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As a romantically cynical woman with very visible scarring, estranged parents, and a complicated relationship with her emotionally unavailable father… this felt like a personal attack.

For most people, though, I’d say that TYFL has the same energy as the cosmic love child of a poet’s overwritten diary and a self-deprecating inside joke.

So, like, Emily Henry meets V.E. Schwab. Or maybe Nicholas Sparks meets Taylor Jenkins Reid. Hell, throw them all into a blender and call it a literary smoothie.

And I’ll be damned if this doesn’t get optioned and become a box office hit. This is precisely the kind of story that Hollywood goes feral over. The Romcom Movie Renaissance would finally hit its stride.

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sarahsthoughtsonbooks's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Fine line between contemporary fiction and romance. Not well balanced between the two. It doesn't lean one way or the other, but neither is really developed enough. Great idea, but could be better executed? Not that it was flawed, but I wanted more. It just felt a bit rush. I think that's what it is, that there seemed to be a medium pace that was going well, and then part was just rushed. Which caused it to feel lacking.

Also, both protagonists seem to hate romance genre. Makes me wonder if Julia has a second, lesser known pseudonym that she recorded some romance under (like her Sophie Eastlake stuff send to be mainly two authors)

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I am *very* picky about audiobooks, to the point that I know it’s unfair and illogical and so I tend to not listen to them at all, but I like Julia Whalen. A lot. I find her very talented and enjoyable to listen to. Now, bring me a book of written by an audiobook narrator ABOUT audiobook narrators and it seems only fair (and totally obvious) that it need to be consumed via audio. Right? So, of course, I did. Now please refer back to my comment about being unfairly judgmental and illogically picky about audiobooks and take my review with a grain of salt. I believe this book is good and if I had read it on page I would’ve loved it more, possibly. The characters are unique and flawed and diverse, the banter is funny and witty and cute. BUT…. But… you can tell an audiobook narrator wrote this. There are characters who exist solely for the purpose of the narrator [author] showing off her skills in accents. Which, for the record, is good (with the exception of the Bostonian ex boyfriend with the most horrendous Boston accent I’ve ever hear and take person offense to), but there’s no real reason for them. I also have mixed feelings about a white author writing about the plight of a black woman in Hollywood… but it does seem (to me, another white woman, to note) to be handled somewhat carefully. Just perhaps not her story to tell, again, as a white woman who was a former actress. I guess all this to say some of this felt inauthentic but it’s hard to parse that from what I HEARD and wish I would’ve just read the book 🤷🏻‍♀️ don’t come for me. I still gave it 4 stars!! There’s quality story here and a lot of fun.

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maethereader's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oh, I struggle with how to rate & review this. I was SO enjoying this book at first. I honestly laughed out loud a few times. I'm not a huge romance person, but I really enjoyed the banter in the beginning and through the epistolary section. I enjoyed the story lines about other characters like her best friend, parents, grandma. And I enjoyed learning about audiobook narration.

But... once these two met, it all fell apart for me. I suddenly didn't understand the characters' motivations for basically the rest of the novel... On top of that, all of the smaller storylines seemed to wrap up very quickly, which I found unrealistic and unnecessary.

And I'm not sure how to feel about the inclusion of this disability trope. It feels like it was just a device used by the author for a convenient storyline, and the character's handling of it, thinking about it, processing it, as well as that of her friends and family just did not ring true to me at all (coming from someone who became disabled as a young adult). Did Whalen talk to anyone who had gone through something like this? I hope so, but honestly it doesn't seem like it. So that's really disappointing. Disabled characters only included in books when it's convenient to make a storyline out of their disability... ugh.

Listened to this on audiobook and narration was great (obviously!).

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cristinareading's review against another edition

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funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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livelyghost's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

With so many threads to this story I was really hoping that one or two would really grab me but unfortunately nothing really did. I think I really wanted to know more about BlahBlah’s life and her neighbors at Seasons more than I did Sewanee or Nick! I felt like I learned a little about a lot of things like the marketing dilemma of women’s fiction vs romance, the making of an audiobook, experiences of Hollywood and the publishing industry but never got really fleshed out worlds for the many parts of Sewanee’s life.

Sewanee is a fun lead - complicated but not a mess, hopeful but not all sunshine all the time, and a lovely friend and family member. Her family and friends are written with enough story to make you interested but not distracted. Every pull quote from June was gold. Nick is someone I could tell you maybe two things about and I literally just finished the book.

Overall I have mixed feelings. This was a quick read and I enjoyed some of the characters, but the writing just felt like I was getting a lot of appetizers and not a main course sprinkled with some uneven pacing.

Ultimately, I don’t think it matters what I say, does it? Will you ever truly believe, deep down, that anything other than pity brought me over to you? Nothing I can say will ever make that disappear for you. I can tell you I don’t see it and you will always see it. I can tell you that you’re everything that keeps me up at night and everything I daydream about and how that makes you feel might last a day or a week or an hour. Feelings are temporary. They stick around as long as you believe in them and then they’re gone, waiting to be believed in again. If they were permanent, then we’d only have to say I love you once and then be done with it for the rest of our lives.

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headinthepages's review against another edition

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4.5

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