Read Swoon Repeat is an okay read, but as just a sample for many YA books, it is not a great read as a whole.

If you want to get a glimpse at some current and upcoming YA romances, this book is perfect.
It definitely leaves me wanting to read some in their entirety. Thus the rating.

As for the stories themselves - I am definitely intrigued.

This is a great little preview of the books to come. My favorites were HEARTBREAKERS AND FAKERS and THE SUMMER OF LOST LETTERS. If you're wondering if you should get this book, why not? It's free and great samples of upcoming books.

YA contemporary romance is one of my favorite genres to read so I was excited to read this preview filled with a few of my highly anticipated reads for this year and well as some that I had yet to really hear about.

After reading this preview I am even more excited for these releases to come out and found a few I wouldn't have known to look for if I hadn't read this. I will probably read more previews in the future especially if they are romance focused.

All the best writers are in this lovely little teaser. There's nothing that can go wrong, and nothing does. If you want to catch a glimpse of these writers, this is the perfect way to do it.

Not quite sure how to rate this one since it's a compilation of samplers, but I'll give it a 5 because there's some really promising stuff in here! First, we have What's Not to Love. Academic rivals, super trope-y, really fun vibes. It definitely reminds me of Never Have I Ever. From Tokyo with Love: this one is on my TBR. Loved what I read in the sample and a really intriguing concept that I think will make for a really fun book. Next, Perfectly Parvin. Definitely reads like younger YA (MC is 14) which is totally fine, just not what I'm personally looking for! But I do think it's great that there's starting to be more books bridging that MG and YA gap bc that's definitely needed. Next, Some Girls Do. Really solid concept, good writing style, definitely great to see more LGBTQIA+ rep normalized in YA romance! Passing Playbook: really relevant topic and solid writing. Will probably add to my TBR. Heartbreakers and Fakers looks promising as well, provided you're into the super melodramatic high school stuff, which it does seem to be very heavy on. The Summer of Lost Letters looks very interesting and is probably one of the ones I'm most looking forward to and putting on my for-sure TBR list. Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions: great to see the rep, not a giant fan personally of the writing style so far (e.g. feels a little trying too hard like with the phrase "everything is lit" in the first paragraph). But again, if you love the high school vibes definitely very promising. Overall, a great sampler with lots of variety and a ton of great novels to look forward to!

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

Perfect to get an idea if you will like an upcoming story or not, these tastes of upcoming YA romance were fun. I'm definitely looking forward to some of these books.

I love that it was a little collection with a taster for a number of different things. I think small compilations like these are so handy for someone not sure of what they want to read next or who perhaps know what genre they want to read but haven't found the next novel yet.

I'm not sure whether I'll go on to read any of these stories in full as having a smapler of them was nice but they didn't shape up to something I'd perch high up on my TBR list. That being said, again, if Romance is right up your alley then you'll absololutely LOVE this number!

Ready Swoon Repeat contains 8 YA romance samples that will be released throughout this year. This was such a fun read! Loved the diversity in every sample; from ethnicity to age to sexuality and romance trope! You bet I will be adding some of these to my already extensive list!

-What’s Not to Love by Austin Siegmund-Broka and Emily Wibberley:
In What’s Not to Love, we get to know Alison, a high-schooler who does not like to be second place to her rival Ethan. You know where this is going lol who doesn’t love a good enemies to lovers trope! The story has short chapters (I love short chapters :D) and the characters sound fun, especially her parents! However, Alison is really hung up on being the best in her class and having good grades. Do not get me wrong, I was into getting good grades as well lol but hers was a bit annoying, borderline obsessive. Also the way she treats her sister, ehhh did not like that. I rate this sample a 3/5 straight A's!

-From Little Tokyo, With Love by Sarah Kuhn:
In From Little Tokyo, With love, we meet Rika Chen, who is Japanese American and finding it difficult to fit in. This story has to be my favorite, the writing had me hooked and I was highly impressed.The characters were funny and had so much personality in just those few chapters. The readers were also rudely teased by only getting a snippet of the love interest! Disrespectful lol Oh! and let’s not even talk about how the sample ended in a cliffhanger……I need more and I need it now! I rate this sample a 4.5/5 judo kicks!

