Thank you NetGalley and the publisher with like a million names that I forgot seconds after looking at it.

I wanted to love this one. Parts of it were good. I was just… bored. Luna reminded me of a oblivious, horny teenage kid trying to find her sexuality instead of the young adult she is. It grated.

I still intend to purchase this book when it releases.

Again, read and make up your own mind

Sizzle Reel is a well written, easy to read, fun new novel. At the start I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the descriptions of how the main character would shoot things if they were scenes in a movie but this got better as the story progressed. I really did enjoy this behind the scenes insight into a world I haven’t read or heard much about before and it was nicely incorporated into the romance. I’m glad to see a wlw romance such as this one and I hope it does well when it gets released!

This book grabbed me right away. I love any romance set in Hollywood, and I loved that the main character wanted to be a cinematographer. I thought it was a really cool setup and liked how it dealt with homophobia in Hollywood and figuring out one's sexual identity.

I gave this book a 3 star rating on Netgalley even though I did not finish it as it forced me to give a rating. In my Goodreads review, I will not be leaving a star rating.

The reason I decided not to continue was I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the way Luna, the main character, discussed the topic of virginity to herself, and how her narrative revolved solely over that. I found myself frustrated with the fixation on virginity and sex in a book that could have explored so much more.

I stopped reading around the 50-60% mark, so maybe this dissipates in the latter half of the novel, hence my lack of rating.

Thank you so much to Carlyn Greenwald and the publishing house. . I really really wanted to like this one, especially since it will be published on my birthday!

a super fun book I'd reccomend to anyone in a book slump! I loved the cast of characters, inclusivity, and general storyline! I think we need more best friends to lovers books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Vintage for the eARC!

Overall, I think this book was fine, but not spectacular.

We get an MC who is really sincere and honest but also very dumb? She literally disregards her therapist’s advice TWICE and screws everything up because of it. Of course things end up working out but if you’re paying for a therapist, maybe you should listen to them?

Also, I saw the Romy attraction from the getgo. It wasn’t shocking and it wasn’t super interesting either. It was like “well, I now how this book ends” on page like 5.

Also, the insane amount of sex talk was overwhelming in this book. It’s like there were two plots: the movie stuff and the sex talk. That’s it. The book did get better in the second half when Luna and Val started going out but honestly, I would have DNFed this if it wasn’t an ARC.

What I will say is that the smut scenes were very nicely written. I didn’t feel the need to skim or skip. So that was very nice! Did I wish there was one less? Yes. 😂

The ending was SO long and drawn out - it felt like it could have been shortened and given the same outcome. I think around 50-80% was the best portion.

So yeah, if you like a lot of discussion on sapphic relationships and movies, then you might like this more than me. But I can’t say I’d recommend this to anyone.

I'm torn. I thought the writing itself was great. Truly. But the story? I'm not sure if I liked it or not. Maybe I just need more time to process? I didn't hate it by any means and I wouldn't not recommend this book because there was a lot to like but also ?????

This was kinda just fine, I loved that it showed someone who came out a little later than the other queer people in their environment, and I think it did a good job of representing the struggles with that. However, I didn't like how stupid Luna was with Romy. That's not a criticism of the book, I was just annoyed about how many signs Luna missed. What I really didn't like was the emphasis Luna put on virginity. Her best friend was queer but she still viewed virginity in a heteronormative penetrative based way. She spent all her time worrying about her virginity (which she was way too old to care that much about it) and it made me feel like there were no actual feelings in either of her relationships. I liked the Jewish representation though.

So I gotta say that I really enjoyed the first 75% of the book and would definitely recommend this book to others. I loved the characters and it was a fun novel to read. I didn't love the ending, but overall it was a great book! Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot. It was very fun to me. I liked Luna as a main character. She had her flaws, but she was new at being out as bisexual and was trying to find her way in the world. I liked being in her head and could relate to some of the things she was going through!

I like how awkward Luna was, it was endearing, not annoying to me, and some of the things she thought made me laugh. Not at her but almost with her in sympathy.

