Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend

I quickly lost myself to these characters’ brilliantly constructed vortex and when forced to emerge from their world into mine, I ruminated on their insightful inner musings and shrewdly plotted encounters until once again able to rejoin their engrossing chronicle. I covet Ms. Reid’s highly amusing storytelling skills and marvel at her wickedly clever pacing that kept me reeled in while taunting and teasing my curiosity, as well as frequently smirking and gleefully entertained.

3.75 stars--TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BESTFRIEND by Penny Reid is a contemporary, adult romance story line focusing on twenty-seven year old author/genius Byron Visser, and twenty-six year old teacher/podcaster Winnifred Gobaldi. Told from dual first person perspectives (Win and Byron) TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BESTFRIEND follows the building romance and relationship between twenty-seven year old author/genius Byron Visser, and twenty-six year old teacher/podcaster Winnifred Gobaldi. Byron Visser is a genius, an author and an ‘odd duck’ in the world of social norms. His best friend is Amelia, whose best friend is Winnifred Gobaldi, a young woman whose podcast promotes science, more specifically STEM-Science, technology, engineering and mathematics for girls but in this Win finds herself at a cross-roads when an grant to further her STEM promotion for women involves a larger social media platform, and a romantic TikTok challenge. Enter Byron Visser, genius, best selling author, and the man who stars in Win’s fantasies and dreams. What ensues is the building but atypical romance and relationship between Win and Byron, as our couple must navigate the world of social media, anxiety, miscommunication and misunderstanding. Byron Visser could be considered an ‘odd duck’; a young man whose life experiences are limited; a man whose dislike of people and social norms is anything but acceptable to the outside world by Byron has fallen in love with his best friend’s roommate, a woman whose quirks and oddities grate at our hero’s sense of well being. Winnifred Bogaldi has always felt like a failure in the face of Byron Visser’s silent condemnations and perfect control of his life but Winnifred will soon discover that Byron’s eccentricities and peculiarities hide something much deeper, something our heroine realizes before anyone else. Working together to help further Winnifred’s chances at winning the TikTok challenge, our couple will discover their mutual disdain for one another hides a volatile attraction neither one is able to admit. The relationship between Byron and Winnifred begins as enemies to frenemies to ‘lovers’. Neither one is experienced in the relationship department, and their social awkwardness is exacerbated by fear, anxiety and a lack of, or miscommunication. There are no $ex scenes, everything is implied or fades to black. We are introduced to Byron’s best friend and Winnifred’s roommate Amelia; Byron’s roommate Jeff Choi, and Jeff’s girlfriend Lucy. TEN TRENDS TO SEDUCE YOUR BESTFRIEND is a very slow building story line of friendships and relationships, misunderstanding and miscommunication, acceptance and love. The premise is thought provoking, engaging and captivating; the romance is sensitive; the characters are naïve, unique and quirky.

4 stars — This book was equal parts 5++++ stars and 3 stars. So I averaged at 4 (though sometimes I think it’s more 4.5 rounded down). I found myself skimming ahead at some of the parts where I was sure misunderstandings were abounding (though ironically it wasn’t what I thought in one particular instance), cause I needed to see when things would be resolved, or what was coming next. So there were parts of this book that made me anxious, and I needed for them to have flowed much more quickly than they did. Sometimes I skim ahead because I’m excited about what’s going to happen (and I love those times). But this was more me needing reassurance. And my skimming didn’t help because the conflicts were drawn out. Does that make sense? I fully accept that I’m a weirdo, but it is what it is. I actually got Byron more than Winnie in the end…which is funny, b/c I thought Byron was going to be just another one of those jerks that people are a bit too accommodating towards. Kind of ironic since that was a central theme to his growth story, and something he was striving to balance in his life. There were moments where he reminded me of people in my life, and how they are so misunderstood and hated upon for being different. It definitely hurt my heart. It’s amazing how so many people in this world won’t give different people a chance, won’t allow them to *be* different. How they feel like a burden. So yeah, while Byron was taciturn, grumpy, abrupt, that all came from a specific place in his neurodivergent brain, and I appreciated that we got to see how he was affected by the way other people were intolerant of his differences/needs/etc. Winnie…Winnie is this seemingly normal nerdy girl, but I feel like she was much more damaged. I wish, in the end, that she had sought help for her childhood traumas, because they affected her in such a profound way. We would see Byron working to improve himself, but if Winnie did so, it happened off page. She frustrated me to a strong degree, but I think she was supposed to. I think the thing that was interesting about Winnie is that to the outside world, she was a very normal human being. She bottled up her issues (like so many of us do), and so you would never know how fundamentally flawed she was in the way she saw people. I really appreciated that we did get to see her moment of clarity, that it came from Amelia as well as Byron, and that you could tell she was going to try to improve. I did love the chemistry between Winnie and Byron…it’s a little outside what I personally experience, but I got it from their perspective. I loved seeing their involuntary feels for one another, their attraction, and wow…for a book that basically had fairly minimal steamy scenes, the steam was still freaking hot. But I’m one of those readers that can be satisfied by chemistry even if I don’t see the full shebang. And holy cow, there were a ton of humourous moments in the steamy scenes too — humour that translated into real moments of anxiety, which is a weird thing to say, but I guess I just liked how real it got with some of that. Sometimes I get tired of not seeing more variety in thoughts/feelings during intimate moments. I know I’m not making any sense, but when you get to those parts, maybe you’ll understand. I loved the STEM aspects of this story. I’ve never been much of that kind of nerd, but I definitely was the smart kid in school. There were so many little moments where, even if they didn’t fit me specifically, I could make myself fit in pieces of the story. I loved how Winnie was trying to smash (as in smash the patriarchy) all these things that society has told us about STEM, about girls in STEM, about what is worthy of “smart” people to be interested in. And that it’s all freaking bull, and EVERYONE, but especially young girls, should be free to pursue all the things that interest them — girly, nerdy, everything in between. It was very uplifting in that way. I think where this book fails to be a wow book for me is in the pacing and length.