S'more of You by Tessa Bailey Review — The Sweetest Camp Romance You'll Read All Summer
- Joao Nsita
- May 25
- 9 min read
The Opening Hook
Somewhere out there is a version of you that went to summer camp. Maybe you had a camp crush — someone who exasperated you all day at archery practice and then made you feel completely unmoored when they smiled at you across the bonfire at night. Tessa Bailey understands that version of you. In fact, she has been writing for that version of you her entire career.
Tessa Bailey is one of the most reliably joyful presences in contemporary romance. She writes banter that crackles, kisses that you feel in your chest, and characters who are so specifically, hilariously themselves that you cannot imagine them being played by anyone else. She has written heroines who throw pasta, heroes who drive trucks and deliver speeches that could stop traffic, and every conceivable variation of the enemies-who-are-obviously-in-love trope. She does it with a kind of infectious exuberance that has made her one of BookTok's most beloved authors and a permanent fixture on bestseller lists.
S'more of You is her latest offering, and it is quintessential Bailey — pure, concentrated fun with just enough heart to make it ache in all the right places. Set at a summer camp where the two leads have been conducting a years-long prank war, it is the kind of story that unfolds like a perfect summer afternoon: warm, bright, a little chaotic, gone before you are ready for it to end.
If you have never read Tessa Bailey, this is an absolutely perfect place to start. And if you have read all of Tessa Bailey, you already know this is going on your list. Let us talk about why.
What This Book Is About
Margot Berry has been a camp counsellor at Camp Sequoia for eight years. She loves this camp — the lakeside mornings and the s'mores and the kids who arrive awkward and leave a little more sure of themselves. She loves almost everything about it. The one exception is Dean Ingram, the rule-following, fun-obstructing, perpetually exasperated senior counsellor who has been the target of her pranks for nearly a decade.
Margot and Dean have a relationship built entirely on provocation. She sets the pranks; he discovers them with barely contained fury and restores order with the energy of someone personally affronted by the concept of chaos. He is the straight man to her comedian, the heavy to her free spirit, and she has spent eight summers telling herself that the reason she cannot stop winding him up is simply because his reactions are the funniest thing at camp.
This summer is different. This summer, Margot has decided to finally say the thing she has been carefully not-saying for eight years — to tell Dean Ingram exactly how she feels and see what happens. What happens, naturally, is both more and less than she expected. More, because Dean Ingram has feelings too, and they have been quietly enormous for rather a long time. Less, because feelings do not automatically make two people good at being honest with each other, and these two have spent the better part of a decade communicating entirely through pranks and outrage.
What Bailey does with this premise is warm and funny and surprisingly tender. The camp setting creates a kind of magic bubble — this is a world apart from normal life, operating on its own rules and its own time, which makes it a perfect container for a love story that has been waiting far too long to happen. Every scene at Camp Sequoia feels like it was drawn from somewhere true — the particular quality of the light in the early morning, the sound of kids at the water's edge, the way summer nights feel longer and more full of possibility than nights at any other time of year.
Author's Style and Craft
Tessa Bailey's style is unmistakable. She writes in a register that is almost always turned up slightly — bigger feelings, funnier lines, more dramatic gestures than real life would necessarily provide — and the trick of her craft is making all of that feel completely natural rather than heightened. She creates a world in which emotion is large and expressible and people say what they feel, and then she makes you believe in that world so completely that you go along for every bit of it.
Her heroines are one of her greatest strengths. Margot Berry is a classic Tessa Bailey heroine — fully herself, unapologetic about who she is, and funny in a way that sometimes disguises how vulnerable she actually is. Bailey is very good at writing women who use humour as protection and then have to learn to set it down long enough to let someone close. Margot's relationship with her own prank war — the way it has been both her joy and her defence — is drawn with genuine insight.
Her heroes are warm underneath their gruffness in ways that always feel earned. Dean Ingram is wound tight for reasons that go beyond personality, and when Bailey gives him the space to unwind, the result is one of those hero reveals that Bailey does so well: the moment when the character who has been presenting one face to the world shows you what is actually going on underneath, and it is so much more than you expected.
Themes and Deeper Meaning
S'more of You is, at heart, a story about how we hide from the things we want most. Margot hides behind her pranks. Dean hides behind his rules. The camp — with its enforced community, its traditions, and its undeniable magic — strips those defences away summer by summer until, in the eighth year, there is nothing left to hide behind.
There is something lovely in Bailey's decision to set this story at a summer camp — a place specifically designed for young people to find themselves. The irony of two adults who have spent nearly a decade not finding themselves around each other, in a place literally built for that purpose, is played beautifully. Camp Sequoia is a place where the usual social rules are suspended, where the normal pressures of adult life do not penetrate. It creates the conditions for honesty. Eventually, Margot and Dean have no choice but to take advantage of those conditions.
The prank war itself carries thematic weight. A prank is a way of paying attention to someone — of noticing what they find funny, what gets under their skin, what provokes a reaction. Eight years of pranks is eight years of Margot watching Dean very carefully. The shift from prank-watching to honest feeling is not as large as either of them thinks.
