My Sister's Best Friend

by Zoë Tavares Bennett

Vera's life changes forever when her sister's best friend, Aspen, shows up drunk at her doorstep one fateful night.

While Vera’s sister, Layla, likes to dance and party, Vera prefers to read a good book and stay in for the night. Layla and her best friend Aspen are the most popular girls at Hilltop High. Vera never had a boyfriend—she barely even had her first kiss. But when Layla and their parents leave for a dance competition, Aspen shows up drunk at her doorstep and changes everything.

Putting a twist on the familiar trope, My Sister’s Best Friend is a short and sweet, feel good story of first love, queer romance, and coming of age, which reached over 1.4 million views on Wattpad.

Genres: Romance, LGBT

166 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 24, 2023

About the author

Zoë is a writer based in Los Angeles, California. She is the author of the ancient Mediterranean mythology-inspired fantasy series The Realm of Emmeson, the historical novel The Sun of God set in Ancient Rome, and the YA romance novel My Sister’s Best Friend.

Zoë graduated from Williams College with a degree in Classics, specializing in Ancient Greek and Latin. She is a proud Centrista, having studied abroad in Rome at the Intercollegiate Center of Classical Studies. Aside from Greek and Latin, Zoë speaks Portuguese (being half-Portuguese herself), Spanish, and is learning Italian, German, and French. She is currently a graduate student in the Proto-Indo-European program at UCLA, interested in Homeric Greek and the mytho-poetic comparisons with Sanskrit.

For information on new releases and posts, sign up for Zoë’s newsletter on her author website.

Reviews

[Erica]

🩷 Best friend’s sister
🩷 YA romance
🩷 First love
🩷 High school setting

I don’t read YA nearly enough because I really loved this.

Aspen being best friends with Layla while secretly crushing on her older sister Vera is messy in the best way. Showing up drunk and having Vera take care of her… I was like 😳

YA always takes me back to that high school feeling and this did it so well. Everything felt soft, a little overwhelming, and very real.

Vera and Aspen were so cute together. The yearning, the small touches, being each other’s firsts in so many ways was so cute.

Young first love is something special and this captured it perfectly. Definitely recommend for a soft, slightly messy best friend’s sister romance 🥰

[Michelle]

Review originally on Biblioboard: This story unfortunately fell flat for me. There wasn't a satisfying amount of depth to the characters, and the main conflict - having to hide the relationship from the sister - didn't have enough time to build meaningful tension. It used the 'nerdy one and popular one fall in love' trope, but both characters being female didn't feel like 'a twist on the trope' given the amount of LGBTQ+ stories with greater depth currently available in YA.
Addition: This story is short and has a happy ending, which may be exactly what some people are looking for! However, in my profession, I would be more likely to recommend other YA LGBTQ+ reads.

[Dulaine Roode]

This was a fun read.

Aspen has had her eye on Vera fir a while. And Vera started noticing Aspen after she showed up at her house, very drunk. There was some jealous moments and more, but they figured out their mutual like of each other and started dating.

On to the next book to see what happens next.

[Jules ✌]

Cute short read. If the author had spent more time building the characters and plot and it would've been better. Wouldn't read again, but it's so short I wouldn't discourage someone else from reading it

[Lisa Elliott]

What a cute story.

I loved the characters and the storyline. Support the author’s books and make sure you leave your reviews.
Thank you for using Kindle Unlimited.

[Robin Ray]

This is a decent book and has its moments. Reading it wasn't a total waste of time.

It is WAY better than the sequel, "Best Friends and Their Exes", which has a weak plot, annoying characters, and no comic relief.

[L E]

I actually enjoyed this more than I expected. It’s short, cute, and the first‑love storyline was genuinely sweet.