Ray Stoeve’s Summer Love Strategy is a sweet and swoony YA rom-com about two friends making a pact to find summer romance like they’ve seen in the movies—and finding love where they least expect it along the way!
Hayley always has a crush. The problem is, her crushes never like her back. After her latest unrequited love—a girl from her basketball team—gets a boyfriend, she decides she’s done falling for girls who are unavailable. Her best friend, Talia, wants romance too, but rarely gets crushes on anyone, and she’s tired of watching Hayley get her heart stomped on over and over. So the two girls make a pact: they’ll help each other find summer love by putting themselves in situations that always lead to romance in movies.
To help carry out their summer love strategy, they make a list of all the places they could find their real-life rom-com: the beach, the Pride parade, the pool, a MUNA concert, and a party. But as they go to each place and try to find the one, it seems like they just can’t catch a break—they don’t know how to talk to cute strangers, someone mistakes Hayley as straight, and Hayley does a truly unfortunate DIY haircut (that she cannot be held responsible for––it was a crisis!). But when Talia and Hayley finally manage to score dates, will they be able to get out of their own way and really dive into the romances they deserve? Or is summer love not as far off as Hayley thought?
Praise
“A love story within a love story [...] Stoeve explores what it means to find new ways to love a person you know by heart—and they tackle it with such specificity and care.”
—Becky Albertalli, New York Times Bestselling Author of Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda
“Gorgeously captures that bubbling, fizzy, all-encompassing energy of a crush becoming so much more.”
—Jason June, New York Times bestselling author
“An endearing portrait of the ups and downs of crushes, first dates, and falling in love.”
—Kelly Quindlen, author of She Drives Me Crazy
"Readers will appreciate that neurodivergence is normalized and represented positively...A charming friends-to-lovers summer romance."
—Kirkus
"Readers will feel like they’re in a teen summer romance themselves."
—Booklist
