Not If You Break Up with Me First

by G.F. Miller

Overview

Two friends who have unhappily found themselves accidentally dating try to drive the other one to call things off in this witty and heartfelt middle school romance.

Childhood friends Eve and Andrew are destined to be together—everyone says so, especially their friends and classmates who are all suddenly crush-obsessed. So when Eve and Andrew’s first eighth grade school dance rolls around and Eve, feeling the pressure, awkwardly asks Andrew to go with her, everyone assumes they are Officially Dating and Practically in Love. Overwhelmed, Eve and Andrew just...go with it.

And it’s weird. Neither of them wants this dating thing to mess up their friendship, and they don’t really see each other that way. But they also don’t want to be the one to call things off, the one to make things super awkward. So they both—separately—pledge to be the worst boyfriend or girlfriend ever, leaving it to the other person to break up with them. It would be genius...if the other person weren’t doing the exact same thing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665950008
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

G. F. Miller absolutely insists on a happy ending. Everything else is negotiable. She is living her Happily Ever After with the love of her life, three kids, two puppies, and some chickens. She cries at random times. She makes faces at herself in the mirror. She believes in the Oxford comma. And she’s always here for a dance party.

Editorial Reviews

'Perfectly captures the “actual disorder” of being 13."

Kirkus Reviews 

Not If You Break Up with Me First is classic rom-com gold and I couldn’t put it down. Kind of, maybe, accidentally falling for your best friend in middle school? Count me in! Eve and Andrew had my heart as they fake-dated in the very best-worst way. Put this one on your TBR stat!

Lynn Painter

"Authentically captures the awkwardness and high jinks of middle school... This coming-of-age story will stay with everyone who reads it."

starred review School Library Journal

"Funny and real."

Booklist

"Funny and real."

Booklist

"The thrilling, agonizing muddle between middle school friendship and something "more" plays out in all its messy authenticity in G.F. Miller's appealing, painfully funny second novel... Peer pressure, hormones, mixed feelings, gasp-worthy pranks: Not If You Break Up with Me First has it all."

Shelf Awareness

2024-04-05
Lifelong best friends Eve and Andrew survive a “Category 5 emotional hurricane” in the first months of eighth grade.

Eve is thrilled when Andrew returns from two months away with his family, but things are immediately weird. It seems to matter—to their families and friends, anyway—that Eve’s a girl and Andrew’s a boy, even though the two of them don’t intend for anything to change. But when Eve’s cross-country friends start talking about dates for the school dance, Eve worries she’ll be “left out and left behind,” so during his marching band practice, she asks Andrew to go with her. Their respective friend groups assume they’re dating, ruining their friendship, which is especially unfortunate for Eve, whose parents have been fighting. Both kids receive tragically bad advice, and each ends up determined to make the other initiate the breakup—and each stubbornly refuses to be the one to break up with the other, leading to mean pranks, hurt feelings, and a huge fight at a school event. Eve struggles with the belief that her relationship with Andrew makes her mom happy; after the public disaster, Eve’s parents reassure her that it’s not her responsibility to hold the family together. Andrew’s mom teaches him about sincere, heartfelt communication. Andrew and Eve ultimately break up, restoring their friendship in a messily honest, heartfelt, and satisfying denouement on the playground. Main characters read white.

Perfectly captures the “actual disorder” of being 13. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews