read for Popsugar 2017 challenge: a book published in 2017

I guess this is 3.5, but I just don't feel like I can give it a 4? I enjoyed this, but it felt like something was missing the whole time. I guess I wished the book would either really lean into fluff or angst, and instead it just tiptoed around both in a way that was kind of unsatisfying. Like there was a decent amount of trauma and background for the different characters that felt... really superficial. Also some storylines felt superfluous and unresolved.

i.e. Davy and the missing mom. I was pretty disturbed by the lack of communication from the mom completely.

Learning that Jenn Bennet has a background as a romance writer explains A LOT about how I felt about the plot and background though.

I did really like how there was an emphasis on different cultures, such as Porter was Hawaiian and Grace was Nigerian (Grace was also tragically underused and underdeveloped.) The movie obsession was cute, but it also made me laugh because the characters felt so genuinely like teenagers in that moment. Like they talk about a lot of really famous movies, yet Bailey and Porter seemed surprised the other knew the films.

I think I was a bit hesitant because You've Got Mail is one of my favorite films and some of the charm of that movie was missing here. About halfway into the book, it really seems like the online flirtation didn't matter anymore, so towards the end when Bailey feels torn didn't quite have the emotional satisfaction I could've hoped for. (The story behind her nickname was very cute). Also by making Bailey's family paranoid of using social media and thus her reason for the ~secrecy~ of talking to a strange online kind of felt like a cop out instead of finding a way to adapt the You've Got Mail storyline into a modern setting.