Borrow My Heart

West, Kasie. Borrow My Heart
June 13th 2023 by Delacorte Press
E ARC provided by Netgalley

Wren likes hanging out with her friend Kamala, who likes hanging out on the beach near their West Coast town than Wren does. While Wren is waiting for Kamala to get off work at the coffee shop, she sees two guys their age come in. Asher has arranged to meet Gemma, a girl he has met online, at the shop, but it doesn't look she is going to show up. This delights his friend Dale, who is filming Asher's humiliation and has made a bet with him that if Asher is being catfished, he will have to do something embarassing at Dale's birthday party. Even though she is usually cautious and has a lot of rules for her own behavior to guard against disappointment, Wren jumps in and pretends to be Gemma. This causes a little confusion, since Wren doesn't have any idea what Asher has said in online conversations, but it works well enough to keep Dale quiet. The guys are on their way to another meeting, and Wren is concerned that Asher won't know where to find her again (since she won't be answering "Gemma's" DMs), but since she had mentioned working at a dog shelter, he's able to hunt her down. Wren likes working, since it takes her mind off her somewhat strained home life; her mother left the family, her father is stuck in a routine and not treated well at his work, and Wren is processing some trauma from her mother's behavior. There is one dog who has been at the shelter a long time. Bean is a good dog, but difficult around many people, so despite her best efforts, Wren can't seem to get Bean adopted. Asher volunteers at the shelter, and is soon helping Wren with the social media posts. The two hope that by featuring Bean in some fun videos, there will be some interest in him. Wren keeps trying to tell Asher that she isn't the same person that he met online, but every time she tries, someone interrupts them. Complicating matters is the fact that Wren's coworker Chad, on whom she had a bit of a crush, is more interested in her now that she and Asher appear to be dating, Kamala and Dale's flirtation, and also the fact that her mother wants Wren and her older sister Zoey to visit her for the Fourth of July. Wren is very uneasy about many aspects of personal relationships, but will she be able to set aside her reservations and connect with Asher?

Strengths: I enjoyed the fact that Wren had a job with a decent amount of responsibility; when someone drops off a box at the shelter over the weekend, her boss calls her to go check, since she is closest, and she also has the password for the social media sites. Her devotion to Bean is good to see, and it was realistic that her father wouldn't let her bring a dog home. The fact that she and Asher don't go to the same high school is realistic, and makes them find other ways to hang out. There's just enough about the mother and Bean to forward the action of the book and keep the romance from getting boring. West is really good about keeping the romances light and keeping everything PG. This book seemed a little shorter than some of her other titles, and the cover will immediately appeal to me readers. 
Weaknesses: While this is much less whiny than most Young Adult romances, there are still a lot of misunderstandings and misgivings about who knew what when and why people were keeping secrets from each other.  Couldn't Wren have just told Asher right away that she wasn't Gemma and have moved on from there? It would still have been a good romance with the side stories of her mother and of Bean. 
What I really think: If a Kasie West book has a cartoon style cover, it must be a Trend in Young Adult, since her previous titles always had photographs! Hand this to readers of the Scholastic WISH books that include pet shelters, like Girls Just Want to Have Pugs.