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I love a cheesy rom-com as much as the next girl, but I was pretty disappointed by this book. I am generally a fan of books where you feel kind of dropped into the story without much exposition, but in this case it didn't work. When you have a friends-to-lovers trope that is predicated on 20-plus years of friendship, and understanding of how they became friends, why they became friends, and why they have stayed friends for such a long time is very neccessary, but there was little-to-no mention of their history as friends which made it difficult to connect with the characters.

I was very unimpressed by the writing, The author seemed more concerned with describing the minutiae of every character's movements, rather than any providing any character descriptions (we literally never learn what these characters actually look like) or taking time to further develop the characters. This added nothing to the story and made every scene a little grueling to get through. The dialogue felt forced and clunky, like the author was trying to create witty banter beween the character, but it justcame across as unoriginal and cliche.

It wasn't horrible, but overall, this book was underwhelming, unoriginal, and forgetable.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher, St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

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A light friends to lovers rom-com - and the saving of an independent bookstore! Lizzy has worked non-stop toward the goal of becoming a partner at a law firm and she's almost there when she has a panic attack. A panic attack that makes it obvious that she needs to leave LA and reboot. Jack has never left the small town where he works as the bookkeeper for his family's brewery. Its not the job of his dreams but he's committed. When Lizzy discovers the bookstore below her apartment is in trouble, she ropes him in to save it. You know how this goes except that they both have career choices to make. And life choices. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good beach read.

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I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book, provided by Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have a soft spot for friends-to-lovers romances, and Booked on a Feeling checked off all my boxes. I did not want it to end. I loved Lizzy and Jack, and their 20-year friendship. The only thing holding me back from a 5-star is the miscommunication trope. It was book-long practically about everything, and that just took a bit away from the story for me. Also, Jack and Lizzy kept secrets from each other.

However, Lizzy and Jack's friendship, their love story, their ending, I was so happy with all of that. My husband and I were friends before we ended up together, so I'm always partial to these kind of stories. I appreciated the family dynamics explored - Jack's loving and supportive family, Lizzy's uptight and judgmental mother. I love that both Lizzy and Jack struck out on their own, found their own path, and didn't let their families dictate what they needed to do.

I'm glad we got that little glimpse into the future of their life - and I was very happy with how that turned out. I will tell you that today I pre-ordered a signed copy because it is definitely a book I want on my shelf.

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This was such a cute friends to lovers story. I really enjoyed the chemistry and camaraderie between Lizzy and Jack, and how they both had feelings for each other but neither of them wanted to jeopardize their friendship. Their journey to realizing their feelings for each other was so fun and adorable.
I appreciated the dichotomy of how families are different and how their support or their lack of it can shape how individuals see themselves and how they choose to live their lives.
I also enjoyed how this story was for the book lovers, it had all the little idiosyncrasies that abound within the book reading community.
One thing I did not enjoy was the pusedo- miscommunication trope that was the obstacle to the HEA.
Other than that, this was a very readable, enjoyable romcom.

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I love that the two leads of this book are Asian. Lizzy Chung is a lawyer in a very stressful job. Her relationship with her mother feels a bit stereotypical of the idea that all Asian families put a lot of pressure on their children to succeed. What Lizzy really loves is the bookstore in the same neighborhood where her best friend Jack Park lives. Jack is sweet and supportive, and runs and has abs--you know, leading male stuff. I do appreciate that Jack is as much eye-candy as white male leads in Romance novels. There's definitely steaminess between these two, but Jack seems a bit too overwrought about whether or not the relationship will ruin the friendship. Still. friends to lovers is a fun trope. I recommend this book for a light, quick read.

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book.

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DNF @ 27 %

Lizzy is an overworked lawyer who takes a spontaneous vacation to visit her best friend, Jack, in their small hometown. Little does Lizzy know that Jack has been in love with her for basically his entire life, and Jack was just trying to get over his intense crush before Lizzy showed up in town.

This book should be cute and romantic, but I could not stand the writing style. Here’s a passage from the book:

“They crossed the street, dodging an SUV making an aggressive right turn as soon as the WALK signal started blinking, and headed to the parking structure. She and Katie both forgot where they’d parked that morning, but they were in agreement that it was somewhere on the third level. Lizzy had to do that thing where she kept pushing the lock button on her key to find her car by sound. She liked her BMW, but playing Marco Polo was much more fun in a pool full of people. Their drive back to the office took less time than locating her misplaced car. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head as she drove down to the underground parking.”

Like… none of this is important. What a snooze fest. It’s a giant reading pet peeve of mine when every movement a character makes is written down in excruciating detail like this. Unless something important is going down while we’re searching for our car in a parking garage, all of this could’ve been cut. It just feels like a massive waste of my time.

This book also had the mutual pining trope, which I just don’t enjoy because of how frustrating it is. I found Jack to be pretty pathetic and he thought exactly like a middle schooler. Whenever he’d see a girl he’d study her and question if he had a crush on her or not simply based on initial attraction… that’s what I did when I was 12.

