But when Ken Foster, captain of the football team, leading candidate for homecoming king, and all-around jerk, hires Jesse to help him win the heart of the angelic Bridget Smalley, Jesse finds himself feeling all sorts of things. While following Bridget and learning the intimate details of her life, he falls helplessly in love for the very first time. He also finds himself in an accidental friendship with Bridget’s belligerent and self-pitying younger brother who has cerebral palsy. Suddenly, Jesse is visiting old folks at a nursing home in order to run into Bridget, and offering his time to help the less fortunate, all the while developing a bond with this young man who idolizes him. Could the tin man really have a heart after all?
I really enjoyed this book! Sway was such an arsehole to literally everyone he came in contact with - like this Rasputin / Machiavelli / Vicomte de Valmont hybrid. This was sold to me as a Cyrano de Bergerac story, but I don't remember CdB being such a wanker. Maybe I'm misremembering? Anyway, this book was a whole lot more fun (I quite like an offensive MC - see my review of Monsters by Emerald Fennell).
The political machinations of high school were probably a bit more over the top than they are in real life - I doubt principals really go around asking pupils to plant drugs in lockers - but it was written convincingly. I loved how Jesse developed over the course of the book and how he tried desperately to convince himself that he wasn't in love with Bridgit. And also how he became friends with Bridgit's brother and the guy at the nursing home.
The only thing I don't get was the original cover - it's a kissy-kissy cover, like a boy-next-door summer romance novel, which it assuredly isnot. If you picked this book up on the basis of the original cover I can see you'd be a bit disappointed.
4 stars