Rowena’s review of A Kiss by Design (Kiss & Tell #1) by Christy Hayes.

What’s a girl to do when her best friend is making a mistake? Stop him, of course. College sophomore Emily Dilbert has been best friends with Dylan Chamberlain since they were kids. All she wants is for him to be happy and she knows him better than anyone. That’s why when she finds an engagement ring in his backpack she has to stop him from marrying the wrong girl. Dylan Chamberlain has been in love with his brother’s girlfriend, Emily, since the second grade. When his brother asks for help planning a surprise proposal, Dylan knows it’s time to bury his feelings and finally let Emily go. Too bad his heart refuses to cooperate. All of Emily’s attempts to lure Dylan away from his girlfriend fail, forcing her to turn up the heat on their friendship. Will Dylan reveal his long-buried secret and tell Emily how he feels? Or will Emily be forced to use any means necessary to show him the error of his ways?

When Emily finds an engagement ring in her best friend Dylan’s backpack, she’s understandably shocked. I mean, who wouldn’t be when your best friend couldn’t possibly be that serious enough to propose marriage. It’s madness and Emily sets about trying to make sure her best friend doesn’t make the biggest mistake of his life by marrying the wrong girl.

Let me start off by saying that I did enjoy this book but there were quite a few things that drove me bonkers while reading it. Let’s start with Emily sending THREE different girls to try to bait Dylan? I thought that was a bit excessive and if Dylan was her best friend, why couldn’t she just ask him herself? Why all the plotting and other crap that shouldn’t exist between best friends, especially since Dylan was holding that engagement ring for his brother, EMILY’S BOYFRIEND. So while Emily is trying to maneuver her way to some answers (backasswards, if you ask me), Dylan is trying to come to terms with his feelings for Emily. They’ve been best friends since they were kids and Dylan has had feelings for Emily for a long time. The timing was never right for them and now that she’s with his brother, and Zack is about to propose to her, Dylan knows that it’s time to give her up for good.

I really liked Dylan. He was sweet and was such a good friend to Emily that I thought he deserved more from Emily. And from Zack. He was wracked with guilt over hurting anyone and that endeared him to me so much. He was such a stand up guy that I was rooting for him from the very beginning. I would have chosen him over Zack every single time but sometimes you gotta go through some shit to get to the bottom of how you really feel and Dylan and Emily really did go through it all in this one.

I would have liked this book more if there was less of Emily and her friend’s shenanigans and more about the blossoming relationship between Emily and Dylan. I felt that all of the crap that Emily and her friends were doing took away from my enjoyment of the book. I thought it was silly and wanted Emily to be straight up with Dylan and ask him what the hell was going on. I wanted to see more of them developing a stronger bond that came from loving your best friend. And then there was Zack. I knew he was getting his own book when he started crushing on his tutor and I thought he was an asshole with the way that he handled the news of Dylan and Emily but in the end, alls well that ends well so I was able to get over that.

In the end, everything came together and while I was glad for it, I hoped it would happen a lot faster than it did. But still, it was a good read.

Grade: 3 out of 5

This book is available from Christy Hayes. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.