YOU WERE MADE FOR ME BY JENNA GUILLAUME

You Were Made for Me is a lovely Rom/Com that is totally entertaining. Katie is an average girl with all the trials and tribulations a 16-year-old could have. She thinks that her glasses and frizzy hair make her fail as girlfriend material and worries that she has never been kissed. She is secretly in love with Declan Bell Jones, the best looking, most popular boy in her year. The trouble is, he has barely noticed she exists.

When her best friend Libby comes over one night, they jokingly create the “perfect guy”. Katie is a talented artist and has sculpted her perfect boyfriend in clay. Libby is great at science stuff and she makes a potion. After listing the “perfect guy’s” attributes, the girls do some secret stuff with Libby’s potion and that’s it - nothing. Katie feels let down when Libby explains that there is no such thing as the “perfect guy” and that she should just get on with her life. After Katie clears up the mess they’ve made, she goes to bed with just her dog Max for company.

That’s when things get interesting. Somehow, they have created the “perfect guy” and there he is in Katie’s room. Now she has to hide him from her parents and figure out what to do. She enlists the help of her life-long friend Theo who lives in their backyard granny flat and Libby too is bought in to help decide what to do. All the while, Katie has to deal with the school bully, Mikayla Fitzsimmons, and the now confusing but welcome attentions of Mikayla’s boyfriend and Katie’s secret crush, Declan Bell Jones. Her new perfect boyfriend, now called Guy, is so fresh and new that he knows nothing about how life works, so he too, has to be educated and protected from being discovered by Katie’s parents. Katie is so distracted by having the hottest boyfriend on the planet and all the things she has to deal with, that she neglects her best friends. As things come to a head, Katie finds that sometimes it’s better to not get what you wish for and that appreciating what you already have is the best way to go.

Jenna Guillaume’s novel is a great exploration of teenage life and how nothing is ever perfect. The themes of self-esteem, bullying and friendship are treated in an amusing and friendly way – readers will love this book.

For Ages: 14+ years

Number of Pages: 336 in paperback.

Published: August 2020

Themes: Friendship, self-esteem and bullying.

Rating: 4/5