I love the diversity of the main characters and all of the typical YA romance tropes ensue in this novel. It didn’t blow me away but it was a fun read.


This book is full of interesting elements and natural dialogue (the texting felt very natural and modern - not enough books use texting, despite the fact that it's the primary mode of communication for some people!), but ultimately the narrative is a little weak

I really liked the unvarnished #OwnVoices handling of disability, especially discussion of inspiration porn and sexuality. I thought the relationships between Maeve and her friends were well written, enjoyed the portrayal of Maeve's father, and appreciated the sharpness and humor to her narrative voice. I wish there had been more elements of Maeve and her family's religious life - the one church scene piqued my interest, and I would have been interested to read more about how Catholicism fit into her life. I also would have appreciated more of an explanation of what services Francois provided for Maeve (there's one mention of his having been trained as her "companion" but most scenes seemed to show her just hanging out with him or even leaving him behind, so some clarity and detail there would have been nice). But my main critiques are about Maeve's relationships with men throughout the story. First, I thought her apparently totally accepted correspondence/friendship with older gentlemen was a little weird. Hanging out with one senior dude in a nursing home, maybe, but apparently having a ton of adult/very adult pen pals? Strange for a recent eighteen year old. I also wish the plotline with KC would have been dealt with better. Considering how easily and frequently Maeve brushes KC off, and how obvious the signs of his downward slide are without anyone doing anything, the conclusion of that storyline felt shallow and somewhat unearned and a bit soap opera. But a significant chunk of the book was about Maeve's relationship with Cole, and that element just fell absolutely flat for me. The ideas around disability and relationships were handled really well - what do you do on a date when you can't pick up a cup of water? how do you talk about having sex when you're a little worried about suffocation? - but Cole as a character was such a hole of blah nothingness that I was actively rooting against the two of them ending up together. I could buy Maeve getting caught up in his looks at the beginning, but as their conversations continued and got no deeper, no more intelligent, no more interesting, I was disappointed that Maeve didn't ditch him and move on to someone who didn't use "lol" more often than punctuation - or, God forbid, an actual idea. I didn't even find the sexual bits between them particularly sexy. Dick pics, car handjobs, and public park hookups (followed by ghosting) aren't my cup of tea, I guess. The title's apt there, I guess.

I love the diversity of the main characters and all of the typical YA romance tropes ensue in this novel. It didn’t blow me away but it was a fun read.

This book is full of interesting elements and natural dialogue (the texting felt very natural and modern - not enough books use texting, despite the fact that it's the primary mode of communication for some people!), but ultimately the narrative is a little weak. If asked to describe the plot of this book, I think I would have to say, "A girl with MS gets caught in a mild and disappointing love triangle." But I'm not sure that's it?
Also, I'm sure some handlers do treat their service dogs this way so I shouldn't complain about it in fiction, but as someone who trains service dogs and knows that they are worth tens of thousands of dollars, it was frustrating to read about a service dog who gets "stolen" because his handler isn't holding his leash and is taken to the dog park where other dogs "nip" at him and she doesn't want to take him out to pee "three times" during a movie but won't tell him to stop drinking water.

I adored this!

It took me a few chapters to really start getting into the story but once I did I fell in love with the cast of characters. There is depth to some of these characters that hit you the more you learn about them and I really appreciated that in this story.

In some ways I related to parts of the book and in others it was completely new for me. Megale was able to evoke all the emotions. I laughed, I smiled, and I cried.

I'm glad to see Maeve's parents being such a big part in the story, instead of just sitting on the sidelines as well as seeing her friends as much as we did. There were a few characters that I wish we got a little more info for or had their story arc fleshed out a bit but for the most part the individual character arcs flowed for me.

There were many instances that this book <i>felt</i> like it was a debut book. Some of the transitions read weird for me, but that could also be from reading an egalley of the book and not the final product. That being said though, there were enough instances to get me hooked and keep reading that the moments that felt weaker to me didn't ruin anything.

I really enjoyed the film aspect of this book. Having taken a few film courses and being around film students in college it's very interesting to me the work and creativity that goes into a production. I almost wish we got a little more behind the scenes of the class projects.

While I enjoyed this book there were a few times that some of the side plots felt a little too much and either needed to be focused on a bit more or just ignored. This goes back to some characters being forgettable. There were times I would read something that looped back to previous things that I all but forgot about. They were interesting sub plots, and definitely gave the story more meat but at the same time they were just kind of there for me, I was way more interested in the romance and her friends.