-Perfectly Parvin by Olivia Abtahi:
In Perfectly Parvin, we are introduced to Parvin, an Iranian-American freshmen who is trying to navigate the struggles of high-school and boys. All of these samples are considered YA, but this one reads more middle school to me. The characters that we were able to read about sound nice, the main character is very naive and has the mentality of wanting to change herself in order to get a boy…… I rate this sample a 2.5/5 yelps.

-Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan:
In Some Girls Do, we get to know Ruby and Morgan! Ruby is a high-school senior and a pageant girl who would rather do anything else than be in pageants and Morgan is the new student who is into track and field and has a reputation from her previews school. This sample was another good one! The characters were spunky and the dialogue was witty. Compared to the other snippets, this read is a bit more mature. I rate this sample a 4.5/5 intense gazes!

-The Passing Playlist by Isaac Fitzsimmons:
In the Passing Playbook, we meet Spencer, a transgender boy who was bullied into a new school. While in the new school, we see him keeping his transition to himself, even to the majority of QSA (Queer Straight Alliance) group. I enjoyed reading about Spencer’s relationship with his mom and how his mom has supported him. I have never read about a transgender character before and this story seems like it has potential. Other than the main character, his mom, and his best-friend, all the other characters were pretty bland including the possible love interest. Nevertheless, I am still intrigued in reading more about Spencer and his journey! I rated this sample a 3.5/5 stars.

-Heartbreakers and Fakers by Cameron Lund:
In Heartbreakers and Fakers, we read about Penny, who has worked hard to achieve the “popularity’’ and the friends she has gained; including Olivia, who is the HBIC. This story started off with a wild night and had me pretty intrigued. Honestly a lot happened in the little bit that I was able to read, I enjoyed the past to present style of it as well. I don’t know how I felt about the characters lol the story had me whiplashed with liking and disliking them at the same time. I rated this sample a 4/5 drunken nights!

-The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds:
In The Summer of Lost Letters, we meet Abby, a seventeen year old who recently lost her grandmother. Abby finds love letters that belonged go her grandmother and her past life in Nantucket. So what do you do when you find your grandmothers old love letters with a man from Nantucket? You take a trip to the place and hunt the man down of course! lol There were a lot of characters in this read and the majority were funny and let’s not even talk about the possible love interest and that meet-cute *giggles*! I rated this sample 3.5/5 letters lol!

-Sunny G’s Series of Rash Decisions by Navdeep Singh Dhillon:
In Sunny G’s Series of Rash Decisions, we read about Sunny, an awkward teen who is trying to reinvent himself by following a list of rash decisions on a notebook that his recently decided brother left behind. Although Sunny was awkward to the point of being funny (died laughing at the “I’m going to go urinate” bit! iykyn lol), I just wasn’t really into the story. The sample left me a bit confused. I rated it a 2.5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy!

This review is for a selection of upcoming YA romances from Penguin - so more like an impressions-view. I'll admit, the very first entry in the previews "What's not to Love," isn't for me, as I really hate reading about vomiting, and the very first protagonist seems to have food poisoning for at least four of the sample chapters. Eurgh. I would've chosen anything else to preview first in the order...

Perfectly Parvin felt a bit too cliched - it starts with Parvin being dumped by a racist loser and it feels pretty rote. It has a Grease-lite set-up [Summer lovin', had me a blast...] but it doesn't really feel genuine. Good grief every cultural detail is just so blunt. The awful white girl is named Teighan, Parvin describes her intense waxing as a...14 year old (since she's a Freshman in high school) because she's "half-iranian" and therefore comes with her own "carpet." (I mean I get it, I'm half mexican and started shaving my arms in the 4th grade but...). Parvin once comments in her narrative that she is 'unfortunately straight,' and I eyerolled onwards. Honestly it reads a bit more middle-grade.

On the other end of the spectrum, Some Girls Do has some great writing, although I would've liked a longer sample - F/F romance that is well written definitely gets on my to-read list. The Summer of Lost Letters - about a Jewish girl trying to learn more about her late-grandmother's life as a teenager by tracking down her former boyfriend seems to be promising.

I went into this sampler almost entirely blind as I'd only heard of one of these books before this. I feel like I haven't been reading much YA lately so I was hoping to find something new in here and I would say this preview delivered! Every book that was previewed here isn't for me but I think they all have promise and I've found a few that I'd really like to read when they come out. I'd also like to say that overall it felt like a lot of diverse stories were being told here and I did really appreciate that, not every story resonated with me personally but none of the stories seemed bad in any way and I really think there was something for everyone here.

