On the Fence by Kasie West

**Thank  you HarperTeen for providing me with an eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review! 

She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

Fun, original, and endearing, On the Fence is a romantic comedy about finding yourself and finding love where you least expect.

Thoughts:

I don't know what is happening to me but I have become such a fan of contemporaries lately. (If you haven't  noticed from most of my reviews lately.) A little over a year ago I would have turned down any contemporary you gave to me, now it's like I can't get enough of them and books like this are the reason why.

ON THE FENCE did a great job of showing how someone can struggle with finding themselves and being what they want to be. It also had such a strong family relationship and friendship story line that made me love it completely. Charlie is insanely close it her brothers and I love how their relationship is portrayed. She is not as open with her dad because it’s hard for her and even for him but I loved watching their relationship grow throughout the book. He is such an amazing dad and really did his best with her and not having her mom anymore. Gage, Jerome, and Nathan were all insanely over protective but they had me won over. If I had 3 older brothers I think I would want them to be just like they were. I adored Gage. He was funny, good natured, and really was a friend to Charlie and not just a brother.

Braden and Charlie were constantly giving me anxiety attacks in this book with all their crackling tension between them and I felt like every page I was screaming "JUST KISS ALREADY". I adore books like that really make you work for that moment. It made me so angst-y that I could barely stand it but the reward would fantastic was for "patience". There fence chats had me laughing and grinning ear to ear. Braden jealous was one of the best parts of the books because it was just downright adorable. 

Besides all the nice, grin-worthy qualities of this book there were some deeper issues in there. Charlie figuring who she was and what she wanted was one, and I was glad to see her open herself up to being a little more girl-y and finding some of her own things outside of her brothers. It also dealt with some tough issues Braden had to deal with and I was glad of the outcome of that situation. The one that made me tear up some though was finding out about Charlie's mom. Some of the things Charlie had issues with are mainly based on her mom being gone and the things she finds out later definitely made me emotional. Charlie is such a strong girl and really was able to work out everything stoically. 

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone. I can't wait to read more books by West. 

Rating:

♥♥♥♥♥