For summer reading recommendations and more of what is trending in romance right now, check out our romance recommendations and our full May 2026 must-reads roundup.
What This Book Gets Absolutely Right
The prank war dynamic. The history between Margot and Dean is established with real specificity. You believe eight years of pranks not as abstract backstory but as something you have almost witnessed — their history is written into every interaction, every eye-roll, every moment of barely-contained whatever-this-is.
The camp atmosphere. Bailey captures summer camp with vivid, affectionate detail. The setting is a character in its own right, and it does enormous work in establishing the emotional register of the story.
Margot's voice. As a narrator, Margot is funny, self-aware in a slightly unreliable way, and deeply likeable. Spending a book inside her head is an absolute pleasure.
Dean's reveal. Without spoiling anything, the moment when we understand Dean Ingram properly — who he is, what he has been carrying, why he is the way he is — is handled with real delicacy and lands with genuine emotional force.
The comedy. This is Tessa Bailey. The comedy is great. There is a particular prank sequence in the second act that is one of the funniest things I have read in recent memory, and the fallout from it is even better.
Where the Book Could Have Gone Further
More time with the stakes. The relationship conflict — the reason Margot and Dean cannot simply be together once their feelings are out in the open — could have been deepened. It is present, but it resolves perhaps a little too cleanly given how many years it has been building.
The secondary characters want more page time. Camp Sequoia is clearly populated with interesting people, and some of the supporting cast hint at stories that feel worth telling. A slightly longer book would have given them more room.
The pacing of the emotional beats is uneven. Bailey moves very quickly through some of the more serious emotional moments — particularly around Dean's backstory — and slower, quieter treatment of those scenes would have given them more room to breathe.
Books to Read If You Loved This One
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey — The book that introduced many readers to Bailey's world, and an almost perfect example of her at her best: forced proximity, a heroine who seems too much but turns out to be exactly right, and a hero who does not know what to do with her.
The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling — A witchy small-town romance with the same kind of warm, funny, summer-adjacent energy that makes S'more of You such a pleasure.
Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score — Another rivals-adjacent romance set in a tight-knit community, with tremendous banter and a hero who takes a while to admit what is obvious to everyone else.
Who Should Read This Book
S'more of You is for anyone who has been in love with their annoying-person-they-keep-arguing-with for longer than they would like to admit. It is for summer reading lists, for beach bags, for the window seat when it is raining outside and you need something warm and bright. It is also, quietly, for anyone who has ever hidden behind a joke when they were actually just scared.
If you are looking for more joyful, banter-heavy romance reads, our What To Read guide is full of titles that will scratch this exact itch.
Content warnings: Light adult themes, strong language, explicit content between the main characters. Generally lighter in tone than Tessa Bailey's longer novels.
How This Book Made Me Feel
I will tell you when this book got me — really got me. There is a scene late in S'more of You where Margot stops making a joke. Where she stops using wit as deflection and just says the thing. She says it badly and somewhat chaotically, because that is who she is, but she says it. And Dean's response is not a big dramatic speech. It is quiet, and certain, and completely right. I think I said "oh, come on" out loud to no one in my apartment, in the way that you do when a book does something that you did not know you needed until it happened.
Tessa Bailey has been making readers feel this way for years. She writes love that is big but also specific — love that is tailored to exactly these two people and nobody else. The love between Margot and Dean is messy and funny and a little absurd, and by the time the book is over, it feels completely inevitable. That is the gift.
Final Verdict
S'more of You is everything a Tessa Bailey romance should be: funny, warm, a little chaotic, and full of heart. It is the perfect palate cleanser after heavier reads, the perfect summer companion, and a very welcome reminder that love stories at their best are supposed to be fun. Put it on your list. You will not regret it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — 4.5 out of 5 stars
About the Author
Tessa Bailey is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over sixty romance novels, including It Happened One Summer, Hook, Line, and Sinker, Secretly Yours, and Wreck the Halls. She is one of the most followed romance authors on BookTok and social media, with a devoted readership spanning the globe. Her books are known for their infectious banter, heart-forward heroes, and heroines who are fully and unapologetically themselves.
👉 Visit Tessa Bailey's official website: tessabailey.com
Closing Block
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FAQs
1. Is S'more of You a full novel or a novella? S'more of You is a shorter romance — more novella than full-length novel. It is a perfect quick read and an ideal introduction to Tessa Bailey's voice.
2. Do I need to read other Tessa Bailey books before S'more of You? No. S'more of You is a standalone story with no required prior reading.
3. What tropes are in S'more of You? Rivals-to-lovers, prank war, forced proximity, slow (well — fast, this is Bailey) burn, camp romance. If any of those are your favourite flavours, this book was written for you.
4. Is S'more of You spicy? Yes, in keeping with Tessa Bailey's usual style — though the shorter format means the spice is a little more concentrated than in her longer works.
5. What is the best Tessa Bailey book for first-time readers? If this is your first Tessa Bailey, S'more of You is a great start — but if you want to go deep, pick up It Happened One Summer as your next read. It is one of her best.
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