This was a cute friends to lovers story that takes place primarily in a bookstore.

I loved the back and forth perspectives and the inclusion of mental health issues pertaining to anxiety and severe self-doubt. It was fun to follow the previous two couples stories from this series a little further in this book.

I don't do many friends to lovers since I find to predictable but this one has been the best I've read in some time. It also has a small town feel & I love when the characters also have bookish vibes. (: Lizzy and Jake make a good duo!

I had a hard time getting into the book. The beginning started off slow. While I enjoy details I feel it could have been condensed. However it's a cute story with likeable characters.

This one has a slow start but if you push through that you get some cute moments! Lizzy and Jake are very adorable characters that are easy to like. Jake is the ideal book boyfriend and I liked how this book played on the idea of reading being a meet-cute.
Overall, this book is a solid 3 out of 5. It's an easy read and not a ton of substance but plays on numerous "hooky" troupes like friends to lovers and boy falls first. Basically, if you are looking for a smile (with a mildly spicy scene or two) then grab it!

I picked up this book earlier today and could not put it down until I was done. It was exactly the fun escape I needed with all the great rom-com tropes we know and love. A great way to kick off my summer reading which officially starts tomorrow!

I was unfortunately only able to get close to halfway through. This book definitely had me hooked from the beginning with the writing style and how the main character is portrayed. Love how the story was flowing I wish I could have read more! The cover is also super cute and caught my attention first!

LA attorney Lizzy has just won her first trial, but instead of excitement, she’s overwhelmed with anxiety and burnt out. When Lizzy packs up for a three week vacation to Weldon where her best friend of twenty years, Jack, lives, she discovers a bookstore in need of serious TLC. This friends to lovers trope will have you ready to cross off to-do list items and finding your nearest cozy bookstore.

Add this to your beach read list for summer! Lizzy and Jack’s love story as they overcome high expectation parents is so sweet and will have you giggling along with them. This love story is a little more adorably over the top than realistic but the characters were still well developed and easy to like. A great reminder of how important small bookstores are to the community as well!

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

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC for an honest review.

This book, on the surface, is everything I usually love: friends-to lovers rom-com, bookstore setting, burnt out professional finding themselves in a small town, golden retriever love interest, etc. However, it sadly did not live up to my expectations. I rarely give books a review under 2.5 stars. This is an exception to that rule. This book wasn’t offensively bad, but it certainly wasn’t good either, in my opinion.

I found both Lizzy (the female main character) and Jack (the male main character) to be extremely annoying, bordering on unlikable. There was practically no character development, and despite being just over 300 pages, the book felt way too long. There were grammatical and spelling errors here and there, and the plot was mediocre.

The thing that I disliked the most, though, was the paragraph describing what the Gangnam Style dance looks like. We were all alive in 2012, we know what the dance looks like. It was things like this that really brought the review down a star for me: over-explanation to the point of being cringe-worthy. Trust the audience knows what you’re talking about, and if they don’t, that they’ll look it up; don’t spend a page detailing exactly how to eat a certain dish.

I really, really wanted to like this book; it’s a rom-com written by a Korean author about two Korean love intetests, and diversity in the romance genre is something that is sorely needed. However, that unfortunately didn’t outweigh it just being a book that wasn’t for me writing-wise. Give it a chance if you want to, don’t let this review stop you—if you can push past the plot issues and editing errors and actually like the characters your opinion may differ! For me, though, it just didn’t land. I give it 1.5 stars.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Publishing and Netgalley for this ARC! I was so excited because I instantly loved the cover, title, and description of this book! However, I got to chapter three and dnf’d it sadly. Chapter one grabbed me but soon after that I was left with whiplash from how quickly things happened and confused from little information on how or why they were happening. Maybe it was me and I need to give it another chance but if not I would love to read more from this author! It could be that this just wasn’t the book for me like I initially thought it was. 🤷‍♀️

This book had a lot of moments that I loved and a couple that I didn’t. The beginning was a bit slow and dragged on for me. But the middle really picked up and made me love Lizzy and Jack. Their banter become real and the sweet moments between them had my heart fluttering. But then we hit wall after wall of constant miscommunication. The miscommunication trope can work, but this just kept going and going, I honestly didn’t know if it would ever end. The resolution felt rushed and everything fell into place too fast and too perfectly. Overall, I enjoyed the book but wish they would have communicated better.

