I received an ARC of The Shape of You through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rebecca is a personal trainer who gets roped into leading a "Be Your Best Bride" class that another trainer has pitched to their gym. Spencer Thompson is in the class, registered by her fiancee, who thought it would be a good idea for her to lose a few pounds before their wedding. They're both attracted to each other, but with Spencer engaged to another woman, is there any point to acknowledging their feelings? CW: Infidelity

Spoilers ahead:

The summary and cover are a bit misleading, as the majority of the book takes place in the gym. There's not even a dress fitting involved, as Spencer isn't even going to have a wedding - just a trip to the courthouse. There are also no Bridezillas - the two characters who might have been in that role are introduced and then only mentioned again in passing, neither is the original Zero Body Fat instructor.

I found myself frustrated with the lead characters in the book. Rebecca behaves poorly toward Spencer and continues to blow hot and cold, which wasn't just personal to Spencer - it was blatantly unprofessional and public to the rest of the fitness class. Spencer is passive and wishy-washy, and while I could understand it to a point after learning her backstory, the book takes far too long to explain that and make her actions sympathetic to us, as readers. I also feel like the author took the easy way out of ending Spencer's relationship with her fiance. We're then denied seeing her character growth as there is a time jump to Spencer reconnecting with Rebecca and pursuing a HEA. In other words, there was a whole lot of telling and not showing.

This is my first book from this author and publisher, so I'm rating lightly. The Shape of You will definitely appeal to some readers - it wasn't my cup of tea.

I really wanted to like this book. I love me a good romance. Romance is one of my fave genres so its hard for me to dislike one. This one dealt with some big issues: e.g. LGBT, the controversial infidelity in a romance story, etc. It had the opportunity to really be a good or at least intense romance. I was looking forward to it. But man ... this was almost painful. Half way through I looked at Danny and said "I don't know if I can finish this book" and if you know me you know I always finish the book - no matter how bad. Half the text took place in a gym, the relationships were all surface, forced, contrived and perhaps even worse for a romance - lacked chemistry. The main characters were unlikeable, so very weak, sometimes stereotypical and just boring and the conversations were so so simple. It just all felt so simple. It read like a missed opportunity to be a great novel. Harsh I know.
So, I was given a free copy for an honest review and my honest review is skip it.

First off: Georgia Beers has quickly risen to become one of my favorite romance authors. I requested this book solely because I recognized the author's name, and she didn't disappoint with this at all.

The characters are real, in all their annoying and loving glory. The MCs character development throughout the book is very believable to me, and I find myself wanting to read more, more, more.

To be highly recommended!

An honest review thanks to NetGalley. This book was a good read, the chemistry between Spencer and Rebecca is amazing, and I looked forward to the interactions between them. The issue that I had with this book is that I like Spencer. The entire book displayed how Spencer was very passive and just went with the flow. Her fiance signing her up for a fitness class for brides to be without telling her, her cheating on her fiance and even realizing she is unhappy wanting to stay with her. The more I read, the more passiveness and selfishness radiated off of Spencer making me dislike her more. I really did like Rebecca and having her and her friends as a part of this book let me continue reading this book to the end. Overall a good book, just issues with character likability.

Like everyone, I love the way Georgia Beers writes. Her stories are always interesting, I always learn something new about a skill or vocation I didn't know about, and there's always plenty of subtle humor and great chemistry. The Shape of You is very well-written and tightly edited, but the story just didn't do it for me. When the main character, Spencer, cheats on her fiancee with her trainer because she's unhappy, it made me realize that I couldn't figure out why she and her fiancee Marti ever got together in the first place. In my opinion, two years is way too early in a relationship to already be unhappy together, especially if you feel enough to decide to get married. I couldn't see the "arc" of the storyline come to a definite close, it just seemed to sort of fizzle. Another thing I found odd was the cover - it looks very similar to the recent Jae "Just for Show". Out of 20 years of books from Georgia Beers, one that didn't sweep me away is a pretty good record. Still looking forward to the next one.

I love weddings (love them!), so this book seemed right up my street, and there were aspects of it that I really enjoyed. In taking on the thorny issue of weight and fitness, Beers generally portrays a positive message through Rebecca - she wants people to come to the gym where she works for themselves, to improve their strength and stamina, and often mentions her frustration with the idea that women need to be a certain size and shape to be attractive and socially acceptable. And following Spencer's journey was enjoyable, seeing how she gained in confidence as got physically stronger.

