The only other book I've read prior to The Art of Lainey was Paula Stokes/Fiona Paul's other YA series Venom. I've only read the first one so far, but I loved it. After seeing all the awesome remarks about The Art of Lainey, I had pretty high expectations for it, and I am glad to tell you that they were indeed met!

The Plot: After Lainey's boyfriend breaks up with her out of nowhere, Lainey and her best friend, Bianca, devise a plan to win him back with the help of General War Master, Sun Tzu. After reading and thoroughly studying the words of the thousand year old strategist, Lainey feels ready to attack her opponent. However, the first part of her plan doesn't go as smoothly as she hoped when she finds Jason in a lip lock with one of his coworkers. Bianca decides that the best way to throw Jason off guard is for Lainey to date someone else. After confronting a coworker at the Cafe, Lainey persuades Micah to go on fake dates with her. She tells him that if he helps her, she'll help him get back his ex-girlfriend, Amber too. It's a win-win situation for the both of them. Except things don't go exactly as they were planned. After some failed attempts, things are looking a little hopeless for Lainey, until Jason reaches out and apologizes, asking her if they can meet up sometime. Lainey is overjoyed that things might be looking up for her except for the small fact that her relationship with Micah is starting to feel real. Torn between someone completely opposite from her but understanding and her "perfect" boyfriend who she always thought she would marry, Lainey is forced to take a stand while discovering who she really is.
Let me say that there is no love triangle in this novel at all. I repeat no love triangle, so don't be worried! Also, if you're afraid that this will be cliché, I can assure you right now that it is not. In fact, this is probably one of the most unique novels I've read this year. I love how Paula Stokes incorporated The Art of War into the plot and how she took the rules and transformed them into a modern day "battle" plan. I have never read The Art of War before either, but the way Paula wrote it is easy to follow for those who are not familiar with it.

The characters: When you first meet Lainey, she's not the most like able person. She comes off as slightly snobbish with a holier than thou attitude seen in her first conversation with Micah. However, I easily warmed up to her as she developed throughout the story. As she and Micah became closer, Lainey underwent some self discovery as to who she really is and who she was pretending be for her friends and boyfriend. I loved how the girl at the end of the novel was such a contrast to the girl we first met, showing how much she truly changed. Micah was probably my favorite character in the entire book. My, was he swoony. I'll just leave it at that or else I'll never stop. Bianca was an awesome best friend. Lainey could always count on her to be there. On the other hand, I didn't like Jason very much or Kendall at all. Although Jason did tried to win Lainey back (very poorly might I add), he could never beat Micah. Also, I extremely disliked Kendall. She only did things for her own gain and was so controlling over Lainey. Let's just say that she was not a good person.

Overall, The Art of Lainey was an amazing read with a great plot and fantastic characters. All fans of contemporary YA romance needs to read this. It is easily one of my favorite YA romances I've read this year. ( )

This was an easy read, and it was appealing. I bought this as a kindle daily deal and thought I'd give it a shot. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I liked Lainey's growth-I felt it was a natural progression and moved fairly quickly, which I appreciated. I have no patience for too much angst and drama. While this book had it, it didn't seem tedious or too much to me. It felt light hearted and I love happy endings :-) I would give it 3.5 stars. ( )

The Art of Lainey was so original! Using a classic book such as: The Art of War to win over your ex seems pretty… out there. However I loved seeing Lainey and her best friend Bianca going over the book and creating strategies to win over Lainey’s ex; it was quirky and fun.

At first I thought I would hate this book because I couldn’t really believe Lainey. Her boyfriend dumps her in a very mean and callous way, and she wants to win him back? Why? Because her life was perfect with him in it? But then, thanks to Lainey’s awesome best friend, her parents, and Micah… well Lainey learned to grow throughout the novel.

Speaking of, I was so impressed with the way the female friendship was in this book! Bianca was so supportive of Lainey, however she wasn’t afraid of telling her if she thought Lainey was wrong.

[Lainey] “I don’t even know who I would be without him.”
“You would be my amazing friend, Lainey,” Bee says.

She had an amazing relationship with her parents, too. Her mom was always so honest with Lainey and always gave her great advice. She even made me laugh sometimes when she came up with quirky ways to give Lainey advice. Even Lainey’s brother, who wasn’t even physically present in the book, was so supportive for her via emails and texts.

What made this romance so fun to read was the fact that Micah and Lainey had to fake date each other. They both have some misconceptions about each other and seeing them discover that these weren’t true was so cute!

Micah is seen as a bad boy because he has piercings and a Mohawk. But GOSH he is so not what everybody believes! And I am so happy that he got to show his side. He was so funny and cute and actually really helpful to Lainey’s journey of self discovery. (Also, there's a novella about Micah called Infinite Repeat which I am DYING for.)

Micah and Lainey’s interactions were so lovely and smile inducing! Even as a fake couple they had loads of more chemistry than Lainey and her ex.

I really like how the story was paced and that Lainey had really amazing character growth. The Lainey at the beginning of the book is a completely different person from the Lainey at the end. I loved seeing her change and grow throughout.

