You Started It

Better Than the Movies meets Olivia Rodrigo's Sour in a YA romance novel from Something More author, Jackie Khalilieh — now available in paperback!

Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster has big plans for senior year. She's made a list of things and places in Toronto she and her boyfriend of three years, Ben Cameron, need to check off before graduating. And the biggest plan of all: a very special night for the two of them at the upcoming Winter Formal. But then Ben arrives back home after a summer away with an unthinkable announcement: he wants to break up.

And when Jamie discovers him with Olivia Chen the next day, she is determined to get him back. Even if that means fake dating the younger, curly-haired, TikTok dancer Axel Dahini, whose bicycle she accidentally ran over.

Though she and Axel have nothing in common aside from their shared Arab heritage — she's a messy, type A with anxiety; he's carefree but meticulous — their forced time together brings them to better understand one another. And for Jamie, it just might mean learning that not all experiences or people need to be crossed off a list.

About the Author

JACKIE KHALILIEH is a Palestinian Canadian author who believes that young adult readers should have the option and freedom to read about evergreen issues facing teens in an authentic, positive way. Like many autistic women, she received her diagnosis as an adult.

Something More, her debut YA novel, was shortlisted for the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Award, as well as the Snow Willow Award and the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, and was selected for several Best Books of 2023 lists, including the New York Public Library and Audible Canada. You Started It received a starred review from SLJ and was a JLG Gold Standard Selection, as well as one of Indigo's Best Teen Books of 2025. She resides just outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband, two daughters, and Samoyed, Pearl.