What's Not to Love (April 20th 2021) is a school based rivals to lovers story about the top two students in a school who have been competing for the #1 spot for years. The preview gave us a good look at the dynamic between the two characters but didn't really get into the actual plot very much which I personally found a little frustrating. This is essentially the beginning of the book and it felt pretty slow/the main female character came across as really obnoxious (think early Paris from Gilmore Girls vibes). That being said I recently read another book from this author duo that started out slow with an unlikable MC and I ended up really enjoying that one so I will still be giving this one a try. I also love enemies to lovers so how could I not try this book, y'know?

From Little Tokyo, with Love (May 11th 2021) This preview really didn't give very much away which makes it a little bit hard to form an opinion on this one tbh but from I saw in the preview this does have a lot of promise. The story follows Rika who is an orphan being raised by her aunts, alongside their two daughters. Rika is a a highly competitive judo practitioner who doesn't really fit in with her cousins who are quite girly. She's also biracial while most of her community is fully Japanese and it's pretty clear that she doesn't feel like she fits in with her community/wants to know more about her parents. It looks like the book will be about her going on an journey of sorts to figure out who her parents were/what they were like, alongside a cute heartthrob actor. Like I said, we don't get too much on this one so I'm kind of in the middle about it but I am intrigued. I think as long as the MC doesn't end up being too "I'm not like other girls" then this will be good!

Perfectly Parvin (May 18th 2021) is about a young Iranian-American girl who is starting high school and trying to recover from the humiliation of having her first boyfriend dump her within days (maybe even one day) of starting their relationship. Even though I am more than twice the age of the main character here (cue existential crisis) I found Parvin so relatable. I still remember the overwhelming dread of being a young teenage girl and just feeling like nothing you do is right/you have to change everything about yourself and I really felt for Parvin here. This seems like it's going to be a fun, wild ride full of hijinks but the only thing is that it reads as really young. I'm obviously much older than the target audience for any of these books but this one in particular comes across as younger in tone than the others in the collection. I'll probably still give it a try but with the full knowledge that I am too old (tm) for this book. I do think it will be a great read for middle grade/young YA readers though!

Some Girls Do (May 18th 2021) follows Morgan, who is a "disgraced" athlete starting over at a new school late in her senior year and Ruby, a pageant queen who cares more about her car than pageants. This preview was very short but I loved what we got and I am ashamed of myself for not knowing anything about this book before I read the preview here. I really like the characterization of both girls and the little we did see shows a strong start to the book. My notes for this one were basically gibberish but basically this was my favourite out of the sampler and I love everything about this, including the title and cover. I can't wait to read this.

The Passing Playbook (June 1st 2021) is about Spencer Harris, a transgender young man who was forced to switch schools after being relentlessly bullied at his old school. Spencer passes as cis so when he starts his new school Spencer decides to not tell anyone he's trans and just live his life. The synopsis explains more of the plot but he clearly struggles with that decision and after a discriminatory law forces him off the soccer field he has to decide if he wants to come out to everyone in order to fight the law or accept the law and stay closeted. This one has a lot of potential and was definitely one of my top reads from the book. My only real concern with this book is that there was one character who gave me really bad vibes and I'm pretty sure he's the love interest. Obviously, I get that characters can grow throughout a story so even if he is the love interest things might end up totally fine but I am a little hesitant because of that. I'll probably still read this and I really hope it's good but I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic.

Heartbreakers and Fakers (June 8th 2021) I can just tell this one is going to be wild ride. It's about Penny, who after struggling to get rid of a bullying nickname from middle school ruins her life (socially at least) by drunkenly kissing her boyfriend's best friend who also happens to be /her/ best friend's boyfriend. You honestly don't get into too much of the plot here but from the synopsis it looks like this is going to also include fake dating and probably enemies to lovers and I'm here for the drama. The premise reminded me of the 99 days books and while I know not everyone enjoys cheating plots/subplots I think they can be really interesting (and I feel like not everything is how it seems here) so I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

The Summer of Lost Letters (June 15th 2021) This one follows Abby, who after coming across her grandmother's stash of secret love letters goes to Nantucket for the summer to try and track down the man who wrote them and find out more about her grandmother's early life (something her grandmother, who fled the holocaust, never really talked about). Of course things can't be easy so when she gest there she meets the grandson of the letter writer who doesn't really want her digging around his family's past and things just get more complicated from there. I really liked this preview and I feel like it will be an excellent summer/beach read so I will definitely be picking this one up.

Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions (February 8th 2022) this one is about high school senior Sunny Gill, who after losing his older brother decides to reinvent himself and centers his transformation around having the perfect prom experience. Of course things do not go perfectly and it begins to look like he overhyped prom in his own head when Mindii (a girl he knows but isn't super familiar with) steals the notebook his brother left behind. This notebook also contains Sunny's own life changing plans and it seems like the two of them then go on a night of adventure as he tries to get it back from her. This book takes place in one night which is a premise that's always been hit or miss for me personally but I do think this one sounds like fun! I'm not 100% sure if it's for me but I'll wait until closer to the release date (which is quite far off) to see more before making a decision.

Loved seeing a small glimpse into some of the most awaited romance novels of this year. This preview into them excited me even more for their release. I think it was especially great because with novels that you love, you instantly know if you'll like it or not at the beginning and so for whoever reads this, they'll know whether buying the whole thing is worth it or not.

It’s exciting to see these upcoming books, but sad when you get so hooked and don’t want to stop, but you don’t have the whole thing! I’m looking forward to so many of them. It’s going to be a good reading year.

Brilliant book with a nuanced look at the different issues related to consent and the different aspects of sexual assault and harassment. Difficult to read but so necessary

I'm not usually a rom-com person but I was feeling in the mood, and wow, I'm actually excited by almost all of these books.

What's Not to Love by Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegemund-Broka: I've heard a lot about these authors in the past but haven't really read anything by them yet. I just might have to after reading this, because the enemies-to-lovers is spicy in this one.

From Little Tokyo, With Love by Sarah Kuhn: I'm fascinated by this retelling, and I'm excited to read the full book. It's not often you see a young Asian woman of color with anger issues in a rom-com.

Perfectly Parvin by Olivia Abtahi: This one was exciting because it's a YA for younger teens, and despite being a full ten years older I was still really interested in it! Parvin is hilarious and has such a distinct, vivid voice.

Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan: This was the only one on my radar before this and it is still on my radar, and I'm sad that this seemed to be the shortest excerpt. I'm really excited to continue their story, we love f/f romances.

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimmons: I like sports romances, so this book about a trans teen fighting to keep playing on his soccer team seems really cool. I liked how it seems geared towards younger teens as well.

Heartbreakers and Fakers by Cameron Lund: Even though I've never really been a fan of reading about the popular kids, I was still interested in this one, mostly because of how chaotic it was at the beginning.

The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds: This one stood out to me the least out of all the books? Letters as a plot devices have never really been my thing, but it was interesting to see the start of this story!

Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions: This looks like a really fun book, and Sunny has a very engaging voice.

This made me very excited for the upcoming season! Not all of them were my cup of tea but these were my favorite:
- From Little Tokyo, With Love by Sarah Kuhn
- Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan
I really appreciated the diversity in these stories and look forward to reading the full books when they are released.

I loved all the book samples provided. It gives such a wonderful opportunity to figure out what to expect and which ones would be interesting to read. Waiting for all the full books to come out so that I can get my hands on those.

I love getting a preview of some of the wonderful books coming out later this year, and it's especially nice to see some queer representation here. I look forward to seeing these books in print!

Excited to see what new books are out there! Thank you. This gave me some new ideas to consider and will have to see what I can pick up.

I loved being able to read these samples. I’m not usually a huge YA reader but I loved this because it gave me the chance to read several chapters of a bunch of different books.

One of the books I’m most excited about is What’s Not to Love by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegmund-Broka. I was totally hooked on this book right away and I was pretty sad when the sample ended. I’ve never read any books from Emily and Austin but now that I’m waiting for this book to release I’m going to take a look at their other books.

I also really enjoyed the samples of From Little Tokyo, With Love and Some Girls Do.

One of the other books I’m really excited about is Heartbreakers and Fakers by Cameron Lund. I haven’t read her first book, The Best Laid Plans but I’ve heard great things about it so now I definitely want to read both of her books.