It Was Just a Like (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781971734040)

It was supposed to be nothing.

Just a tap on a screen. Just a heart on a story. Just a like.

But in a school where screenshots travel faster than explanations, one small moment spirals into rumors, silence, and assumptions no one meant to make.

When Evan likes Maya's post, he doesn't expect it to turn into anything more. But as messages are misread, conversations go unspoken, and other people start filling in the blanks, what felt harmless begins to feel complicated. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion-and no one is actually talking to each other.

Told through rotating points of view, It Was Just a Like explores how relationships form, fracture, and repair in a world shaped by phones, group chats, and social pressure. With humor, honesty, and emotional realism, the story captures what it's like to navigate crushes, friendships, and misunderstandings when everything feels public and permanent.

This is a story about:

• Overthinking something small

• Wanting to protect yourself-and hurting someone anyway

• Learning when silence makes things worse

• And discovering that showing up, face to face, can still matter most

Written for middle school and high school readers, It Was Just a Like is a thoughtful, relatable novel about communication, empathy, and growing up in a digital world-where not everything means what it seems, and sometimes the hardest thing to do is simply say what you feel.