Not Your #LoveStory by Sonia Hartl

Macy Evans dreams of earning enough income from her YouTube channel, R3ntal Wor1d, to leave her small, Midwestern town. But when she meets a boy named Eric at a baseball game, and accidently dumps her hotdog in his lap, her disastrous “meet-cute” becomes the topic of a viral thread. Now it’s not loyal subscribers flocking to her channel, it’s Internet trolls. And they aren’t interested in her reviews of VHS tapes—they only care about her relationship with Eric.
Eric is overly eager to stretch out his fifteen minutes of fame, but Macy fears this unwanted attention could sabotage her “real-life” relationships—namely with the shy boy-next-door, Paxton, who she’s actually developing feelings for. Macy knows she should shut the lie down, though she can’t ignore the advertising money, or the spark she gets in her chest whenever someone clicks on her videos. Eric shouldn’t be the only one allowed to reap the viral benefits. But is faking a relationship for clicks and subscribers worth hurting actual people?

Not gonna lie, this was a hooking premise. I really like the unique idea of a third party bystander faking a relationship between two random people, but this book let me down. First off, it feels like it was written by someone who lacks a basic understanding of social media. If Macy genuinely wants to make YoutTube her career, her way out of poverty, she needs to post more than reviews of fifty year old movies. I genuinely have never heard of anyone “making it” in YouTube by cosplaying as characters from Dirty Dancing. You can’t make that your career. Macy isn’t passionate; she’s just stubborn. She refuses to post things that will do well, but she also clings to the hope that her YouTube will magically become big enough to allow her to leave home and live in Chicago.
Second, if Macy wants to make her YouTube viral, she should take advantage of this newfound fame. Just because she went viral for a fake relationship doesn’t mean that everything she posts has to be about that one incident. It is difficult, but totally possible, to take one viral incident and launch a chole career (Danielle Bregoli, anyone??). Macy has no semblance of balance in her life; she is unable to take advantage of her opportunities without absolutely losing her mind. A pity, really.
The characters themselves are sweet, if extremely one-dimensional. Throughout the book, Paxton’s dark past is hinted at. It was a shocking reveal, but it didn’t exactly justify his visceral reaction to Macy’s internet fame. Macy’s coworker, Midnight, gets a dramatic past as well, but it just felt expected by the time we finally hear it. Eric is overly villianified, and doesn’t ever feel like a real person.
Overall, it was really hard to get behind Macy because she seems confused about what she wants. Her final decision also struck me as odd, and an absolute waste. Though the book is built off an interesting idea and the characters gel together very well, the plot was ultimately disappointing.