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

Meet Cute Diary – Emery Lee

Noah Ramirez is a hopeless romantic, but he also knows that teens like him don’t often get cast in the starring roles of his favorite rom-coms.

That’s why he’s been secretly running the Meet Cute Diary, a tumblr dedicated to creating the happily-ever-afters trans kids may otherwise never believe they could have.

There’s only one problem:  while his readers believe the MCD is real, it’s all an invention of Noah’s, and a troll has finally sniffed him out, threatening to expose the Diary and everything Noah has worked for.

When Noah meets Drew, a seemingly perfect guy who works at the local bookstore who agrees to be his fake boyfriend in order to help save the Diary, it seems like everything will be okay, especially because Noah knows that fake dating usually ends up becoming real.

But a chance encounter with someone from Noah’s past leads Noah to question what he really wants for himself and potentially put the future of the Diary at stake.

Meet Cute Diary is a perfect summer camp rom-com for fans of fake dating schemes looking for more trans representation in their stories. Additionally, you can read our full interview with the author where we discussed fanfiction tropes and the fun of meet-cutes.

The official synopsis reads:

"Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe. When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page. In this charming novel by Emery Lee, Noah will have to choose between following his own rules for love or discovering that the most romantic endings are the ones that go off script."

Meet Cute Diary is available now wherever books are sold.