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b00kw0rm113's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
solid, i liked it, love their banter, love that there isnt a third act breakup (i mean there kinda is, but it lasted like a chapter), and i actually enjoyed the smut
apolloreads's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
akiva's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
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
5.0
hanabell's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
abbie1512's review against another edition
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
Predictable, a lot of sex takes place.
lpackard's review against another edition
1.0
I shelved this book as DNF after chapter 12. The “sex scenes” were honestly just painful for me to read. I truly felt there was very minimal character development. And if you’re going to have a sex book, character development needs to be present in my opinion. I’m bummed because this book has great reviews, but it definitely didn’t do it for me.
chimichannika's review
For a book supposedly about a journalist-turned-professional ghostwriter and a former teen star writing a book together and having a steamy romance, this book sure gave nothing lol
Firstly I agree with other reviewers saying this book is extremely tell-not-show and that that really detracts from the experience and enjoyment of reading the book. The author also incorporates some tropes that are extremely tired main character stereotypes (yet another conventionally attractive, short, white, blonde woman who’s “curvy” but still able to borrow her (mentioned as!) skinny friend’s clothes, and NLOG because she doesn’t watch tv~) while at the same time having throwaway lines in the book seemingly written solely for token diversity / representation points in a way that feels more the tone of a Hallmark movie trying for representation than actual characters.
The writing was not only flat, but riddled with errors, both factual and cultural, as well. I could’ve let some of the cliche, saccharine scenes and the one-dimensional character interactions slide, but the myriad of glaring inaccuracies were so jarring, downright annoying, and took me out of the story entirely, far too many times. (I mean seriously! If you’re going to make one of your main characters a “huge nerd” you’ve got to write a LOTR fan better than that!! the inaccuracies! the discomfiting cheesiness! It felt so glaringly obvious that this wasn’t written by a Tolkien fan. In the words of smeyer—a fitting person to quote, given that this character was a former star in a show about YA werewolves and this book was also not written very well— lie better. lmao) I could go on a whole rant solely about that, but there were so many other issues too. Several times within the first 30% the main character, someone supposedly deeply involved in and familiar with publishing and journalism, makes statements about the industry ranging from tone-deaf to wildly inaccurate to just straight-up wrong. The main character also is weirdly condescending about fandom, fan culture, and the idea of comic cons/ fan conventions at large, is incredibly condescending, holier-than-thou, and belittling in her internal narrative about the (mostly women) fans, and constantly is referencing how she’s ~ soooo unfamiliar with most fiction media ~ yet is able to recognize characters from several “nerdy” franchises like Star Trek, Doctor Who, DCEU, etc… which is it girlie?! you can’t be totally unfamiliar with every franchise ever yet know what a dalek is and what different Trekkie cosplays look like and what the character names are 🤣🤦🏻♀️ the facts are not adding up!!!
And like, don’t get me wrong, there is a way to tell a story of “famous person x the one person who doesn’t know who they are/ isn’t a fan of their media” romance. I’ve personally watched several kdramas and read several books with this exact theme. It can be done well!! Extremely well, engaging, adorable, even!!… but this book is not one of those times 🙂↔️ you can tell the story without doing a massive, belittling, misrepresentative disservice to the entire concept of fandom and nerds.
I’ve seen this book called a fanfic trope turned novel, but honestly it’s not that; a fanfic of a similar theme at least has the gumption to commit to the bit. Also, for a book supposedly about an education in bed, the sex scenes were not only lackluster but brushed over, rushed through, or immediately followed up by time skips by the author, which all gave the feeling that she didn’t feel comfortable actually, you know, writing the sex scenes. Which is fine! Just maybe don’t write a book with this plot, then! 😂 and the scenes we did get were frankly not the best. Even scenes with the main characters supposedly feeling a growing attraction or tension between them, I was rolling my eyes or sighing in annoyance far more often than actually enjoying anything like a well-written build up for them.
To add on, the entire premise was written inconsistently with a very uneven pacing— such as the main character saying “no I’ll never do X!!” to, mere minutes later, saying “yeah I’m doing X and actually it never made sense to not do X so it’s fine” without showing any of that character deliberation, compounded with the random time skips I mentioned earlier— the characters themselves aren’t fleshed out, whether it’s the main two or any of the surrounding cast; random elements are thrown in as what comes across as an attempt to discuss heavier topics and be diverse but without any meaningful expanding on those themes it falls flat; the entire premise is also extremely contrived, written unconvincingly, and is extremely difficult (even far beyond the usual level of suspension of disbelief for a romance novel scenario) (and don’t get me wrong I love a good suspension of disbelief romance scenario, but I need at least a little bit of something realistic or at least plausible to go on!) to imagine any aspect of this ever even remotely happening in real life in the first place. I won’t touch on the discrepancy in the main character demanding communication skills yet having none of her own beyond mentioning it, and the same for the incredibly brushed-aside ethical quandary (no, mentioning in one line that the ethical quandary exists does not a proper discussion of said quandary make 😅) of the entire setup, beyond mentioning them both, as this is getting long enough lol, but it’s worth knowing those aspects also exist here as well. Some of this I think could’ve been fixed with more rigorous editing before being published, but on the whole, this just really was not the book for me. 0.5/5 tbh, because a few lines in the first third of the book did still make me laugh and it had an intriguing premise. It just sadly fell extremely flat in almost every way.
