Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Featuring: Bailey; Charlie
432 pages ISBN: 1665921234 EAN: 9781665921237 Kindle: B0BTZ8WNW9 Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
After releasing a couple of adult rom-coms, MR. WRONG NUMBER and THE LOVE WAGER, author Lynn Painter heads back into YA rom-com with her latest release, BETTING ON YOU. Shy teenager Bailey meets annoying Charlie as she leaves Alaska for her new home in Omaha following her parents' split. Without exchanging names, Charlie shares his belief that guys and girls can't be just friends along with other life lessons related to what happens to kids after a divorce.
Fast forward a couple years and the pair continues to cross paths until they end up at the same location as co-workers. Charlie makes Bailey a bet that hails back to his original mantra regarding friendship between the opposite sex. Despite their differences, Bailey and Charlie become friends after sharing the trauma from their past. Charlie steps in to help Bailey keep her world intact by "fake date' to try to derail her mother's new relationship. A weekend away together causes lines to blur and circumstances to change between the teens. Both struggle to adapt while overcoming their fears. Will they be able to be more than friends? Who will win the bet?
Lynn Painter delivers well-crafted characters and a story full of teenage angst, feelings, and drama.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Better than the Movies, this swoon-worthy rom-com in the vein of She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You follows a teen girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of a bet while working at a waterpark.
When seventeen-year-old Bailey starts a new job at a hotel waterpark, she is less than thrilled to see an old acquaintance is one of her coworkers. Bailey met Charlie a year ago on the long flight to Omaha, where she moved after her parents’ divorce. Charlie’s cynicism didn’t mix well with Bailey’s carefully well-behaved temperament, and his endless commentary was the irritating cherry on top of an already emotionally fraught trip.
Now, Bailey and Charlie are still polar opposites, but instead of everything about him rubbing Bailey the wrong way, she starts to look forward to hanging out and gossiping about the waterpark guests and their coworkers—particularly two who keep flirting with each other. Bailey and Charlie make a bet on whether or not the cozy pair will actually get together. Charlie insists that members of the opposite sex can’t just be friends, and Bailey is determined to prove him wrong.
Bailey and Charlie keep close track of the romantic progress of others while Charlie works to deflect the growing feelings he’s developed for Bailey. Terrified to lose her if his crush becomes known, what doesn’t help his agenda is Bailey and Charlie “fake dating” in order to disrupt the annoying pleasantries between Bailey’s mom and her mom’s new boyfriend. Soon, what Charlie was hoping to avoid becomes a reality as Bailey starts to see him as not only a friend she can rely on in the midst of family drama—but someone who makes her hands shake and heart race. But Charlie has a secret—a secret that involves Bailey and another bet Charlie may have made. Can the two make a real go of things…or has Charlie’s secret doomed them before they could start?