A sweet novella with one of my favorite heros

Blonde Date (2014) is a sweet novella by Sarina Bowen. Bowen uses the Ivy League setting and characters we already met in The Year We Hid Away. The romance is between Katie, one of Scarlet’s roommates, and Andy, the guy who lives in the dorm room next door to Bridger. When Katie is looking for a nice guy to bring to a sorority party, Scarlet sets her up with Andy.

The novella is set up in chapters with the alternating perspectives of Katie and Andy. Andy has had a crush on Katie since he first saw her in his Art History class, but it takes a little while for Katie to realize how much she likes him.

I was a little worried at first that I wouldn’t like Katie. She seemed overly concerned with appearances and partying, all of which are wholly unrelatable to me. She’s focused on dating an upperclassman and an athlete and cannot go dateless to the sorority she’s rushing. Fortunately, Bowen almost immediately makes her a more interesting person. She’s intelligent, likes to laugh, and is tired of trying to meet everyone else’s expectations. She just recently had an incident with an ex of hers where he acted terribly, and she’s embarrassed to face him and his friends at the party.

Andy is delightful. He’s smart, athletic, funny, compassionate, tall, and he has a great relationship with his sister. There is talk of him being goofy and not confident enough around women, but he seems to have plenty of confidence around Katie. He handles Katie’s situation with a nice blend of encouragement and protectiveness without being overbearing.

I don’t have much else to say. Blonde Date was short, entertaining, and satisfying. Bowen did a good job of having Katie own her sexuality without shame. Andy and Katie bring out the best in each other. My main wish was that the story could have been longer.

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