I think my favorite character in this book was Valeria. She was so fun and cool and sexy. She had a down to earth vibe that was so nice to read about. I loved all of her and Luna’s interactions. She never treated Luna less than, even though she easily could have been stuck up.

I thought the sex scenes were really well written and steamy compared to other things I’ve read. If you look for that in your romance books, you’d really enjoy it in this book.

This would have been a 4 star book for me if it ended differently. I did debate between giving this a 2 star or a 3 star, and if I could I would maybe say give it a 2.5. Sadly the ending was what made the book not as enjoyable as it could have been.

Luna’s friends are awful I could not stand them, Her always covering for Wyatt when he said something terrible made me so mad. He had his moments when he would help Luna out with her career or relationship, but other than that he definitely wasn’t super great. Luna always thinking she was doing something wrong when it was her friends doing it to her made me so angry.

The other romance came out of nowhere in my opinion, except for a few thoughts from Luna about how attractive she looked in a few scenes. Even then she didn’t hold onto those thoughts for very long. It was such an immediate shift from the love interest we got for most of the novel. If it was hinted at more that Luna was always having these feelings, I maybe would have liked the other love interest more, but it wasn’t so I didn’t root for them to be together at all.

There will be spoilers for the last part of this review because I can’t talk about my issues with the book without it, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t continue reading from here:

Romy was sabotaging Luna’s feelings and relationship with Valeria the whole entire time because she couldn’t say her feelings for Luna. I’m not saying it’s easy to tell someone how you feel, but that doesn’t mean you can be a terrible friend just so she doesn’t end up with someone else. She was not being a good friend or future love interest by being terrible to Luna the whole book, and the fact that Luna doesn’t care about all that, and ends up with Romy at the end blew my mind. Like I said before it really came out of nowhere. If she stayed with Valeria the whole time I would have really liked this book. I understand that the author was trying to show that Valeria was someone for Luna to test things out, but she ended up not feeling totally comfortable with her, so it was best for them not to work out. She felt comfortable with Romy so they worked, but it came so out of the blue there was no way for me to root for them to be together. Especially after Romy was a terrible friend to Luna through the whole book.

One minute Luna is all in for Valeria, the next they are breaking up and Luna immediately knows she’s in love with Romy…what? She never mentioned once she might have feels for Romy or maybe wanted more throughout the whole book but suddenly by the end she’s always been thinking about her? That was my biggest issue with the book, and sadly since they were endgame, it was hard for me to rate this higher than a three star.

I liked that Valeria and Luna communicated with each other in the end in a healthy way, but their break up didn’t make any sense to me. They had so much chemistry, and we spent the whole book with the two of them, only for Luna to end up with someone I couldn’t stand.

From the beginning, the author invites the reader to accompany Luna, the main character of the book, on her journey of self discovery and acceptance while she tries to make her way in the world as a cinematographer.
What is Sizzle Reel about? The plot revolves around Luna, who is an aspiring cinematographer in the process of coming to terms with her sexuality and had just come out to her best friends as bisexual. Little does she know that developing a crush on famous actress she met at work will change the dynamic of one of Luna's friendships.
What makes this novel stand out from the others is the way the author captures the character's insecurities and flaws. Rarely do readers stumble upon stories that emphasizes not only the humanity of the main character but also the consequences of their actions and I think Greenwald made a great job with that.
Whilst Carlyn does a great job portraying Luna's emotions throughout the book, I couldn't help but feel that the secondary characters' background stories were neglected. As a consequence, I found it difficult to connect with them.
Despite this, I believe this was a great debut novel for those who are looking for a lightweight book to unwind.

The book started out strong with at least some colorful friends and a toxic workplace to create some tension in the story.

Then the love interest showed up, and while it was obvious what she’d turnout to be, she also got rid of the interesting tension for the story and honestly the main character wasn’t interesting enough to watch her journey to being dense, so I wished I hadn’t figured out all the imports twists.

