Mean Girls 🤝 Bridgerton? Yes please! This time Regina ends up with Cady 😏
🪞Bookish Thoughts
Mean Girls 🤝 Bridgerton? Yes please! This time Regina ends up with Cady 😏
The witty banter, the yearning, the forbidden love, the rivals to lovers tension, the gossip, the antics, the ballrooms… I loved all of it. Rosalie and Catherine foreverrrr.
I adored both families. Christopher gets best brother award, and I loved how they worked together to mend the rivalry between their mothers. The antics to chase off boring Mr. Dean had me cackling, especially the lake scene 🤣. This book made me ugly cry, which only made me love it more. It left me grateful for how far we have come and a little sad for how far we still have to go. The writing was beautiful. And the audiobook was just as amazing!
Emma Alban is officially an autobuy author for me. I didn’t think I could love a sapphic historical romance as much as Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, but Like in Love With You was just as good. Solid 5 stars!
💛 What to Expect
• Rivals to lovers
• Sapphic slow burn
• Regency setting
• Enemies’ daughters
• Family feud
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📖 Final Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎧 Audio Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎙️ Narrators: Mary Jane Wells, Morag Sims
📅 Pub Date: January 13, 2026
Thank you to HarperAudio, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.
I really enjoyed this book. I'm rating 4 stars because there were a few times the language was not very accurate. I'm not a big stickler for historical accuracy and I'm totally down to just go with the vibes but it kinda pulled me out of the story a bit. Describing a character as "hot". Aside from that very minor thing I loved the story and I enjoyed our main protagonists. I loved the found family and how the girls had a wonderful support system. Like another review said I wish we had more time with the characters in love, not for spice, but just more sweet one on one time. But the book was realistic as far as society would go at that time period. I really like this author and look forward to more books from her!
I
i'd rather be reading
May 7, 2026
unfortunately, this did fall a bit short of my expectations.
i started reading and was surprised to double check to find that it's not YA. the writing feels very YA level and i don't like saying that bc it's a complaint i often see and don't agree with. however, i feel it's applicable here.
we're sold on it as regency mean girls but that's hardly the dynamic. i feel like a lot of authors are trying too hard to make every character very morally sound but it ends up creating quasi mary sue's with no room for friction in relationships and conflict, nor complexity to characters.
if i hadn't just read nearly 100 hisrom books over the past year, i don't think i would have minded this. my standard has been set too high tho 😭 i felt like there was no attention to detail, and i got distracted by the occasional dialogue that felt too modern for the time.
this feels more like an almost YA introduction to hisrom for romance readers who haven't really gotten into it. honestly i'd take out the sex scenes and make it YA bc it might do better that way.
overall, i don't think this was for me, but i think there will still be readers who enjoy a fluffy, regencyish sapphic romance.
an honest arc review ♡
I'm Like in Love with this book
This book is amazing, easily my new favorite. It's so hard to find good sapphic stories sometimes and I am so belated that this story found me. The story is tantalizing. The writing is immaculate. I would die for Christopher. It has been years since I've been so enraptured in a book. I've been reading it for 6 hours straight, I'm a little more than halfway through, and if I didnt have work in the morning, I would still be reading it now. 1000/10. Emma COOKED with this absolute banger.
Two young ladies compete to secure the hand of the most eligible man of the season, only to realize he's a foppish loser and to fall for each other instead. Complete with yearning, gently touching each other's pinkies in carriage rides, an excellent supporting cast of friends and family members, and even some smut.
It's cute! It's romantic! It's fluffy! Limited homophobia (what exists is mainly from Mrs. Pine at the end) and sexism (mostly around ladies' reputations and being seduced and "ruined"). Everything is wrapped up in a happy, sweet bow, but I can't help but think that was only possible because both Rosalie and Catherine's families were rich.
Mr. Foppish Loser and his dad are the worst characters and I wish they had fallen into a vat of greasy food at the end. I ended up missing Mr. Foppish Loser from earlier in the book, when he just smiled vacantly and gazed handsomely into the distance. That was him at his best.
