Dating Sarah Cooper

by Siera Maley

[Angie]

The fake relationship turned real is my absolute favorite Romance trope, and Dating Sarah Cooper does it wonderfully! Katie and Sarah have been best friends forever, but one day, after helping Jake who was being bullied for being gay, he mistakes the friends for being something more. He's happy to have made new friends and invites them to his after school club. Katie and Sarah agree only to show up and have it be their school's GSA. Jake already told everyone that they're a couple, and Sarah decides they should just roll with it. What's the harm?

Dating Sarah Cooper is so great. Other than the fake relationship turned real, we also get best friends to lovers! Sarah does only want to pretend to be gay to get the attention of this guy she's been crushing on. Katie is essentially talked into it by Sarah, but she is convinced that their semi-popularity can help the other gay kids at school. Especially when they're nominated for Queens of the Winter Formal. But Katie doesn't like lying, but is it really lying when she realizes that she actually is in love with her best friend?

I loved how Dating Sarah Cooper started off as a kind of "take a walk in someone's shoes" type story. Katie and Sarah are experiencing what it is like to be out in their school. Their friends and the other GSA members are mostly supportive. Of course, there's some gross straight guys who sexually harass them, want to turn them straight, or have a threesome. Their relationship may have been fake at the time, but those responses are very real, and the girls have to deal with that. On top of this, Katie is also trying to figure out if she really is gay, or if it's just Sarah that she's into. Does she come out for real, or would that ruin their friendship? It's a lot to think about.

The only thing that kept me from full on loving Dating Sarah Cooper was that the ending was rushed. The big climax is at the Winter Formal when the girls are making their acceptance speech (not a spoiler, the book opens with the ending) and come clean about what they did and how they really feel. We don't get to see any of the backlash from that. The whole story was building to this moment where they're outed, but it's all compressed into one paragraph. Lying is a big deal, so I would have liked to see more of how their classmates responded, especially those in the GSA.

I absolutely recommend Dating Sarah Cooper if you're looking for a fun F/F Romance, or just a great YA story about figuring out who you are. I was completely sucked in by Katie's narrative, and it was easy to see how she got caught up in this mess. Her confusion over how she felt about Sarah felt very real and honest, and I loved that the author showed more than one resource for discussing questions regarding sexuality (youth center, friends, parents, even media). It was just a great read and left me smiling.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.