Amy Sparling, $2.99, ISBN 979-8223635598
Contemporary Romance, 2020

Abby Pena’s parents take off to Mexico about a year ago because her mother wants to take care of her terminally ill parents. This leaves our heroine as the grown-up in her family, as her other grandmother that has moved in to care for her and her siblings are the sort that lets her siblings walk over that old lady. Abby, therefore, has little time for much else aside from school and running after her siblings. 

She’d like a boyfriend, though. 

Then, there is Mark Caputo, one of the rich kids in school. Well, except that his family is on shaky grounds where the finances are concerned, but hey, no one needs to know that. Because guys in romance stories don’t have to be stuck with too many responsibilities, he just wants to play the field while making his way to college.

So, both of them could use a new car. How convenient, therefore, that their school holds a competition with a car as the first prize. There can be only one winner, however…

Yes, Amy Sparling’s The Enemy Hypothesis is a high school thing. Fortunately, there are no sex scenes or I’d have to fear that the cops may break down my door for reading about these kids doing what kids do in high school, shudder. 

Also, I have to give this thing the side eye because the competition involves using an app that will record your good behavior and score them. This sounds like social credit score to me. Wait, aren’t folks in US supposed to be anti-China or something, as they want to ban TikTok now? How does this get here, then?

Mind you, I also give this thing the side eye because the author, in the tried and true fashion of making sure that the heroine is the loser so that the hero can swoop in and save her or something, does just that here. Mark, whose reason to want a new car is the worse of the two, wins yay just because, and he generously gives his prize to Abby, just so that I will swoon at the romanticism of it all.

Well, except no, I’m snorting instead at this development because it’s clear that the author does all this just for the hero to make the grand gesture. It’s an unnecessary concession to the tired trope in the genre that the guy must always win and rescue the heroine, who will always be in a weaker position, or else things won’t be “romantic”.

Needless to say, I am not too enthused about this story. Oh well, does it matter? These two would go to different colleges and break up soon enough, so it’s not like there is a love of the century happening here.

This story is very readable, however, and conversations flow well without coming off as too forced or written by old people that have forgotten how teens are. I also like the main characters, although they are less appealing when the author is forcing them to go through the motions of a “frenemy” thing. Amy and Mark are much more fun to follow when they are not rehashing romance tropes, let’s just say.

So yes, the story is nice to read, the characters are alright, but the romance is on the flat side.