Overall this is a book about much more than strategizing to win back someone’s ex. It’s about a girl’s journey to self-discovery, with wonderful friendships, cute romantic situations, and a swoony male interest. ( )

Lainey Mitchell had a great junior year, her summer is off to an epic start, and senior year promises to be all that she could want: co-captain of the soccer team, student body vice-president, and maybe even homecoming queen beside her long-time boyfriend Jason. And then, out of the blue, Jason shows up at the coffee shop where Lainey works, and dumps her. Lainey is not about to take this lying down. With the help of her best friend Bianca and an ancient Chinese warlord, Lainey devises a plan. That's right: she decides to take her cues from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. She teams up with Micah, a male coworker who has also recently been dumped, and together the two scheme to make their exes jealous and, hopefully, win them back. But just when Lainey's plan seems to be working, she must decide: does she still want to win this battle?

This is a cute, fairly typical YA romance. I picked it up because of the premise (The Art of War? Really?) which worked pretty well. It's going to be obvious to readers from the start that Lainey's boyfriend is a jerk and Micah is the guy she ought to end up with, but romance novels are all about watching how two characters end up together, so major plot twists are not required if the story is good. I think this will appeal to readers who love YA romance -- for me, it was an okay read, but not a great one. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark of Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: An adorable story that started out a little rough for me but totally came through in the end! I would highly recommend this if you are looking for a cute coming of age story with great romance!

Opening Sentence: Maybe if I’d paid more attention to my mom and her tea leaves, I would have seen it coming.

The Review:

Lainey Mitchell has been anticipating the summer before senior year for a long while now. Her best friend is gone to a modeling competition in New York and she has to work at her parent’s coffee/bakery shop, but she also gets to spend some quality time with her long time boyfriend, Jason. But then all of the sudden Jason breaks up with her for no reason at her parent’s coffee shop. She can’t believe that after being together for more than two years he would just throw their whole relationship away. This isn’t just about Lainey’s broken heart on the line, if she doesn’t get Jason back it will ruin all her plans for her senior year of high school. With the help of her friend Bianca they come up with a sure fire plan to get Jason back from using the book The Art of War.

They strategically put together operation get Jason back into action by recruiting spies and making her co-worker, Micah, her new pretend boyfriend. After going on a few planned dates where they are sure to been seen by Jason, Lainey feels like the plan might actually be working. But soon she starts to have real feelings towards Micah and she’s not sure what to do about it. Does she get back together with the boy that is her perfect match and she has a history with? Or does she embark on a new journey with a boy that seems all wrong for her, but feels right to her?

To be honest, I found Lainey really annoying at first. She was so overdramatic about her breakup. Yes, I realize that she has been with the guy for a really long time, but it’s obvious to the reader that he is a total douchebag. I really didn’t understand why she would want to get back together with a guy that treated her so badly. But somewhere while I was reading the book I realized that even though I knew her ex was a jerk, Lainey hadn’t come to that conclusion yet. She still thought he was the perfect guy for her and no matter what anyone else said she wasn’t going to change her mind. The way she acted reminded me of why no parent can ever choose who their child wants to date or marry. Not only would they usually choose poorly, it isn’t their choice to make. People have to choose for themselves who they want to be with and no one can tell them otherwise. Yes, you should take into consideration what others opinions are but ultimately you have to make the choice yourself. Once I looked at Lainey’s situation differently, I really started to understand her better and I ended up really liking her in the end. Yes, she makes some dumb decisions, but overall she is a really sweet girl that just needed to discover who she was and what she really wanted in life.

Micah is hands down the best part about this book! I loved his sense of style and how he doesn’t care what other people think about him. I love that even though he is rough around the edges and comes across as a bad boy he is actually a total sweetheart. I love that he works hard to take care of his mom and sister. My list of things I love about him could go on and on! His relationship with Lainey is totally adorable and even though they are polar opposites in many ways, they really are perfect for each other. It was fun to watch them become friends and then their friendship turn into something more. As I said before, Micah was my favorite thing in this story and he has become one of my favorite book boys!

The Art of Lainey really took me by surprise in a good way. I am going to be honest, for about the first 100 pages I was pretty bored with the story. I didn’t really like any of the characters and it was really slow paced for me, but once I hit a certain point in the book I literally couldn’t put it down. It went from being just an ok read to an amazing one. I ended up loving the characters and the message delivered was inspirational. In many ways this was a coming of age book and I really enjoyed watching the characters evolve into better people. The romance was adorable and developed perfectly. Overall, this was a very entertaining read and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cute young adult contemporary read with a great message!

Notable Scene:

“So what? You got klutzy all of a sudden?”

“You really want to know?” He glances sideways at me.

My heart thuds against my rib cage. Maybe I don’t want to know. No, I do. Knowledge is power. Not sure if I got that from Sun Tzu, but I know he’d be down with the idea. “Yeah. I want to know.”

Micah is looking straight ahead again, staring out through the smudgy windshield. “The way you touched my hair. It kind of . . . turned me on.”

I make a sharp, bitter sound, part laugh and part bark. “I don’t believe you,” I say. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you’re not into me. That’s the whole reason our little arrangement works.” For a second, I consider telling him about the way I felt at The Devil’s Doorstep, that some part of me is attracted to him. But no, I’ve endured enough humiliation for now. I don’t need to add more rejection to the night’s list of disasters.

Micah doesn’t say anything. His fingers tap out an imaginary beat on the Civic’s steering wheel. “I never thought of you as my type,” he says finally. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not hot.”

FTC Advisory: HarperTeen provided me with a copy of The Art of Lainey. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )