Sadly I had trouble connecting with the characters and it affected my overall reading experience. I would be interested in reading more from the author in future though.

Riley is a cornerstone of contemporary YA and I am a huge fan of their other books. Final Draft has a strong start, but turns into more of a focus on the writing and as a result not as much character development as their other books. I wanted more from the fledgling romance, and more from the side characters. It has great representation and is an enjoyable read.

For the first 2/3 of this book, I was sure it was going to be a 5-star read. Queer romance? An aspiring writer who's too hard on herself? Obsessive, unhealthy student=teacher relationship? I was in. Tonally it reminded me of Nina LaCour's We Are Okay, which I really enjoyed.

Unfortunately, the last 1/3 went off the rails for me. Many of the elements introduced (the fight, her crush, the bear??) went nowhere, and even the intriguing elements like Laila's writing aspirations and the character of Nazarenko seemed to fall away with no resolution. It's a shame, as the start of the book promises a fun queer romance, and a light-hearted (but still serious) journey of self-discovery for a young writer. That's not quite what the reader gets though. Still, there were lots of elements I enjoyed, and I would read more from Riley Redgate. I just think the last 1/3 could have been better edited.

Final Draft was a journey from start to finish and was everything a book should be. But as much as I liked it, I also disliked it. It's incredibly unique and wonderful, yet made me want to put it down multiple times. There were a lot of descions the character made that made me uncomfortable and nervous for her. I'm glad I read it though, because I definitely learned much from her own experiences. I also now want to write a story about the hidden adventures in deep galaxies.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection on preorder and will recommend it to students.

This was such an unexpected read and one of the best 'quiet books' I have read in a long long time. I loved this, and am so glad that I read it. I loved the writing style, poignant and relatively simple. It was emotional and also diverse.

This was really good!! I enjoyed every page of this one and I found the characters to feel real. I loved the story and wished it never ended!

I requested this book because, as a writer myself, I liked the concept. I’m very glad I did! This was an original story that stands out amongst other YA.

Read Nov 18

This one was amazing! I love reading books about writers and this one is one of the best! I love Laila! She was so relatable in her obsessiveness, her lack of confidence and just ahh! The representation was amazing – Laila was biracial Ecuadorian who describes herself as pansexual (brief fist-pump yes! Moment), one friend is Brazilian, and another is a Korean lesbian! It just makes my heart sing.

I also loved Laila’s relationship with her teacher, it was so sweet the way he supported her unconditionally. I appreciate that Nazarenko encouraged her to push herself but her behaviour within that worried me, especially the way she cut her friends off. I did love the ending though! Squee!

Book Review

Title: Final Draft

Author: Riley Redgate

Genre: YA/Contemporary/LGBT/Romance

Rating: ***

Review: I have tried reading Riley Redgate’s newest book several times and after reading Noteworthy & Seven Ways We Lie and loving both I had high expectations for this book. The first time I tried reading this I abandoned it about halfway through, several months on I have decided to give Laila another chance, but I am currently 85 pages in and there is only a single line that I have really enjoyed, so it wasn’t looking good for this book. The friendship dynamic between the characters is great and I really like the characters, but nothing is happening at the moment.


As we cross into the second half of the novel, Laila is coming out of her shell very slowly but only because her new creative writing teacher is a published author and tells her that in order to write good work, she must experience the same emotions and activities as her characters, within reason of course and Laila really takes this to heart. However, she does keep in touch with Mr, Madison even after his accident and through his physical therapy. Laila continues to gain some new experience including but not limited to getting her first fake ID, going to a club and getting her first make out session. While these are all great experiences for Laila as a character, this night out is the most exciting thing to happen in the novel so far.

Watching Laila discover new things that every teenager discovers at some point was interesting for someone so focused and reserved and there was one scene that was beautifully written in the most realistic fashion despite the very slow start I was actually starting to get into Final Draft. With less than 100 pages left, I wasn’t really sure how Riley Redgate could pull out the punches, she has with her other novels. Seeing Laila slowly shed her anxieties to become more like her friends was wonderful as she becomes her own person. However, when Laila experiences betrayal and heartbreak for the first time and despite not loving her as a character I really wanted to give her a hug, but this is the first of many painful experiences Laila will go through as she gets older.

When faced with a new challenge Laila feels like her whole universe has been turned upside down but what worries her the most is getting a passing grade in creative writing which seems like a very weak character motivation to me, personally. When Laila’s world is torn apart, she ends up taking a dive off the deep end just like most people would in this situation if they were in her shoes. I did feel, however, that because Laila wasn’t exposed to these situations, she has developed any coping mechanisms for these situations and given everything she has gone through I am very worried for her.

As we cross into the final section of the novel, Laila is working harder and harder to achieve perfection and she has yet to realise that perfect doesn’t exist. However, in her quest to be perfect she is shutting everyone else out which results in a huge argument between her and her best friend, Hannah, which is unheard of for this pair. The ending of Final Draft was interesting as we see several elements touched upon finally flourish. While Final Draft isn’t my favourite book by Riley Redgate, it was well worth the read as she explores teen pressures, sexuality and one girl’s journey to find herself.

It's clear that the narrator is smart, witty with some dry humour, but the messiness of the book and lack of plot made me lose interest. There were definitely some gems in some of the thoughts and feelings that she had especially as a 18 year old girl with anxiety and perfectionism when it comes to her writing. However this wasn't enough to hold up the book for me, particularly when we reached the ending and I was like huh?

