Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

 

Synopsis:

The one guy Bailey Rydell can’t stand is actually the boy of her dreams—she just doesn’t know it yet.

Classic movie fan Bailey “Mink” Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online as Alex. Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.

Faced with doubts (what if he’s a creep in real life—or worse?), Bailey doesn’t tell Alex she’s moved to his hometown. Or that she’s landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that she’s being heckled daily by the irritatingly hot museum security guard, Porter Roth—a.k.a. her new archnemesis. But life is a whole lot messier than the movies, especially when Bailey discovers that tricky fine line between hate, love, and whatever it is she’s starting to feel for Porter.

And as the summer months go by, Bailey must choose whether to cling to a dreamy online fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. The choice is both simpler and more complicated than she realizes, because Porter Roth is hiding a secret of his own: Porter is Alex…Approximately.

 

I've been interested in reading this book for a while. I tend to like the mistaken identity type of romances so this one was right up my alley. I thought that this book was sweet with some angst mixed in. Each of the main characters has been through a trauma and they each seemed to withdraw for a time and were then changed by the experiences. We meet them when they have been talking online for a while in a movie chatroom and Alex is trying to persuade Mink to come to a film festival in his hometown. They seem like they are very close to each other but neither of them have had conversations about their lives with each other other than their interests like old movies.

Bailey avoids confrontation at all costs and is very cautious when putting herself out there. She was an interesting character for sure. I loved her vintage fashion sense and the fact that she owned it. Porter was a total goof but as the book progresses it is easy to see that there is more to him than being a comedian. He loves and is proud of his family. There are many different sides to him but not everyone sees the real him. 

I enjoyed the back and forth between Alex and Mink about what was going on in their lives as well as movies that they love. I liked the relationship between Porter and Bailey as well but I would have liked to have seen more online conversations between Alex and Mink throughout the book. It seemed like the online conversations were the lighter portions of the book and the conversations that they had in person had more depth to them. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was low on drama and high on sweet romance.