If We Break Up

Book excerpt: Honey Blackwell’s high school sweetheart is getting on her nerves. Like everyone else in their small town, Luca thinks he and Honey should take over his family business and live happily ever after. Honey wants more. That’s why she secretly applied to her dream college in Colorado. When she gets in, Luca is devastated. After the biggest argument of their lives, Honey discovers a scientific journal that claims people find their true soul mate after being in five relationships. She poses this experiment to Luca, and soon they’ve made a pact to break up, go on five dates with different people, and then decide if they’re truly meant to be together forever. It’s science, after all, and science has never let Honey down. Finding people to date is awkward, exciting, and a little futile. None of Honey’s dates are soul mate material, which is starting to prove Luca’s hypothesis—that they are already soul mates. When the rest of STEM club comes down with food poisoning, Honey finds herself at the weekend science convention with Mason, her mortal enemy. Mason, the guy who also got into her dream college. The guy she just accidentally kissed. She likes him. But she loves Luca. As she struggles to choose between the picture-perfect future she already has and the temptation of the unknown, she learns that love isn’t a scientific equation. It’s a choice. And now Honey must make hers. Keywords: Young adult fiction, contemporary young adult, young adult romance, bestselling author, high school love story, breaking up, teen romance, teen fiction, small town romance, ya lit