Firstly I agree with other reviewers saying this book is extremely tell-not-show and that that really detracts from the experience and enjoyment of reading the book. The author also incorporates some tropes that are extremely tired main character stereotypes (yet another conventionally attractive, short, white, blonde woman who’s “curvy” but still able to borrow her (mentioned as!) skinny friend’s clothes, and NLOG because she doesn’t watch tv~) while at the same time having throwaway lines in the book seemingly written solely for token diversity / representation points in a way that feels more the tone of a Hallmark movie trying for representation than actual characters.
The writing was not only flat, but riddled with errors, both factual and cultural, as well. I could’ve let some of the cliche, saccharine scenes and the one-dimensional character interactions slide, but the myriad of glaring inaccuracies were so jarring, downright annoying, and took me out of the story entirely, far too many times. (I mean seriously! If you’re going to make one of your main characters a “huge nerd” you’ve got to write a LOTR fan better than that!! the inaccuracies! the discomfiting cheesiness! It felt so glaringly obvious that this wasn’t written by a Tolkien fan. In the words of smeyer—a fitting person to quote, given that this character was a former star in a show about YA werewolves and this book was also not written very well— lie better. lmao) I could go on a whole rant solely about that, but there were so many other issues too. Several times within the first 30% the main character, someone supposedly deeply involved in and familiar with publishing and journalism, makes statements about the industry ranging from tone-deaf to wildly inaccurate to just straight-up wrong. The main character also is weirdly condescending about fandom, fan culture, and the idea of comic cons/ fan conventions at large, is incredibly condescending, holier-than-thou, and belittling in her internal narrative about the (mostly women) fans, and constantly is referencing how she’s ~ soooo unfamiliar with most fiction media ~ yet is able to recognize characters from several “nerdy” franchises like Star Trek, Doctor Who, DCEU, etc… which is it girlie?! you can’t be totally unfamiliar with every franchise ever yet know what a dalek is and what different Trekkie cosplays look like and what the character names are 🤣🤦🏻♀️ the facts are not adding up!!!
And like, don’t get me wrong, there is a way to tell a story of “famous person x the one person who doesn’t know who they are/ isn’t a fan of their media” romance. I’ve personally watched several kdramas and read several books with this exact theme. It can be done well!! Extremely well, engaging, adorable, even!!… but this book is not one of those times 🙂↔️ you can tell the story without doing a massive, belittling, misrepresentative disservice to the entire concept of fandom and nerds.
I’ve seen this book called a fanfic trope turned novel, but honestly it’s not that; a fanfic of a similar theme at least has the gumption to commit to the bit. Also, for a book supposedly about an education in bed, the sex scenes were not only lackluster but brushed over, rushed through, or immediately followed up by time skips by the author, which all gave the feeling that she didn’t feel comfortable actually, you know, writing the sex scenes. Which is fine! Just maybe don’t write a book with this plot, then! 😂 and the scenes we did get were frankly not the best. Even scenes with the main characters supposedly feeling a growing attraction or tension between them, I was rolling my eyes or sighing in annoyance far more often than actually enjoying anything like a well-written build up for them.
To add on, the entire premise was written inconsistently with a very uneven pacing— such as the main character saying “no I’ll never do X!!” to, mere minutes later, saying “yeah I’m doing X and actually it never made sense to not do X so it’s fine” without showing any of that character deliberation, compounded with the random time skips I mentioned earlier— the characters themselves aren’t fleshed out, whether it’s the main two or any of the surrounding cast; random elements are thrown in as what comes across as an attempt to discuss heavier topics and be diverse but without any meaningful expanding on those themes it falls flat; the entire premise is also extremely contrived, written unconvincingly, and is extremely difficult (even far beyond the usual level of suspension of disbelief for a romance novel scenario) (and don’t get me wrong I love a good suspension of disbelief romance scenario, but I need at least a little bit of something realistic or at least plausible to go on!) to imagine any aspect of this ever even remotely happening in real life in the first place. I won’t touch on the discrepancy in the main character demanding communication skills yet having none of her own beyond mentioning it, and the same for the incredibly brushed-aside ethical quandary (no, mentioning in one line that the ethical quandary exists does not a proper discussion of said quandary make 😅) of the entire setup, beyond mentioning them both, as this is getting long enough lol, but it’s worth knowing those aspects also exist here as well. Some of this I think could’ve been fixed with more rigorous editing before being published, but on the whole, this just really was not the book for me. 0.5/5 tbh, because a few lines in the first third of the book did still make me laugh and it had an intriguing premise. It just sadly fell extremely flat in almost every way.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
sararead's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Pretty cute read overall but kind of wished it leaned even more into the nerd culture. Also wondering if some more antagonistic Ethan stuff got cut because I definitely thought something was going to happen between him and Finn.
Glad Finn finally learned where the clitoris is though! Book ended up being more smut than I expected but still an enjoyable read overall
Glad Finn finally learned where the clitoris is though! Book ended up being more smut than I expected but still an enjoyable read overall
melissaalgood's review against another edition
4.5
Wasn’t my favorite from this author, but was still very very good.