However, there were elements of this story which deeply frustrated me. Trying to limit spoilers, a character who's described as overweight and unfit experiences a health issue. This felt like it was in direct opposition to the main message, saying you can be healthy at any size, as long as you're not overweight. I don't imagine that was Beers' intention, but that was how it came across to me.

I also struggled with the character of Rebecca. As mentioned in the synopsis, Rebecca gives the impression that she hates Spencer for their first few classes. Whilst her behaviour is explained and does change, I found it difficult to ever get past how unprofessionally she acted at the start. I then found it difficult to really get behind the relationship between Rebecca and Spencer because of this.

The Shape of You really didn't work for me, as intriguing as I found the premise. If you enjoy the 'enemies-to-lovers' trope though, and aren't likely to be so frustrated with the way weight and size are dealt with, it might be more up your street.

I did really enjoy this one from Georgia Beers. I am a fan of her work however I did find a patch of her books maybe over the last year or so that didn't hit the usual mark for me. In good news the last two I have really enjoyed and this one was no different, it's good to have her back to her usual standards.

I did struggle at first with Rebecca who was simply mean to Spencer. She was hot and cold throughout the book which did make it a little hard to really like her. Spencer was a great character who was lovely but complex. [I personally struggled with the infidelity part of the book however wouldn't say it ruined the book for me just made me uncomfortable and would have preferred it not be done that way. The side characters were a great addition to the story adding the right amount of humor.

I am a sporty person but never really liked working out in the gym however this book really made me want to go to the gym and get a personal training which I wasn't expecting.

Sweet, but also thought provoking about life and making choices for yourself rather than following along with other people’s decisions. I also enjoyed the gym setting, and was a tad tempted by the idea of spin classes until I remembered I have no co-ordination. Cute little reference to Junebug farm at the end and please a whole book on Zoe would be great.

It was a fun book to read. The characters that "needed" the gym didn't seem to need it all for their physical appearance. I hoped for a tad bit more body positiveness. The romance and affair was something you don't read often in other books of this genre. It was brave for the writer to show the unperfect side of her characters. I liked that part the best.

Georgia Beers is one of my favorite authors. I love how she teases you with the possibility of a romance until you want to scream "please tell her you love her" As a result you will find it difficult to put the book down. This story surprised me a bit. I found it interesting that she was able to put so much emotion in a gym workout. And the characters had so much warmth and depth. The only thing I missed was an epilogue. I wanted to see the white laced wedding. It ended just a little too abruptly.

I have a terrible time finding good F/F books, and I was hoping The Shape of You by Georgia Beers would break my losing streak. It didn't.

I didn't like Spencer from the start, and I didn't like her throughout the book. Spencer is engaged to Marti, who she seems to low-key hate, but doesn't ever communicate her wants and needs to her. Spencer and Marti don't fight, but I guess Marti is supposed to be a mind reader and guess what Spencer wants. Sure, Marti signing up Spencer for a brides' fitness class was sort of a dick move, but Spencer never complains or brings up any issues that she has. She just cheats on Marti.

The book was boring overall, but not horrible. The writing was pleasant enough, however, I couldn't get past the fact that Spencer acted like a child. She never took responsibility for her actions, and her hot/cold act with Rebecca was tiresome. Rebecca went back and forth with being standoffish and then unprofessionally interested. I didn't enjoy their dynamic. I actually wish Marti was the MC because I feel like there was more of a story there.

I'll be generous with my 2 star rating, but I it barely makes the "okay" mark.

*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*

Another excellent offering from Georgia Beers. Enjoyed the slow but intense build up and the myriad of other interesting and fun characters. I highly recommend this book!

Huge thank you to Tule Publishing and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book!

Being someone who would rather chew off my own foot then enter a gym, I was a bit skeptical when I first read the description of this book, but I was hoping that this story would have a little more to it than just fitness-centric storyline. Sadly that wasn’t the case. This wouldn’t have been a problem though, if it weren’t for the constant reminder that if you don’t work out all the time you’re not “healthy”. I might have been able to get past that (because I feel like that’s just a personal dislike for me lol) if the rest of the story had been more interesting, but it wasn’t.

