Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Release Date: October 26th, 2022
Add to Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)
CW: slut-shaming (past), anxiety and panic attacks
They may both be star students in their costume design program, but when it comes to relationships, Allison and Kate are as different as their fashion senses.
Kate marches through life in combat boots and crop tops, breaking hearts as fast as she steals them and insisting anything more than an emotionless hook-up is a waste of time.
Allison knits her own sweaters, wears socks with tiny strawberries on them, and has spent two years of college utterly failing at her goal of getting a girlfriend before graduation.
Until the day it hits her: she’s got a master flirting coach right at her fingertips.
It doesn’t take much to get Kate on board; teaching her best friend the art of seduction seems like the perfect distraction from some of the inconvenient truths Kate would rather not face.
Like maybe she doesn’t hate relationships.
Maybe she’s just afraid of them—too afraid to reach out and grab one when it’s staring her in the face.
So it’s a good thing Kate Davidson isn’t in love with her best friend either.
It’s a good thing Kate and Allison are just taking part in some purely platonic flirting lessons and are absolutely, totally, definitely not falling in love.
With Katia Rose, I know I’m always going to get a romance that makes me feel all of the things and makes me wish I was part of that world and could hang out with these characters. And it’s no different with Girlfriend Material. This book is about friendships, love and finding yourself even through the darkest and hardest times. This story was so heartwarming and so different from ones that I’ve read recently, that I soaked it up hungrily.
In Girlfriend Material, you’ll find:
✨ best friends to lovers
✨ teach me how to flirt!
✨ college romance
✨ fashion!
✨ awkward, shy lesbian
✨ confident, beautiful bisexual
While I’m a huge fan of the best friends to lovers trope, I’m always really nervous about how the author will handle the scene when the two finally realise they have feelings for each other. I should have known Katia would win me over with her ways, because she wrote the most perfect friendship and the gradual shift into a relationship was so smoothly done. There is some angst, there is some drama and there’s a little bit of struggling for both leads, but I truly loved just how wonderful Kate and Allison were together. Add to that, the fact that Katia built up this incredible setting at an art school where the leads are fashion students bonding over Lord of the Rings and being total nerds was a huge highlight.
“I kissed Allison, and it made me feel like my whole life was bursting into technicolor while every other kiss with everyone else was only black and white.”
Kate had one really hard relationship that set the course of the rest of her life and it made her avoid relationships, sticking to hook-ups and flirting with people instead of allowing herself to feel something for someone. Allison is newly out and she wants to find that perfect girlfriend, she wants that partner who will love her with every breath. And when she finds herself struggling to flirt and even just communicate with the girl she’s got a crush on, Allison turns to Kate for help. The scenes they have together after this request for help were some of my favourites. It’s that moment when you do the bare minimum and you suddenly realise that being around someone actually makes you feel something that got me. The way Kate finds herself drawn to Allison and vice versa was so wonderfully done.
I’ve always loved Katia’s stories, but this one was very different from the others and somehow that made it even more special. I connected with Kate in so many ways and I could relate to Allison for so many of the little things. But ultimately, it was just about how real these characters were, their struggles and their journeys to finding each other and themselves in the process.
Thanks to Katia Rose for generously providing me with an advance copy. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
anna reads here 