While reading I kept thinking that this book felt real. Real emotions, real friends, real teenage love, real text response times, just real. A lot of times reading teenagers in a book can seem fabricated and not completely believable but I really did feel like I was living through Maeve's eyes and experiences and I enjoyed that aspect of the writing.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this. For most of the book it was sitting at a comfortable 3 stars for me, but the emotions in the final third was well worth that extra star. I'm excited to see what comes next from S.C. Megale!

I really wanted to love this book but it felt very flat the only part that felt good was the main character felt like she was really going through a lot of stuff even though she was in a wheelchair

At eighteen Maeve has a lot going for her. She's smart, talented, ambitious, and she has an amazing group of friends. What she doesn't have is The Boy. And she firmly believes that it's her muscular dystrophy and confinement to a wheelchair that is keeping him from falling head over heels for her. Still, it can't hurt to flirt a little, right?

There aren't a lot of books available where you can see a character like Maeve who, yes, is dealing with some physical limitations, but is still allowed to be a normal teenage girl. A lot of books would make Maeve a trope- someone to feel sorry for or perhaps to be inspired by, not someone to relate to in a million different ways.

I think the only bit I wasn't crazy about was the end. It felt a bit like it cut off in the middle of a scene and that was unsettling because I would have liked to know at least a little about what followed.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Ok honestly, I have a ton of opinions going from one extreme to the other .

Lets talk about the heartbreak in this story - SPOT ON. Seriously DEAD SPOT ON!

The rest of it, fell flat to me.

Because the protagonist has Muscular Dystrophy, I wanted to read this story. But what I also want are plausible connections, a focus, and a woman who knows her worth even if she relies on a wheelchair for mobility. Was the point of this story that people with disabilities need love too? That's a good point - maybe a different outcome, then? There is no differentiation between a good relationship and one that is just about a kid wanting to get some action. People who take advantage of those who have disabilities, whether it is due to health or age or circumstances outside of their control each deserve their own lesson. This story needs further development.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books Publishing for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review*

emoji rating scale: 😩🙁😐😀😍
Not a Love Scene rating: 😩

I really wanted to love this YA story because I haven’t read anything like it in the past, but I did not vibe with this read. AT ALL. *insert crying face* I almost DNF’d this, to be honest. So let’s dig right on in!

This story follows Maeve — an 18 year old girl who’s living with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy — who’s trying to figure out how live like a “normal” human. It fell short for me with Maeve’s personality, her friends, and her love interests. AKA: this whole book.

What stood out to me the most was how completely self absorbed she is. It was constantly brought up that she felt like everyone was staring at her wheelchair, or her service dog, or the fact that she’d have a completely normal guy standing next to her, or the fact that she DIDN’T have a guy next to her, etc. I felt like the point of this book was to let others know that you aren’t defined by your disability…but instead the book revolved around the fact that Maeve was extremely defined by it. *you’re still an independent woman, girl*

DON’T 👏 EVEN 👏 GET 👏 ME 👏 STARTED on the horrible love interests that I hope teens / young adults run from after they read this story. UGH! This is the most frustrating part for me. I hate reading about a girl who can do SO much better, but who settles for the bottom of the bottom (I’m talking about where the bottom feeders live).

First we have Cole Stone — a total idiot, a man not worth my breath — who *I’m sorry to say* is just not that into you girl! This dude didn’t care about her disease, didn’t care about really getting to know her, didn’t care about holding an in-person conversation, didn’t care a whole lot about anything other than sex.

Then we have some more wasted breath with the second *random* love interest, KC. I totally get *and applaud* Megale for bringing up a really serious issue: depression in teens. But bringing it up is where it ended. There was no character development here; I felt like KC was just thrown into the pages randomly, and because of him, Maeve ended up in the hospital. *hell to the no*

And also, who only talks to their friends via text messages but never seems to have real face-to-face interactions with them?

UGH. I am getting heated just writing this review. I may be in the minority here with my opinion but this book just irked me so much, I can’t stand it.

I'm only realizing now how apt the title is. Our heroine, Maeve, is looking to get laid, not fall in love. She's a high school senior and film director who falls for her hottie actor, with the fuckable name Cole Stone. He doesn't seem to be all that into her at first, but Maeve likes that Cole doesn't seem to give a shit about Maeve's disability, so she persists. I wasn't sure if I should mention Maeve's disability in this review, and I appreciate that there's no wheelchair on the cover. I am referencing the disease because I think it should be an appeal to readers who, like me, are interested in #ownvoices stories of living with illness.

It's not the page-turniest novel I've ever read, but Maeve is a believable character and unpredictable. Her friends are cool, but imperfect, even/especially her best friend's boyfriend who is kind of a dick to Maeve, who sort of shrugs it off, sort of.