This is a fun queer coming of age story. It's a lovely quick read and it was beautiful to slowly see the characters grow into their own shoes through out the story. Would totally recommend!

Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was super excited to get approved for this but it ended up not being my cup of tea. The main character, Luna (totes love the name though) is a complete disaster in terms of main characters.

There were multiple representations of religion and sexuality, which was nice seeing such diversity without being overly done.

Like some have also noted it was hard to get into the love triangle and I had no idea who I was supposed to be rooting for.

I had a hard time with this book. The love triangle was hard to get invested in. I didn't know which relationship I was supposed to root for and ended up not really caring who Luna ended up with. Also, Luna's focus on losing her virginity and thinking that only meant penetrative sex was a frustrating storyline. I think the author wanted to get across the point that sex doesn't have to be penetrative, but it was confusing that Luna brought it up so often and wouldn't listen to others.

Everything I was hoping for from this story and so much more. The cover of SIZZLE REEL grabbed my attention immediately and I just knew I had to read it, so when a copy arrived on my doorstep I couldn't wait to get to it!

A messy, queer love story that explores Hollywood, full of personal growth and finding your identity in a way that feels raw & emotional, this debut is a must-read. In this friends-to-lovers title of self-discovery, Luna comes out as a baby bi, and her best friend, Romy helps her navigate falling in love and how to be queer in a world full of expectations and demands. As work, love, and life seem to want more from our MC, Greenwald finds a way to make us question what we expect of ourselves and those around us, and how to find acceptance and freedom in our choices.

I loved that Luna's love for cinematography was such an important aspect of the book, and gave a unique viewpoint on so many of the scenes in the story. For me, it gave the characters and actions an unearthly yet vivid filter, that created an other-worldly feel at times that seemed so fitting of the locale and age group. I'd never read a book with confused characters that I related to more, finding comfort in their differences and struggles. I hope this book finds the readers it needs, and brings joy to others as it did me!

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Vintage for the advance copy to read and review, I really enjoyed getting to read this one!

Overall this book was not for me. I didn't enjoy the love triangle. I found the friends obnoxious. I found the love interest's attitude obnoxious. Half of everyone's problems could be solved with communication. The other half could be solved by the main character googling her sex questions. She had a narrow view of sex. Which I realize, the author was trying to communicate her growth in that area, but I didn't really enjoy reading about it.

I don't think that this was a bad book, I just don't think this was a book for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in return for my honest feedback.

I thought this book was an ok read. The characters were interesting to read about. To me the book felt like some parts were moving along at a decent pace and then in others it seem like it was stagnant which in turn made the read seem longer than it needed to be. I tried to connect with the read however I didnt connect as much as I would’ve liked all and all it was a ok read. There were a few parts that seemed very repetitive.

Definitely a fun read. Luna is a total disaster of a main character, and it was easy enough to root for her even when I wanted to grab her and shake her for being so obtuse. I thought the rest of the cast of characters were pretty great, too, and the relationships were nice. There was some really cool Jewish, bi, and nonbinary rep that got deeper than the surface-level stuff you sometimes see in books with such diverse casts. But because of the diversity, the dialogue and writing were very enthusiastically PC, which is not bad! But is noticeable.

Some others have pointed this out, but Luna's motivation really does seem to bounce between career and romance seemingly without cause. Despite it being kind of confusing, it showcased her struggles with anxiety very well.

SIZZLE REEL by Carlyn Greenwald is a fun read and, for a rom-com, it covers some prickly ground around bisexual rep with excellent depth. The setting of Hollywood and film sets as well as the main character Luna's goal of being a cinematographer/director of photography were the initial appeals for me. We don't see enough women behind the camera in books or in life, which is one reason I'll recommend it to my older and adult students.

The delight with SIZZLE REEL is the character of Valeria--she has swagger on the page--and how Luna and her friends try to figure out if Valeria is queer. The other delight, and one that kept me reading, is the palpable longing of one character whose identity I won't reveal.

I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did and I definitely recommend it as a fun read with a great cast of LGBTQIAP+ characters.