Betting on You
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4.6 • 189 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller
From the New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies, this “entertaining” (Publishers Weekly) 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?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Opposites attract in this witty romance by Painter (Better Than the Movies). When Bailey meets Charlie, her seatmate on a flight from Alaska to Nebraska, she's immediately put off by his cavalier attitude. Though they find common ground in being the children of divorced parents, they disagree about almost everything else, including Charlie's insistence that "guys and girls can't be friends." After the flight, the teens go their separate ways, until three years later, when, now 17, they both land jobs at a resort. As the two develop a friendship—and maybe something more—Bailey recruits Charlie in her ploy to drive away her mother's new boyfriend, who she feels has upset their mother-daughter dynamic. Bailey and Charlie also unearth their years-old argument over whether guys and girls can be friends when Charlie reveals his belief that Bailey's bestie, a coworker, will cheat on her boyfriend while working at the resort. Bailey bets against him, but the wager soon comes back to bite her. Via alternating perspectives, the characters' good-natured and combative banter, and an emergent fake-dating scheme, Painter breathes new life into a familiar premise to present an entertaining low-conflict romp. Bailey and Charlie cue as white. Ages 14–up.
