Review: Just Friends (Friends #1) by Monica Murphy

Title: Just Friends
Series: Friends #1

Author: Monica Murphy
Publisher: EM Publishing
Published: September 13, 2016
Pages: 315
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Ebook

It’s the end of summer. Just before I start senior year with my two best friends in the whole world. Dustin and Emily are everything to me. We’ve been inseparable since middle school, and when we’re together, nothing can go wrong.

But things aren’t always what they seem. Em’s turned into a drunken mess who parties too much. Dustin and I have hooked up a few times—and now he’s ready to take our relationship to the next level. Yet I’m not sure I want things to change. I’m scared if I take it any further with Dustin, our friendship will be ruined forever. Then there’s Ryan. The new guy. He’s hot. He flirts way too much. And Em has totally set her sights on him.

So when my best friend betrays me in the worst possible way, guess who’s there to help me pick up the pieces of my broken heart? Ryan. But he’s so confusing. Annoying. Sweet. Sexy. I want to trust him, yet he makes it so hard. What I really want is for everything to go back to the way it was before.

Before I found out that best friends make the worst kind of enemies.

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MY REVIEW

Disclaimer: This review MAY contain SPOILERS.

This is a hard series for me to rate or review. One one hand, I really enjoyed reading this book and the prequel and I sped through them at record speed. On the other hand, they don't really have many of the qualities that I admire in a good book. In fact, there are hardly any despite the fact that I enjoyed reading them so much. I think that I would lump this series in the "guilty pleasure" category.

This book is pretty much devoid of plot aside from the romantic lives of the characters. It drives the entire story. Not much else happens throughout the book. And the majority of it is just teenagers hooking up, having sex, and betraying one another in love triangles and squares. It sounds juvenile, and perhaps it is, but I will say that it was compelling and entertaining. This story is about drama to the max.

The different character types definitely made the story interesting, though I thought that some of them could have used way more character development. For instance, Emily was the most drama-filled character in the book. She was always starting drama, lying, hooking up with guys, drinking, doing drugs, partying, and just pretty much awful. At no point in the book does it give her any character growth as to why she acts the way she does. It mentions that she started doing these things a few months prior to the end of their junior year of high school and she progressively got worse as the story went on, but it never shows us the root of her issues. There was definitely a missed opportunity there. Ryan's character was a tough one to pin down for me. He was a total douche at the start of the book. All he wanted was to hook up with Livvy, but by the end, he had truly fallen for her. It was almost like I didn't want to forgive his douchebaggery just because he develops real feelings for Livvy and at times felt that Livvy should feel the same. Livvy's character was confusing at times. She is attracted to Ryan, who is a douche if you remember, and is rebuffing his advances in the beginning but when she realizes that they have chemistry she is all in and chases after him and ignores said douchebaggery. I am honestly not sure if I liked Livvy's character or not. At certain times I did, and others I didn't. I wish that we could have seen things from different POVs like in the prequel novella. I would have liked to get into everyone's head.

The romance, if it can be called that, was entertaining. Very entertaining and dramatic. And some parts got pretty heated and very graphic. This is a young adult book, but like Paper Princess by Erin Watts, it pushes some boundaries in this area. This is not a book that I think I would feel comfortable letting my high school aged child read. The book is definitely geared toward older teenagers. 

The cliffhanger was totally mean. Just saying.

Overall, this is definitely a story that will suck you in. If you can't handle teenage drama then this book may not be for you. If reading about teenagers dabbling at romance and friendships appeals to you then you're in good shape with this one. This book is full of drama, frenemies, betrayal, love triangles, and star-crossed lovers. You won't want to put it down once you start reading.

THIS BOOK CONTRIBUTED TO THESE 2018 READING CHALLENGES

- Stellar Series Challenge
- Beat the Backlist Challenge
- Let's Read Indie Challenge
- Contemporary Romance Challenge

Check out my 2019 Challenge Page to see my progress!

This is a "guilty pleasure" book for me. Do you read any books that you would consider a guilty pleasure?