Review: "As Long as You Loathe Me" by Swati Hegde

As Long as You Loathe Me by Swati Hegde
Published March 2026 via Delacorte
★★★★

Meera and Lucy were the best of friends...until Lucy abruptly ended their friendship and started dating Meera's crush. And now, in their senior year, Meera is determined to get back at Lucy...except that then things get more complicated.

I say this often, but the state of queer YA romance has come so far since I was a teenager. Here we get not just queer romance but one in which one of the heroines is Indian American, speaks multiple languages, has two fathers...and, better, though Lucy's mother is less than accepting, there's not really a villain here; it's mostly just the two girls figuring out how to be the people they want to be. It's still quite sad to me that Lucy feels a need to be so deep in the closet—the community seems largely accepting—but it's also unfortunately still realistic that family is the sticking point there. (I'm torn on the way she eventually comes out to her mother; on the one hand it's basically right after she says that she's not ready, and on the other hand...she's a teenager, so...)

This is a 3.5-star read for me, but I'm rounding up for diversity and lack of bad guys—in particular, I find the plotline with Sushant (Meera's neighbor and good friend; Lucy's boyfriend) to be really interesting. He gets kind of the short end of the stick out of this, but he still manages to be a decent person about it, and he has a role beyond "the one who wasn't the one".

Finally, one off-topic thing to note... If you're wait-listed at your dream school, don't just sit and wait to see what happens! Write to tell them that they're your top choice; send updated grades if they will strengthen your case; etc. Among other things, colleges want to know that the students they accept will in turn accept the offer, because that is a statistic that matters to colleges—so show them you're a strong bet for them. (And maybe a second thing...not illegal to photograph the Eiffel Tower at night; just illegal to then use those photos commercially.)

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.