By Dahlia Adler

“Hot on the heels of a broken heart, Everett ‘Evie’ Riley arrives at Camden Academy ready for a new beginning – one far away from her cheating ex-boyfriend, the sister who stole him, and the best friend who let it happen. But her fresh start is stopped in its tracks when she’s accidentally placed in an all-boys dorm, with no choice but to stay. When rumors and gossip about Evie’s housing predicament spread like wildfire, she decides the only way to survive is to lean into her questionable new reputation… but she’s definitely going to require help. Her grumpy emo dorm mate Salem Grayson isn’t exactly her first choice, but he does need her help to repair his relationship with his parents every bit as much as she needs his to learn how to be cool. And so they make a pact – he’ll teach her how to be bad, if she teaches him how to be good. It’s a flawless plan, except while Salem thrives academically, even romantically, and – annoyingly enough – even physically, Evie’s quest feels like one dead end after another, and the girl she’s becoming certainly doesn’t feel remotely cool. But when Evie realizes what she wants more than anything, she’ll have to contend with her thrice-broken heart and figure out how to become someone capable of chasing happiness. Dahlia Adler’s Come As You Are is about refusing to accept less than you deserve, and realizing that the best relationships are with people who know exactly who you are…” (Goodreads).

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC of this book, to be officially released in May of 2025. This was my first time using NetGalley, so it was super fun to be one of the first to experience this one. It was definitely an enjoyable and fun little rom-com with interesting characters and great character growth. Without further ado, my review:

Come As You Are takes place in a fancy boarding school after the main character transfers due to unfortunate events in her family and social life. The MC realizes that she was accidentally placed in a boy’s dorm – and forced to stay there? This was my one major problem with the book – the school didn’t even try to solve the issue, and instead left her to live with a bunch of guys who were not shy about declaring their less-than-noble intentions with women. I thought that was strange, and brought up way too much (students were constantly teasing Evie about it but she just let it go as if it made her cooler to be the bad girl who lived with guys… that brings me to my second biggest problem with the book, which you’ll find in the content warnings section).

The rest of the story line was actually pretty fun though. I’ve always loved boarding school books that follow the daily lives of the students and all of their shenanigans – and plenty of shenanigans were had. While mostly unrealistic, the character’s emotions and reactions were relatable. I also enjoyed Evie’s character arc, learning to forgive and move on from her past.

I really enjoyed Dahlia Adler’s style and Evie’s unique voice, sarcastic quips and banter with every character. The pace was a little inconsistent – some scenes barely moved the story forward at all, and others contained very sudden character growth or revelation.

The characters weren’t super realistic, but they were so much fun! Everyone had their own unique personality. No character was just the mean girl or just the heartthrob – everyone had so many facets to their individual stories. It added so much realism that when the characters all came together, you could see yourself joking along with the friend group.

The main love interest was interesting, but I didn’t like some of the decisions he made that they tried to play off as romantic or “okay” – such as his choice to hook up with another character while waiting for Evie. Excuse me? That’s not the ‘little wrinkle’ in the love story that you think it is.

I was also confused about the character’s ages. On one hand, their stupid decisions made sense for most of them being high school sophomores and juniors. However, the amount of drinking/drugs/hooking up they were doing seemed a lot heavier than real-life high -schoolers do. Maybe I missed something when I was their age, but they were all so needlessly focused on those activities. Again, see my content warning for my thoughts on this.

I would give Come as You Are 3.5 stars. It was an entertaining rom-com with interesting characters, but not very realistic at some points. I’d recommend this for fans of the genre – but to complete my mission on this site I have to say that I would not recommend for a Christian audience (see content warnings for why).