Full (spoiler-y) review here: http://wmsreads.tumblr.com/post/176692761817/

I enjoyed the setting of the read. A fitness center where it is not so important to focus on losing weight but being healthy and feeling good about yourself. Sounds good to me. As I was reading, I thought, if you are not happy with your current day-to-day life and/or your relationship, you will be tempted to make some good and not so good decisions. Does Marti mean well by buying a fitness center membership and signing her fiancee' up for "Be your best bride" class without telling her? Maybe. Maybe not. Even though I knew some bad decisions were coming, I thought it was interesting how the author handled it with the internal and external processing and basically, two characters that are good people and difficult not to like. Rebecca McCall wants what her best friend has, a good relationship. Rebecca is tough and judgmental on women she perceives as pushovers. Spencer Thompson has a supportive family, especially her sister Mary Beth. Although she had a awfully bad relationship experience, she is willing to move on but her confidence is shattered and she needs to pull herself together and make some decisions. This read had me on a like/dislike rollercoaster of emotion. My final thought, the read was okay.

ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this. I’m a fan of Beers and her books are usually enjoyable, but this one hit several buttons for me and I just couldn’t enjoy it.

The main premise is that Rebecca teaches a fitness class for brides to be and Spencer is taking the class because her <i>fiancée signed her up for it<\i>! That’s a big honking red flag right there. Everyone in the book comments on this and knows its not a good thing, but Spencer is such a doormat that even though she knows it’s insulting, she goes anyway so as not to waste said fiancée’s (Marti) money. Give me a break.

Rebecca is pissed about this because her mother is also a doormat, and this leads her to treat Spencer like crap for about the first third of the book, even though she attracted to her. Sounds like all the right elements for a grand romance, no?

We then spend another third of the book with Spencer calling Rebecca on her crap, Rebecca being nicer and then pulling away, and Spencer (and everyone she knows) questioning whether she should be with Marti. The answer is obvious, but Spencer can’t bring herself to make a decision because the girlfriend before this crushed her spirit. Spencer actually has quite a few characters giving her great advice (most memorably her sister) but still manages to bumble around and do nothing about her issues for the vast majority of the book.

Books where one of the main couple is in another relationship are always annoying, because you have to wait for them to extricate themselves before the main couple can proceed. There was way too much Marti and Spencer in this book and the last third of the book was also a hodgepodge of things that made me grit my teeth, there’s infidelity (my least favourite thing in a romance), the breakup between Marti and Spencer took too long (in all honesty, I went from not liking Marti to being sympathetic to her by the end of the book), and the ending was rushed. It seemed like we wallowed in Spencer’s wish washy woe-is-me crap for so much of the book that there wasn’t much time for the main relationship, and the ending required a time jump in order to provide the requisite HEA. In all honesty, not counting the workouts at the gym, where they did not really talk to each other, the main characters spent hardly any time together, so all I got from that was that they were attracted to each other but had nothing of substance to build a relationship on.

We spend a lot of time with Spencer’s issues, and even though Rebecca has scenes with her friends, most of the time devoted to Rebecca is in some way related to how she feels about Spencer or her trying to find someone to date, so she really gets the short stick here. Rebecca deserved better to be honest. The saving grace here was Lucy, who was a great character. Too bad she was straight, she’d have been a better match for Rebecca than Spencer was.

2 stars, I can’t give it 3. It’s getting 2 because it’s Beers and it’s well written, but that’s all this has going for it.

I am a fan of the authors but this book was a little strange, it ended where I wanted it to begin really. The story was fun and sweet and as you’d expect from Beers the characters were relatable and well rounded. I just wanted the bit after the ending, it all seemed a build up to not much really, for that reason I enjoyed it less than I was expecting.
I was given a ARC by Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

I really liked this book, I liked all the characters, they were well developed, I liked the dynamics and angst between them, I liked the story and the dialog. I've only read a few Georgia Beers, but this is by far the best.

This is not a typical lesfic romance and it won't please everyone because it deals with infidelity which is a no-go zone for many romance readers. However, talking about infidelity and lesfic, author Clare Ashton said that lesfic genre could quickly come still if authors try to please the crowd all the time (LesDoBooks podcast interview, August 2018). I totally agree with her. Kudos to Georgia Beers for writing a novel that won't necesarily be popular with her fans. So, consider yourself warned that if infidelity is a pet peeve for you as it is a mayor part of this book's plot.

