awkward, especially on Remi’s end. However, certain events take place where Remi starts to notice Elijah is acting weird too. Remi ends up going on several dates with her former crush Jeremy and realizes she doesn’t like him anymore. They get into a car crash and they call Elijah to help get Jeremy’s care out of a ditch. Elijah helped Remi out of Jeremy’s car and began to scold Jeremy for being so careless. After pulling Jeremy’s car out and Elijah took Remi to her Dad’s. While spending time with her Dad Remi gets real and asks him questions about love. Her Dad caught on quickly and assures her that her feelings are valid and if this guy she loves doesn’t feel the same he will make sure to buy her military-grade binoculars to watch him from afar or at least from across the street. After expressing her feelings toward Elijah to her Mom and Dad she felt a sense of relief she hadn’t felt in some time since the kiss she shared with Elijah. She felt closer than ever to her family and was extremely grateful that they understood her feelings and supported her. Remi knew Elijah’s art show was coming up and she wanted to go. Her Mom offered to drive her to the Library where it took place but Remi declined and chose to walk instead. She chose to walk with the hope that Elijah would offer to take her home. Once she got to the art show she walked around looking at each sculpture and was in awe when she saw Elijah’s. (If you want to know what he sculpted, you’ll have to read the book!) Elijah was grateful to see Remi at his show and indeed did offer to drive her home. On the way home, Elijah confessed that he knew it was her he kissed at Jeremy’s party. He admitted he didn’t know for sure until the week prior after he helped her after the accident Jeremy got into. She was wearing the same perfume that night as she did the night of the party. After some back and forth between the two they kissed. Unfortunately, after their kiss, Elijah and Remi got into an argument about Savannah. Remi is heartbroken and leaves. All while these forbidden feelings Remi is trying to comprehend there is a side story going on as well. Remi is failing Art and is at risk of not graduating. She required to do an extra credit assignment of hand-making 150 large snowflakes for the winter dance. Remi with the help of her family and friends ends up making all 150 snowflakes. When she goes to turn in her extra credit assignment, Mrs. Keller is not in her classroom then she runs into another teacher who tells Remi she needs to go to the Principal’s office. She is confused about why the Principal would want to see her. She came up with a theory of why the Principal would want to see her but when she got to the office she found out her theory was completely wrong. Mrs. Keller and Principal Martinez accused Remi of attempting to change her failing grade to a passing grade in Mrs. Keller’s electronic grade book. Remi was shocked at the accusation because she had never done such a thing. Remi worked way too hard on the snowflakes to throw it all away to change her grade. She tried to prove her innocence but the two adults refused to listen to her and she was suspended until her and her family can meet with the Principal. This meant Remi could not graduate and or attend the winter dance. Remi refused to let her hard work go to waste and went to the school to turn in the snowflakes in and told Mrs. Keller she would have never worked on those snowflakes if she had intended to change her grade. She also ran into Savannah who Remi did not intend to talk to. Remi apologized to her for kissing Elijah and called her out for changing her grade then she went home. The last part of the book consists of a party after the dance and Eloise convinces Remi to go with her. She runs into Elijah and he confesses he loves Remi too. At long last, the two feel safe to share their feelings toward one another. Finally, it’s time for Remi’s meeting with the Principal. To everyone’s surprise, Remi was cleared of her accusation because Savannah confessed to changing Remi’s grade. After being cleared, Remi caught up to Savannah and they had a heart to heart. In the epilogue, Elijah and Remi are going to visit Terry (Elijah’s brother) and she helps ease his anxiety about going. Review: I loved this book! Elijah and Remi are completely relatable and likable. I was hooked after only reading two pages. I was jealous because my high school experience wasn't near as exciting. There are parts where I thought the story was cheesy, but that is what I loved about it. It wasn't cringey, it was cute and brought a smile to my face. It's a well-crafted story that is easy to follow and understand. There were no plot holes that I could find so that's a plus! It’s only 25 chapters and an Epilogue so if you’re a binge reader like myself, you could finish it in a day or two. If you are a fan of the romance genre I highly recommend this book. 5 out of 5 stars. My review is a little late. This book takes place in winter and I'm reviewing it in the middle of the summer. Oops! It's still worth the read in my opinion. Stay tuned for my review on Sarah's second book Out of my League.
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