I totally loved this book! I admit I'm a sucker for childhood friends who are in love with each other and they're too dense to realize that they both like each other. This one definitely became one of my favorites and it was a contemporary novel at that! Not a lot of those have ever been good enough to catch my attention and become favorites but every once in a while I stumble upon them and I'm glad I found this one. 
 Now, this story was well written, although I found myself wondering if the plot was going to be more center stage but it was more of a background thing-the whole deal about her mother's death and stuff- but it was more like Charlie growing and learning new things by the experiences she had at her first job and enjoying life with her 3 brothers and her neighbor Braden. Reading the story made me appreciate the sweet romance between Braden and Charlie cuz I knew they were going to end up together in the end, I mean duh it was pretty obvious with the way acted towards each other. On the other hand, it was frustrating to read all the different times when Charlie thought that she wasn't good enough for him- or rather Braden would never view her as a real girl much less as date material. 
 But it wasn't all about the romance, though at times it seemed like it was. There were also a lot of awesome family moments with her dad the cop and her 3 brothers, Gage, Jerom, and Nathan, and heck we'll throw Braden in the bunch since they all hung out together all the time anyway. I liked that the story showed how close they all were to each other and the little parts where her brothers showed how protective and proud they are of Charlie. They like to tease her or play sport games with her but they also had her back, too. It just showed the dynamic of friendships and how close they really were. It was a nice change of pace reading something like this. 
 The more interesting parts of Charlie's story was how she got the chance to explore new things because of her new job and she discovered a somewhat feminine side to her (basically she learned the balance between the sporty/outgoing and the beautiful/confident/inner self). Also, the romance part was well developed: there was no instalove, but a more slow romance between her and Braden, where they couldn't exactly tell their feelings for each other but the jealous was pretty obvious. Without spoiling too much, the ending where they confessed their feelings for each was so sweet and cute and perfect for each other. I totally liked that it was believable, this whole book was as a matter of fact. 
 I also found out that there are other contemporary novels by this author and they sound so interesting! Definitely looking forward to reading more books by Kasie West!