Nothing about this appealed to me. I really tried to push through since this was an ARC, but unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to read another page.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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3.5/5 stars

Thank you to NetGally and St. Martin's Press for letting me read and review this ARC.

This is a really good book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The first chapter through me off because it started off with Lizzy working a case as a lawyer. I requested this book because I love books about books, and that is what I was expecting going into it. Although it does become that a little more later in the book, the first chapter being about a law case really kind of threw me.

Overall, a really good book, however it was not my favorite. I loved the characters and the idea of the story, but I think some parts of the book were a little unnecessary. It was also kind of predictable, which may be because it's a romance story, but it was a little too predictable for my taste.

*****************SPOILERS*******************

Although I love Lizzy and Jack, I think the whole fight and break-up portion of the book was really unnecessary, or at least kind of poorly written. These two have been friends for twenty plus years, but you're going to tell me they break up and choose to not talk again over a simple misunderstanding, like they would have never had any of those within their years of friendship. I don't know, just seems a little forced to me.

However, I am glad for the happy ending and how the whole story wrapped up. I think they make an amazing couple and will make amazing parents.

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book review: booked on a feeling by jayci lee
rating: 3.5/5

if you know me, then you know i *love* friends-to-lovers romances. it is my all-time favorite trope. jack and lizzy have been friends for years. jack has always loved lizzy, but been too afraid to risk their friendship. lizzy is completey oblivious (someone in the party has to be!), but jack is the most important person in her life. when burnout forces lizzy to take a step back from her job as a lawyer, she returns to the small town where she and jack grew up. romancing ensues…

jack and lizzy’s interactions are so wholesome 🥰 you could tell how much each of them valued their relationship (even if that sometimes lead to miscommunication…). though the plot was a bit predictable, i still enjoyed this read. lizzy had a well written character arc in terms of coming into her own and deciding to go after her dreams, rather than live her parents dreams. this part of her character made me like and respect her. and i enjoyed that it also paralleled jack's journey, so they were kind of both in the same place, but just a little different!

the reason i didn’t love love this book is because i felt like i was dropped into lizzy and jack’s life. one of the most important parts of a friends-to-lovers (to me, at least) is getting the couple's backstory. i need to know how they got close. what their friendship was like when they were firmly ~just friends~. lee drops us into jack and lizzy’s lives without telling us how they got to where they are, and then the romance just kind of… starts? there wasn’t too much buildup. i wanted to know more about each of their lives, so i guess my complaint is that the story felt very surface level.

nevertheless, a cute, quick read that i’d recommend to put a smile on your face!

thank you to netgalley and st. martins for my e-arc in exchange for my honest opinion! #BookedonaFeelingJayciLee #NetGalley

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I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Booked on a Feeling is, in my opinion, the weakest book Jayci Lee has released to date. I’ve already had mixed experiences with her work in the past, but this one was a massive disappointment, even by comparison.
There are some minor redeeming qualities. Lee does a good job depicting Korean diaspora culture, and its impact on her main characters. The pressure Lizzy feels is largely imposed by her family, and I appreciate the journey she goes on reckoning with her burnout and finding herself. I feel if this story hadn’t been (primarily) a romance and had focused more on h I’d, or the romance had been developed differently, I would have liked this a lot more.
Speaking of which…this is one of the weakest depictions of friends to lovers I’ve ever read. It stems from a real lack of context for the history between them, except that they’ve known each other a long time, and Jack has been in love with Lizzy for years. But it took a weird turn, because it became one of those “I’m not in town long, let’s have a temporary casual hookup” situations. And both of them go back and forth about how this isn’t serious, and as much as they want it, the other doesn’t feel the same, and it’s impossible because of their different lifestyles. The former got hammered in so much, I didn’t feel like the ultimate catharsis for either felt sincere…especially on Jack’s part. He was like, “I wasn’t really in love with her before, but now I am.” But what changed? Without context for “before,” all I have is that you’ve been sleeping together and occasionally sprucing up the local bookstore. And then, when they each try to be proactive and “fix” their distance problem, without first really addressing what they want, much less consulting the other person, they make it even worse.
And this book was also sooo…dang…slooooow. I get the impression it was meant to be a slow burn, but I feel like I’ve established there’s no real heat going here. I only finished this book because I almost forced myself to in hopes it might get better, although I did let myself get distracted by something else in the middle.
This book seems to be getting a lot of mixed reactions, so don’t take my word for it. It’s very possible that Jayci Lee’s books are just not for me, especially as this isn’t the first one I had issues with.

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I really wanted to like this, but it is a DNF for me. The story is too slow and the characters aren’t very interesting. I found myself avoiding reading just to see it off reading it. 😔

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This book is very cute, featuring a sunshine x sunshine pairing. I did like both characters and I was rooting for them to get together, but I did feel the story dragged in places.

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Booked on a Feeling was a splendid rom-com. I would recommend this to any fans of “friends-to-lovers” or even people that love “books about books”. Jayci Lee’s writing style was fantastic, and her character development kept me reading. The anxiety representation was great and it seems to be a popular thing this publishing season. Overall, this is such a cute story and I would recommend it to my friends.

