Love If I'm Pretty

by Lakambini A. Sitoy

Lia, fourteen years old and mourning the death of her mother, is stuck in a coastal town, where life goes on amid a pandemic. Her classmate Charlie is strangely different. Lia stalks him, then befriends him. Soon she must choose between him and Shadow, her online boyfriend from a role-play game. But is Charlie really the beautiful boy Lia imagines him to be?

Lia must navigate the world of the game, the cruelty of school, her difficult relationship with her father and the puzzling, conflicting memories of her mother.

Love If I’m Pretty’s themes include gender identity, bullying, online presence and emerging sexuality.

Paperback

Published March 30, 2026

About the author

Lakambini Sitoy is the author of two collections of short stories, Mens Rea (1998) and Jungle Planet (2005), published in Manila. Sweet Haven is published in French by Albin Michel. Sitoy was the recipient of the David TK Wong Fellowship at the University of East Anglia, UK in 2003. Her handling of difficult themes such as sexuality, identity and race relations through fiction and journalism has won her respect and awards in the Philippines. She is currently completing a master’s degree in Cultural Encounters at Roskilde University, Denmark. Her work has appeared in the US, the UK and Europe.

From here.

Reviews

[Paula M · Rating 4 out of 5]

you can watch my full review here!

Love if I’m Pretty follows 13 year old Lia during the COVID 19 pandemic as she deals with the loss of her mother. After moving from the city to her father's hometown in the province, she struggles to adjust to a new life, new people, and a version of herself she no longer recognizes. She escapes through an online role playing game called Rescue Me. Somewhere along the way, she becomes fascinated with a classmate named Charlie, to the point of stalking them.

For a book with such a cute cover, this story is anything but cute. And I mean that as the highest compliment! This is easily one of my favorite reads of the year because of how beautifully it was written, how relevant it feels, and the emotional roller coaster it took me on.

I would even go as far as saying that this is one of the darkest and scariest books I have read in recent memory. Not because it is horror, but because it feels so real. The way Lia was written felt incredibly authentic. The awkwardness of puberty, the desperate need to be liked, the intensity of having a crush, the vulnerability that comes with being that age, and the confusion around identity and attraction all felt painfully honest. There were so many moments that made me uncomfortable because they were so believable.

This is such a well written book as well with so many complex and realistic layers. It never tries to simplify its characters or their emotions. It just lets them exist in all their messiness. The last few chapters were especially difficult to get through. There were moments when I wanted to cover my eyes, but at the same time I felt like I had to keep reading because, sadly, this is reality. These are things that happen, and I think stories like this deserve to be told.

This is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish it. I already know I will be thinking about it for a long time!!

[thisbookbelongstopam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25★

A novel that quietly and subtly twists your heart, Love If I’m Pretty challenges you to confront the vulnerability of children through a cautionary but hopeful tale that we’ve all seen and heard before.

Lia is a fourteen-year old teen grappling with the immense changes in her life: the death of her mother, the aftermath of the pandemic, and being uprooted from her life in the city to a small seaside town with her father. She finds solace in the online game ‘Rescue Me’ where she can play pretend to be someone else—femme fatale, cutesy idol, girl next door. Then she meets Charlie who upends what she knows and believes about gender identity and self-expression.

Don’t be fooled by the adorable cover, this novel is intimate and emotionally heavy. Within Lia’s mind is a constant need for validation. She wants to be known but she doesn’t quite know herself just yet so she overcompensates by seeking out artificial validation.

Supposing she lost weight and stopped wearing her glasses and cut her hair. Supposing she got new clothes. Supposing she changed. Was it possible for her to be pretty—really actually pretty—and not just the recipient of other people's polite, transactional comments? Would she get a hundred Loves on her photos then? Would someone actually love her?

While in this stage of vulnerability, Lia is exposed to an Internet landscape rife with bullying, judgement and predators. I’m sure this is familiar territory to most of us and that’s what makes her a relatable character.

Lakambini Sitoy writes about the mundanity of Lia’s life, choosing to obscure the darker themes in between the lines. When you get to the last two chapters, the story rears it’s ugly head and assaults you with the truth it’s been hiding all along. My brain immediately reframed every single interaction, conversation, and commentary and it crushed me emotionally. This is a story that will surely haunt me for a while.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

booktube / bookstagram / storygraph

[Dom Duq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Lakambini Sitoy set that up so sneakily and patiently, and I think it worked fine. At the same time, it wasn’t exactly shocking because she carefully planted enough hints and emotional highs, choosing instead to let the story linger in its slow, meditative moments. That restraint effectively conceals what’s coming while making the final blow feel genuinely earned. Hell, I wasn’t expecting anything that big from it, and yet here I am, swept away by the emotions that blanketed Lia and Charlie in the book’s final pages.

It explores themes of gender identity while treating them as something natural rather than overly saccharine. I loved that because those themes don’t solely drive the story but instead make its character study even more resonant. I also loved how honestly she captured teenage love, with all its messy, awkward, and vulnerable moments that teenagers often deny despite how universal they are. At least, they were for me and almost everyone I know.

This deserves far more traction than it’s received.

[Erika Collene · Rating 3 out of 5]

was fooled by the cute cover 🫨
i thought this was just a book about a girl navigating her highschool life thru crushes and i have never been so wrong

the last few chapters were so dark and suspenseful, i just feel like the buildup was too slow on the first chapters

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first i thought the story was going nowhere but the plot twist was gaggy. I think it was just too late in the story.

[sab · Rating 3 out of 5]

damn those last few pages.. dont be fooled with the cover the story is dark as hell 😭

[tin · Rating 4 out of 5]

goodreads ain't enough. i wrote my review on medium: https://notoriousmumbler.medium.com/s...