This book had some positive aspects to it, particularly that people in wheelchairs are just people with the same wants and needs of non-wheelchair bound people, but the main character seemed to be underdeveloped and overly focused on sex. I wasn't able to develop empathy or even much sympathy for her, unfortunately,

This was a perfectly nice book and that was kinda the problem. I wanted it to be more. I enjoyed the story but I wanted Maeve to be more accepting of her disability and less woe is me. It was still a solid read and I will be recommending that we purchase it.

"I need to find good Christian men. God, you don’t know how often I hear this. Come unto me, all ye sinners."

This book stars Maeve, a young girl who attends a film school and whose greatest life's ambition is to become a famous director. She's even completed few scripts and likes spending time buying props with her friends and shooting videos for various projects. She also suffers from muscular dystrophy and is weelchair-bound. One of her biggest concerns is how she's percived by the other sex, there's this one boy who claims behind her back that she's going to die a virgin and, even though she plays it cool most of the time, that's something she feels quite sensitive about. She flirts shamelessly with men and is hyper aware of the way she looks and whether or not, despite her disability, she can be seen as a sexual being. I quite enjoyed the overall setting, teenagehood is already a complicated period for most people and it was interesting exploring a perspective I never experienced. The problem though was that Maeve is quite the unlikeable character: she's witty, sure, and shameless and funny most of the time, but she's also that kind of girl who will hate on other women for the sole reason of them being women:
How standoffish I sound. But it’s her fault for not being a guy, right?

She'll take whatever male attention she can get and will be awful about all the women around her (unless they're her mom and friends, of course), and I really, really disliked this aspect of her persona.

The romance aspect of this book was somewhat sweet but didn't make me root for Maeve and Cole ending up together. Cole was kind of sketchy, sexting Maeve in private and ignoring her in front of other people. I feel like his character should have been explored in much more depth but Maeve never faced him about these issues which was odd, she's quite the blunt person, I expected so much more from her.

In spite of what I wrote though I didn't hate this story, it's funny in its own way, quite simple, straight-forward and it can be devoured in a couple of days.

Maeve just wants a regular life but her disability makes it anything but regular. When she meets Cole Stone, she is determined to get what she wants and convince him that she wants the same things regular teenagers want, and she wants it with him.

This book was disappointing to me, I was expecting a bit more from the storyline. It was well written and flowed well, just not for me.

I am really of two minds about this book, one part of my brain is "YOU GO GIRL!" when Maeve is out living her life while the other part of me is "You shouldn't light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm." What I tend to circle back to, however, is the fact that our main character is a teenager. Teenagers make mistakes. They spend time with people they shouldn't. They go places they shouldn't go. They try to fix situations that should not be handled by them alone.

Obviously, S.C. Megale knows what she's talking about and does not pull any punches. She keeps Maeve's condition real. We see the realities of moving about in a motorized wheelchair, the needs for vehicle accommodations, the physical and emotional strain of dealing with a disease that is debilitating. Being a teenager is hard enough without being unable to pick up a glass of water on a first date because your arms and hands just don't work that way.

Were there parts that felt a little rushed? Yes. Was the sideplot/subplot with KC sort of unnecessary? I think so, when the book ended it almost felt like it had been a blip on the radar but also solely a means to an end. Overall though, I really enjoyed reading this book. I love Francoise, I enjoy the interactions with the OMF, and Maeve was the sort of person I would have wanted to be friends with in high school.

Good job, S.C. Megale! I can't wait to see what the future of your work has in store!

This was a DNF for me. Sadly I tried really hard to press on but I could not connect at all to the Main Character in this story, I applaud the author for giving this character a voice but I personally just could not get into it. I may try again at a later date.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing this digital copy for preview in return for an honest review.

I received a copy of THIS IS NOT A LOVE SCENE from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

FOUR stars and here’s why:

S. C. Megale nailed the gut-wrenching experience of a first love’s heartache. The title says it all: this book is not a love scene. It's an honest, realistic, and quite refreshing story about teens navigating school, friendships, and the dating trenches.

Life is not a bunch of roses. It’s filled with friends, ups and downs, and challenges that can either make you or break you. Friends keep teens sane. Parents drive teen nuts. Sometimes it's the reverse. But at the end of the day, they’ve got their backs. Well, most of them do. This book has it all and then some . . . in spades.

I laughed. I cried. I wanted to jump up and down and scream at times. Mostly, I want to say thank you to the publisher and author for writing a book that I believe accurately reflects what a YA book should represent nowadays.

If you like YA stories that will make you laugh and ugly cry too, then this book is for you. Highly recommend.

This book had an interesting premise but I could not connect to the main character, Maeve and couldn’t understand what she saw in Cole. Others will enjoy but this one wasn’t for me.