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ARC reading for Net Galley: such a cute romance!! Especially since being an avid reader, I loved how Lizzy figured out her life and ended up owning her own book store!

While the romance was the majority of the novel and you could tell from the beginning that they would end up together, the author does it in such a good way that doesn’t make it too cheesy! It flows beautifully and has such a good turmoil and ending!

I can’t wait to read more by her!

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Sweet heartfelt romance. Loved the characters, the mage behind the story and the swoom worthy love story. I loved the anxiety aspect of the book as i suffer with anxiety and live to see it portrayed well in a book. Overall a great second chance romance with loveable characters

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A sweet friends-to-lovers romance, Lizzy Chung is burned out after years in a high powered law firm. She takes a vacation and goes to Weldon where her best friend Jack helps run the family brewery, planning to recharge and then go back to LA. But she discovers things about herself on vacation, including how much she loves helping her neighbor and friend spruce up Weldon's indie bookstore (side note, can I just say, I loved the ode to small indie bookstores that was a part of "Booked on a Feeling"? All so true!), and she comes to appreciate Jack as much more than her best friend. Jack has always felt like the odd one out in his family since his dream isn't to run the family brewery, but he doesn't know what else to do and drifts along. He knows he has loved Lizzy forever but done nothing about it to keep from ruining their friendship- but 3 weeks together could put that to the test. Can he work the feeling out of his system or convince Lizzy to give their relationship a different kind of a chance?

This was as much about figuring out who you are and what you want out of life for both Lizzie and Jack as it was their changing relationship, and I really liked that. Part of me was frustrated that they never talked to each other about all their problems but partly I understood- you want to stand on your own and know your life and what makes you happy without anyone else. Both have families with expectations that have made them unhappy, so I guess they swung more the other way and kept things to themselves as a reaction to that. The natural chemistry between them once they take their relationship to the next level was great, and shows how well friends to lovers can work when done right. After all, shouldn't the person you love also be your best friend?

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Good book!
I am very fond of the best friends to lovers trope and this did not disappoint. It was a very heartfelt book with a bit of a slower pace. Overall I loved the characters and it was a great rom-com!

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This was a sweet friends to lovers romance between Lizzy and Jack. I love that it was Jack that was pinning for Lizzy since he was 10. I wished we got to see more of their younger days to see why Jack loved Lizzy so much.

I enjoyed the slow burn and Jack was just the sweetest. I enjoying seeing their individual journey to do what makes them happy and how that created the rift and how it turned out.

That narration was good but at parts a bit monotone for me.

Thank you @smpromance @netgalley for ALC.

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I really enjoyed this book. There was no big draw in for me but it was so cute and heartfelt that I really liked it. It was just the kind of book I needed.

Lizzy is a go getter, over achiever that just goes and goes and goes . She needs to make sure she hits her goals or what she thinks are her goals and “her” goal is to make partner at her law firm. Things change for her when she has an anxiety attack during court and she takes a much needed leave from work and decides to spend 3 weeks with her best friend Jack, who has been secretly in love with her for like 20 years, and together they save the small town book store.

What Lizzy discovers on her leave is herself. I love that journey for her. I love the journey she takes to realize what she needs, what she wants, and what she wants does not need to be defined by other people’s wants/goals for her. I love her journey in finding herself and I love that Jack recognizes that and let’s her. Then there is Jack who has figured what he wants or really has figured out the first part of his journey to figure out what he wants and spread his wings. I love his journey on discovering that he is enough and recognizing that in himself and finding his self confidence.

Lizzy and Jack are both so cute and lovable. I love how this author showed us how their relationship unfolded and recognizing what the other needed whether it was giving space to figure themselves or pushing each other.

I did like how the book explores how we/people view ourselves and coming to grips that we/ourselves are enough and don’t need to live up to someone else’s ideals. I think that is something most people struggle with and I like how it is tackled in such a heartwarming way.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and to Jayci Lee for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

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3-3.5
This was pretty cute; it was kinda predictable and a bit cheesy but it was a good 'brain off' read. The beginning had more promise then how it ended but it was still a very cozy romance book.

Ok... I by no means hate this book but there are also quite a few things especially towards the end that kinda irritated me;
the weird 4th wall breaking because that happens especially towards the end isn't my favourite because it took me out of the story too much, she kept saying oh well it's like x trope and stuff to like analyze their relationship and it bothered me quite a bit
<spoiler> it ended with her saying she was pregnant and it just felt like abrupt </spoiler>
the ending felt rushed

*i got the e book arc as well as the audio arc so, thank you netgalley, dreamscape media, and st martins press for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

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This book was enjoyable but a bit slow paced at the start! It took a bit for the plot to pick up and though I really enjoyed the heartfelt romance between the two characters, the lack of plot development in the first half made it a bit tedious to continue reading. The romance did however feel very authentic and a very good version of the friends to lovers trope.

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