"Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe.
When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page." -- Summary via Goodreads
Review by: Anonymous
4/5 Stars
This is a book about a hopelessly naïve hopeless romantic who thinks love is something that happens through a series of circumstances. Of course, this is a trope that one either loves, or hates (it really depends on the person). That being said, Meet Cute Diary is also a book with such niche little pockets of cuteness that my heart can’t help but melt for our main character, Noah. You can tell he wants nothing but a perfect meeting with a perfect guy, and to live a perfect happily-ever-after with a perfect ending. That’s all, nothing more, nothing less. Only, instead of going out and chasing that dream, Noah goes out and chases his dream in his head. He goes to a coffee shop, meets a horribly, heart-wrenchingly cute guy, admires the person from afar for a while, and then goes and writes about what could’ve been on his blog. All his fantasies are meet cutes that mostly end if the other person asking him out on a coffee date. There’s typically no action on his part, at all. Which, when you’re analyzing his character as a reader, is incredibly frustrating. Like, hello? Sir, we need you to actually do something other than wait for the other person to do literally everything. To be fair, people typically don’t ask someone they think is really cute on a date without a lot of confidence (which is a thing we can see throughout the story that our main character is significantly lacking, at least at first). This inaction and desire culminates into Noah’s tumblr blog: Meet Cute Diary. The Meet Cute Diary is a blog where Noah writes out all his imagined meet cutes where he gets a date with a cute boy, and posts them as if they were nonfiction stories of trans people getting the perfect love that everyone has a hard time thinking exists sometimes. Only there’s a problem, the internet’s the internet, and anything that is remotely popular will have trolls making up scandals that aren’t remotely real.
(Spoilers Below)
Troll No. 1 & Boyfriend No. 1
The first troll-caused scandal is one where said troll continuously tries to debunk the meet cute diary blog, stating that the stories told on the blog are, in fact, fiction. To be fair to the person this book calls a troll (they are a troll, the intention of their campaign is to hurt the blog and it’s community), their campaign is made of truth, no lies spread, just facts. However, Noah doesn’t want his blog to fail, or his followers to lose their hope of finding the perfect romance, so he gets desperate. One day, while at a bookstore for a job interview, Noah meets Drew. Noah, in a show of impressive competence, recognizes Drew from when he was inside a coffee shop a few days ago. Drew and Noah talk for a bit after Noah’s interview (which he bombs), Drew deducing that Noah is the moderator of the meet cute diary and giving Noah a proposition. They fake-date (my thoughts at this point were essentially “oh, it’s that trope,” mostly because the fake-dating trope is good, yet very overused), and Noah can use the pictures and dates they go on as content for the meet cute diary to prove that his blog is not, in fact, fake (even when it totally is). Only, of course, Noah falls head-over-heels in love with Drew, and Drew says he feels the same. Although, Drew marks his and Noah’s officiality a little weirdly, at least in my opinion. Drew says something along the lines of, “I thought we were official ages ago, you were into me and I was into you, so wasn’t it only natural that we became boyfriends?” Which was a really weird way to consider being official. Essentially because he did not make it clear that he thought that way with the other person involved in the relationship. Originally, I pinned this weirdness on the author’s writing style not being to my taste, when, as we learn later on, it is some excellent foreshadowing.
Noah and his (cute, according to Noah) boyfriend, Drew, are the epitome of happiness at first. Noah, with all his problems and naivety, was head over heels in love with Drew and willing to do anything with him. Drew, who’s only personality trait - from what we can see from Noah’s POV - is being cute (and eighteen years old), plans elaborate, fancy dates. Only, those elaborate, fancy, dates aren’t something Noah enjoys or feels happy doing. Noah makes it very, very clear that he doesn’t quite enjoy the dates Drew keeps on planning, only, Drew keeps planning dates the same as the ones prior, over and over and over. Drew coaxes Noah, a sixteen-year-old, into drinking when - from what we know - Noah wouldn’t have touched alcohol even if it was presented to him on a silver platter. Drew takes Noah to some springs, and Noah makes it clear that he isn’t that comfortable with swimming (partially due to the cold temperatures of Colorado, partially due to the fact that he has to wear a t-shirt to cover his chest). Drew plans a date on a Saturday at 8:00 AM, doesn’t tell Noah what they’ll be doing while on the date, and then promptly eggs Noah into hiking a trail when Noah’s made it very clear that hiking is not something he wants to do. Noah even tells Drew this directly, and Drew’s response to this is to hold Noah’s blog over his head, to tell him that the Denver, Colorado skyline is something he needs to keep followers with him. Noah, of course, falls for Drew’s blatant avoidance of the actual problem, and instead huffs and puffs his way up a hiking trail he wasn't prepared to go up in the first place. This emotional gap makes Noah’s emotional and social health go downhill. He disregards his longtime best friend's life when she is very clearly going through a lot, while seeking out emotional validation from a co-worker, Devin (Pronouns: e/em,) at the camp he counsels at. Devin, who gets Noah a coffee every morning and has the patience of an absolute god. Devin, who invites Noah to a party in the aftermath of Drew’s parents having a massive fight (and maybe getting divorced). To be fair to Noah, he does ask Drew if he’s okay with attending the party with him, or at least letting Noah go. Drew tells Noah he’ll go to the party with him. Little does Noah know that the night of the party is when everything comes to a head.
