10 queer YA books to add to your TBR this Pride Month

Love & Other Natural Disasters – Misa Sugiura

Misa Sugiura, author of It’s Not Like It’s a Secret and This Time Will Be Different is back with her spin on fake dating schemes and the meaning of true love with Love & Other Natural Disasters.

Nozomi Nagai is your typical love-obsessed teenage girl, ready to find her summer romance and forget about the crush back home who turned her down.

When she meets Willow, the seemingly perfect girl heartbroken over her ex, everything seems to be lining up–except that Willow doesn’t want to date for real. She wants to pretend to be a couple in order to make her ex, Arden, jealous and win her back.

Nozomi is happy enough just to be close to Willow, but as she gets to know Arden’s girlfriend, Dela, things get more complicated. Could Nozomi have been mistaken about the meaning of love all along?

Love & Other Natural Disasters is perfect for fans of fake dating tropes and rom-coms looking for something new. As a bonus, read our full interview with the author where she discusses romantic archetypes and what it means to sometimes have to compromise love.

The official synopsis reads:

"When Nozomi Nagai pictured the ideal summer romance, a fake one wasn’t what she had in mind. That was before she met the perfect girl. Willow is gorgeous, glamorous, and…heartbroken? And when she enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi is a willing volunteer. Because Nozomi has a master plan of her own: one to show Willow she’s better than a stand-in, and turn their fauxmance into something real. But as the lies pile up, it’s not long before Nozomi’s schemes take a turn toward disaster…and maybe a chance at love she didn’t plan for."

Love & Other Natural Disasters is available now wherever books are sold.