After a horrifying public rejection by her crush, Ellie Nichols does what any girl would do: she flees the country. To be more precise, she joins her high school’s study abroad trip to England. While most of her classmates are there to take honors courses and pad their college applications, Ellie is on a quest to rebuild her reputation and self-confidence. And nothing is more of a confidence booster than getting a hot British boyfriend.

When Ellie meets Will, a gorgeous and charming Brit, she vows to avoid making the same mistakes as she did with the last guy she liked. Which is why she strikes up a bargain with Dev, an overachieving classmate who she’s never clicked with, but who does seem to know a lot about the things Will is interested in—if he helps her win over her crush, then she’ll help him win over his.

But even as Ellie embarks on a whirlwind romance, one that takes her on adventures to some of England’s most beautiful places, she still needs to figure out if this is actually the answer to all her problems…and whether the perfect boyfriend is actually the perfect boy for her.

This was an adorable read all around. It has a great cast of characters, a great setting, and of course, romance and funny moments! There’s also great character growth in more than one of the characters, which I love to see.

Ellie joins some of the smartest kids in her school on a semester abroad to England, where they’ll be taking college level classes – something that Ellie is not prepared for. However, it gets her away from Andy and Crystal, whom she was humiliated by at a party over the summer, so she’ll take the hard classes over seeing them every day. She ends up rooming with the most serious student in her school, but she makes it her mission to get Sage to have some fun while they’re in England.

What I enjoyed about Ellie was that she had no trouble being herself in front of her new group of friends, Dev, Huan, and Sage. She likes things that others might have considered dorky (she loves making fairy gardens), and she seems a little embarrassed to admit that at first, but her new friends are encouraging about her hobby. This made Ellie relatable because we all have some hobby that’s kind of like a guilty pleasure and it’s not something we’ll tell a lot of people right away. And she doesn’t when she meets the British hottie, Will. She actually doesn’t even tell him anything real about herself right away because she thinks he’s too perfect for her, and she doesn’t want to be humiliated again.

As I said, the rest of the characters (except Will) are great. Dev is the lovable friend who is snarky and banters with Ellie all the time, but their newfound friendship is so cute. The same goes for Huan, but in addition he’s just hilarious at times, and so, so caring with Ellie. Sage turns out to be a great character as well, and while she’s serious about school, she shows a lot of development because she wasn’t even planning to make friends on this trip, yet she does and seeing her warm up to everyone was the cutest thing.

The romance is obviously predictable, but there is a little twist thrown in at confession time with the boy she ends up with that I was a little nervous would ruin the entire thing. That’s where Ellie shows her growth because she ends up confessing her feelings regardless because she doesn’t want to keep them hidden and doesn’t care this time if she gets humiliated. 

I didn’t find any boring spots in this book, I enjoyed every part of it and all of the characters’ little geeky quirks. I don’t know if any of them appear in the companion book, Hot Dutch Daydream, but I’ll find out once I start it! Anyway, if you can’t tell already, I highly recommend this one!

Rating: 4.25/5 stars

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