After an awful and embarrasing heartbreak, Spencer Thomson leaves the driving seat of her life and is happy to have others make decisions for her. When her fiancée enrolls her in a fitness class because her body is "too soft and curvy", Spencer goes along and attends the “Be your best bride” class. Personal trainer Rebecca McCall isn't happy having to cover for a colleague on this class as she considers that her job isn't to make her clients skinny but healthy. She particularly dislikes Spencer who admits that she's attending only because her fiancée signed her up. Soon their initial antagonism transforms into attraction but Spencer is engaged and an involvement is definitely not acceptable for Rebecca. Or is it?

This is a character driven novel and Ms. Beers is unapologetic about highlighting the mains' flaws. Spencer makes a very frustrating character: she procrastinates, she allows others to make decisions for her and she's passive-aggressive when facing conflict. At the same time, she's compassionate, cheerful and loving. As a reader you just cannot dislike her but, at the same time, you want to shake her up from her lethargy. Rebecca (and the reader) know that she has to make her life changing decisions by herself and see her through this process. Ms. Beers has achieved this cleverly.

My issue with this book isn't infidelity. This is part of life and I'm happy that the author doesn't sugarcoat, judge or try to justify it. It's just a consequence of the main characters' actions and how lost Spencer is. That's were the conflict lies and the good thing about this book is that, even though this is a romance, there is no obvious or formulaic end. Infidelity is effective for this plot. However, my issue is how tension is crafted. For me, it doesn't ebb and flow in the right places. At the beginning, the tension builds painstakingly slow in multiple, almost cloned scenes in the gym. Then the story finally takes off only to almost lose the tension completely near the end. In those sweet moments when the urgency of the tension unfolds is when this book earned my 4 stars. It's a pity that it didn't quite get to pack the punch near the end.

The secondary characters are multilayered and support the characters' journey effectively maybe with the exception of the fiancée who seemed too flat. Zoe, Rebecca's friend, makes a great secondary character, I hope Beers write a book with her as a main.

Overall, a good departure of the typical lesfic romance. Recommended unless you hate infidelity in romances. 4 stars.

ARC provided by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

See all my reviews at
www.lezreviewbooks.com

This review hurts me to write, because Georgia Beers is one of my favorite authors. This one was just OK for me, leaning on the side of annoying because I was hoping for so much more.

I'll get right to the point. I didn't like Spencer. I thought she was so indecisive, delusional, and utterly unaware of herself and her relationship. The fact that the book basically starts off with a million reasons why she shouldn't be with Marti but yet she never acts like she's aware of that fact annoyed the hell out of me. Why were they even together let alone getting married? She didn't like Marti's home, her job, how much she spends her money on useless things, and even liked sleeping on her couch better than in her bed. What??? That's information you get within the first 5% of the book.

Then there is Rebecca who seems cool as hell but I basically know nothing deep about her. Her family? Not so much. Her friends? They were ok side characters that gave her an ear to talk to. Nothing else gave me a glimpse of who she was other than a little back story of how she became a trainer. The rest of her part in the book is mostly her complaining to herself and her friends the 'relationship' she has with Spencer. That got pretty old fast for me.

Last thing was the length of the book and the ending. I have to warn people that you basically never see this couple together-together. In essence, this book is about Spencer and her dysfunctional relationships without an ounce of healthy relationship time.

Georgia Beers always writes so smoothly. It was just a disappointment that this one seemed lacking in so many areas. Now that I think about it, I don't even know where this story took place...New York? There seemed to be a lot of NY football mentioned, but who knows...

When Spencer's finance signs her up for a bride-to-be exercise class, she expects to be hate it and everything it stands for. But Rebecca isn't your average fitness instructor and she puts a whole new spin on the class. Spencer begrudgingly decides to continue, for herself this time. Neither expect the intense attraction they feel for one another and neither know what to do about it.

I definitely have my issues with cheating but I found I could swallow the way it was handled in this story, even if I could never condone it. The motivation behind it was realistic and worked well for the characters and the story. The chemistry was sizzling. Wow. I really enjoyed the relationship between Rebecca and Spencer. I loved Spencer's character development. It was frustrating at times to wait while she figured stuff out, but that's what made it very realistic and the process organic. The casual development of secondary characters in Spencer's exercise class really fleshed out the story nicely. <spoiler> And Marti...I wanted to punch Marti in the face so many times. Ugh.</spoiler>

This book was full of positivity, I felt really motivated, and it was just an all around feel-good story. I even want to try a spin class now!

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.