The Rules of Persuasion
Series: The Rules of Persuasion #1
Author: Amity Hope
Published August 14th 2017 by Entangled Publishing

Goodreads Synopsis
1) Take things slow (her rule)
2) Make it believable (his rule)

After tragedy hit her family, Meg Matthews officially crossed the line from “good girl” to “bad girl.” Motorcycle? Check. Graffiti? Check. The only thing Meg hadn’t planned on was blackmail. Too bad now a certain infuriating boy holds Meg’s future in his hands…

When Luke Prescott—star pitcher and town golden boy—catches Meg vandalizing the school, she’s given two choices: face the consequences or enter into a fake relationship with him to get his parents and his ex off his back.

But as Meg and Luke grow closer, they both realize they’ve been keeping secrets from each other. Their fake relationship might be doomed from the start—if they can’t learn to open up to the one person they never thought they’d trust.

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains late-night graffiti sessions, flirty baseball lessons, and a never-ending list of relationship rules just made to be broken.
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

This book was one of the first I read from Entangled Teen, and it helped me to fall in love with all of the books they publish, as they are just perfect YA contemporary reads. The Rules of Persuasion follow Meg, who has become a 'bad girl' who loves going around town and vandalising different things, to leave her name on something, and cope with the tragedy her family have faced. When the 'good guy' of the school Luke, catch her in the act, she decides that rather than face the consequences of her actions, which would be extreme, she would rather blackmail Luke into pretending to be her boyfriend, which actually helps him to some extent. Luke's parents have been on his back recently about school, his broken relationship with his ex, and life in general, and being with Meg could grant him a reprieve. They set up some ground rules while in the fake relationship, but the longer they are pretending, the less acting it is, and they find in one another a kindred spirit who understands them, and cares for them like no one has before.

The romance in this book was so swoony! Fake relationships is one of my favourite tropes, and it was executed so well in this story. To start off with, it seems like Luke and Meg are polar opposites, and to the outside, they are, but whenever they're together, we see they're more alike that you might think, and really get one another. The chemistry between them is apparent from very early on, and you could really see them falling for each other as the plot progressed. Obviously, we have a bit of angst in the book - would it be a YA contemporary if there wasn't any? - but it was done well, and all in all, this was a dead enjoyable book.

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