The night of the party, Noah heads over to Drew’s friend’s house to meet up with Drew before the party. When Noah gets there, he finds that Drew’s been drinking with his friends. When it’s finally time to head over to Devin’s party, Drew is wasted, and very clearly doesn’t want to go. Drew accuses Noah of spending more time with Devin (they had to go on a work trip together for an overnight camp), and caring about Devin more (who is one of the only people in Noah’s life who isn’t in a state of obvious anger/awkwardness) before demanding that Noah stay with him, even when Noah tells him he promised Devin he would be at the party. Drew tells Noah that he needs to be here to support him, because his parents are probably getting divorced, and then promptly threatens to break up with Noah if he even tries to go to Devin’s party. Noah has to tell his friend that something came up, and Devin (with eir infinite patience) understands.
Troll No. 2 & Devin
Troll number two’s campaign, unlike troll number one’s, is completely made up. They accuse the meet cute diary blog of stealing a story from one of their friends, which, compared to Noah’s story, has a whole bunch of differences that people overlook because, again, it’s the internet, and the internet is the internet. Noah, and everyone involved with the meet cute diary blog (excluding the followers), know that the campaign is completely made up, and the troll knows it too. When Noah tries to reach out to make peace with the troll, they accuse Noah of being unapologetic and manipulative (he was neither), while collecting sympathy via playing the victim card. All of this is merely the backdrop for the following events.
The next time Devin invites Noah over for a party for the fourth of July, Noah promises (again) that he’ll show up. This becomes a talking point with Drew, who then tells Noah that he has a friend who’s having a party in the woods on the fourth as well. Noah adamantly states that he’s going to Devin’s party because he promised he would go, and Drew concedes, letting Noah go to the party on the condition that he comes over at 6:00 PM for a date he does not disclose the details of (again). When Noah goes to Devin’s house on the fourth, Devin admits that e was nervous, wanting to make sure that Noah felt comfortable. Noah tells Devin something along the lines of “of course I’d be comfortable, it’s your party,” to which Devin calms down a little. However, Devin didn’t seem to calm down quite enough, because eventually the party got a little too overwhelming and Devin had a panic attack as Noah was about to leave. Noah stays with his friend while ey calm down (because no matter how naïve Noah is, he isn’t a jerk), making sure eir alright. This takes a while, because by the time Devin calms down it’s 6:20 and Noah really needs to go. When Noah meets up with Drew, Drew gets upset with Noah because they’re late to their reservation (they’re not, the reservation is for 6:30), Drew implies that Noah’s cheating on him with Devin, before revealing that he knew since Devin’s first party that his parents weren’t getting divorced (the fact that he used that to guilt Noah is very clearly blatant manipulation; get out of there, Noah). Noah gets upset (as he should) and reasonably breaks up with Drew, all while Drew hangs Noah’s blog over his head, saying that the break up will cause the blog to crash and burn. Noah makes the reasonable decision of getting the heck out of there.
After that, Noah goes home, retrieving the envelope his best friend gave him for relationship expectations when they talked about what a good partner should be like. She had told him not to open it until he really needed it, because she knew that his unrealistic expectations would cloud the meaning of it if he didn’t. Upon opening the envelope, he finds a list of qualities. All of the qualities listed are qualities he finds in Devin, but not Drew. Noah finally realizes that while he liked Drew, the person he liked and would mutually support him in a relationship was not Drew, but Devin.
After this, the story is pretty straightforward, with Noah and Devin getting together and having their happy ending in California, while leaving Drew in the dust (like he deserved).
The Part of the Review That Contains the Most Review:
This book is not the type of book I’d typically pick up, however, for its subject matter, it did a pretty good job. While I didn’t particularly like the way the author carried out the transitions where the characters went from place to place, ey do a good job of keeping character behaviors consistent, as well as providing a surprising twist on the fake dating trope. It was unexpected that Drew turned out as toxic as he did, however, it is more true to the world we live in; a relationship founded on a shallow motive is bound to not turn out too well, unless you live in a fictional world. The fact that Drew did actually show toxic and manipulative behavior before being broken up with is also something well thought out, as (especially in hallmark movies) sometimes the main protagonist will break up with a “toxic” partner for seemingly unfounded reasons, so, again, keeping it consistent was a thing the author did really well. Moreover, the use of classic cute (not quite, until the end) couple shenanigans sprinkled throughout between Devin and Noah was an amazing way to put some story cushion between the main story events. Overall Meet Cute Diary is a pretty good read for anyone who likes cute and fluffy things.
Thank you for reading.
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