I enjoyed the f/f romance in here when it comes to Laila and her best friend Hannah, and the confusing thoughts that they had for each other as they explored it throughout high school.

The new teacher Nasarenko who is a best-selling author felt like such a villain character who was meant to drive the growth of Laila's writing and I'm not sure if she really did in the end? It was like she was mean for no apparent reason.

Laila is my idol! I love books about young authors, as they allow me to live out fantasies of a world where I actually chase my dreams, and Final Draft was a perfect read. Loved it!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, I didn’t have many preconceptions going it, but I was definitely pleasantly surprised!
The first thing to note, and one of the things I liked the most about the book is the representation! Laila is fat, pansexual, biracial, and it has a f/f romance, what more could you ask for! I definitely want to read more Riley Redgate books after this because it blew me away not just with content but with the representation and the portrayal of the protagonist.
I found the story to be really relatable. On a personal level, as a writer (although I’m no longer in high school I did as a high school student too), but also in terms of her experiences. I think there’s already a slight degree of unrealisticness with storylines which is what makes them exciting (I know personally if my high school life was in a book everyone would fall asleep reading it!). However, Riley Redgate managed to add excitement and an interesting plot whilst also keeping the fundamentals of characters and relationships realistic and relatable.
It was great to read a f/f romance, because I don’t think many make the mainstream, it’s not that there aren’t written just not talked about enough. I think that Laila and Hannah’s relationship was so beautifully written, I just couldn’t get enough of it. The story was told so skilfully it made it so easy to read and so easy to get invested in, and the characters were so complex and well developed. For so many reasons, I couldn’t put it down at all!

Final Draft by Riley Redgate is a bit of a strange story. It hits all different themes – loss, ambition, lgbt awareness, academia but I just don’t feel that they necessarily married up to make a great story.

If I am honest, Final Draft isn’t been my favourite book by Riley Redgate. I think Laila’s insecurities became tiresome too quickly and then the story dragged for me. The best part of her story was the relationship with her writing teacher but even then the resolution for that relationship seemed to peter away and I felt that there was a lack of resolution.

Final Draft was a ‘pass the time’ book. It didn’t change my life but it entertained me for a few hours.

Final Draft by Riley Redgate is available now.

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I loved Redgate's first book so much, but this was just a little too "meta" for me and I struggled with it. I will definitely try her future books as I am a huge fan of hers in general.

I did not finish this book and, therefore, will not be formally reviewing it on my blog or on Goodreads. I appreciated seeing a heroine with anxiety, but I did not like the story itself enough to continue. Thanks so much to the publisher!

Reading through this novel, I was conflicted. I loved the storyline and how the main character was a writer. I also really loved the main character but I hated the new teacher and how some people were so pushy with Laila. Regardless of those issues, it was a likable story and I enjoyed it for the most part. I feel a lot of teens and young adults will like this story.

I really wanted to fall in love with this book, but there were a few things preventing that for me.
While I enjoyed certain aspect of it very much - particularly the romance and the emphasis on writing - other things seemed way to odd and didn't make much sense to me.
I was confused by the new teacher and her villian-ness. Many times I just didn't have a clue what the point was about many things.
The writing felt choppy just like the plot, so I wasn't a huge fan of this one.

Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

I love books where characters are writers themselves. Half of this book was what I thought it was going to be while the other half was not. I enjoyed the balance of Laila and her writes and her personal/school life. We meet Laila at school talking about her epic sci-fi world she is writing with her teacher, Mr. Madison. When suddenly he is replaced with Nadiya Nazarenko (a famous writer.) and we see how that plays out along with all the different relationships.

I loved the scenes where we were writing and talking about writing because of her passion for it. The relationship between her and her teacher Mr. Madison was one of my favorite parts, I can see how some people would like this part of the book, or believe that this relationship wasn't appropriate to a teaching student relationship, but I didn't see that. What I read was a girl who has a passion for writing and a teacher who wanted to help, there was no crossing lines or anything wrong that happened between them. I liked how this book shows two very different kinds of teaches, and how every teacher has there own ways of teaching.

The friends in the group weren't my favorite friend group of all time, but I did enjoy how they grow and change through these pages. Laila's family was also a huge page of this book, however at first I thought her sister was going to be a huge main, side character because she was a huge part of the start of this book, then she fades to the back the boom, she's back making a difference.

This is a very strong, coming of age story where Laila's finding out who she is, who she wants to be, and who she likes. I did like that there was a slow building romance of f/f relationship.

The Fandom in the book was AMAZING! I get a joy reading about people who love something with a passion in this book there was a book series and TV show that played a huge role in these characters lives. It made the book feel more real because I know what it is like to be crazy for a book series or show that brings you and your friends together. I liked seeing that in this book, those were some of my favorite parts of this story.

I did have a few problems with this book but the main part that I didn't like was that one, a lot of people were telling Laila that she was going to look at and regret so much in her life. I do enjoy books that tell people to take chances and have fun but this book made it sound like Laila isn't happy because she doesn't do these crazy teen stuff. And second, the teachers, mostly the new one, telling her that she has to go out that do stuff, to be able to be a good writer and that she will never be able to write a powerful story without doing that stuff. Witch pushes Laila to drink, do drugs and pull away from her friends. I don't believe that you have to do all these crazy things to be able to write good stories.

Overall, this was a good story that deals with many important topics that I like to see rep in books like, queer, racial diversity, body image, mental illness, female sexuality. This was a quick read that did make me cry and made me smile, I like to believe that Laila not only grows to love herself but became a world famous author.