Booked on a Feeling is the third novel in a set of novels in the A Sweet Mess series. This third book is about Lizzy and Jack, who are best friends. Jack has had feelings for Lizzy for over 20 years. When Lizzy takes a break from work and spends time in Jack's hometown of Weldon, he gets a chance to spend 3 weeks with his best friend and see where things go.

This is a cute, small town, friends to loves romance. I loved that Jack always knew he had feelings for Lizzy, but Lizzy had no clue. I loved watching Lizzy's discovery that she had feelings and laughed out loud a couple times. One of my favourite scenes was when she saw Jack with a toolbelt on and thought of how hot he looked. It was so awesome, and I could see it playing out.

One of the things I don't like in romances is lack of communication. I felt that a lot of heartache, pain and worry could have been avoided by both people if they had just talked to each other. I found myself frustrated with the characters more than a couple times!

I did like getting the chance to visit with the couples, and more importantly Jack's family, who we saw in the previous books. It was nice to see what was happening with everyone, even though the novel focussed on Jack and Lizzy's story. Jayci Lee does a great job writing small town, family romances and I find myself enjoying this series so much.

This was a good, solid romance. It would be perfect to pick up to read at the cabin or on the beach this summer! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of this book. All opinions are 100% mine.

This was such a cute novel! I loved the inclusion of pride and prejudice! I think any fans of the friends-to-lovers trope would really love this, it was so sweet!

This book was cute, but slow and poorly paced. I cared about their relationship, but all the legal talk at the beginning really turned me off from reading it. Also, the miscommunication trope in this story is so frustrating. They’ve been best friends for almost their entire lives and still can’t communicate clearly? I felt like some parts were unfinished, while others were overly developed. Not a bad story, but definitely subpar

If your parents have ever swayed you to pursue a career that you did not particularly enjoy, well this book is for you. It touches on topics such as career burnout & following a career path that your parents set out for you.

Now let’s talk about the two main characters, Jack & Lizzy who are childhood friends. Jack and Lizzy had a cute slow-burn romance. I was seriously gushing over the subtle physical contact. These two have been PINING over each other for some time now. I found myself yelling “OK JUST KISS!”

But this is not solely a romance novel… It touches on the family dynamic in an Asian-American household. Jayci Lee writes about the feeling of being in a career that’s not making you happy, which I’m sure many of us can relate to.

“Lizzy wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she knew what she didn’t want” spoke volumes to me. Lizzy is strong-willed and I admired her courage to take risks in her life. She stopped living to please other people and only lived to please herself. Both she and Jack realized that they needed to love themselves before they could love each other.

💗 What I liked 💗
* Strongly resonating with Lizzy’s situation - being so burnt out in your job with no time to recharge, so you start questioning if this career is meant for you
* Asian representation! I found myself relating to Jack and Lizzy’s upbringing
* The many ways in which a person can show their love for you
* Lizzy stands up to her mother and chooses to put her dreams and aspirations above others
* Discussions on mental health (panic attacks, anxiety & the feeling of not being good enough)

What I disliked
* The first half of the book put me in a reading slump. Combination of slow pacing & too much detail (personally not a fan)
* Cringy dialogue at times 🙁

Rating: 3/5 ✨

Recommended for those that like the friends to lovers and the small-town romance trope.

Thank you to @netgalley & @stmartinspress for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Booked on a Feeling comes out on July 26th 💖

Wow this book was so cute and fun! I'm a sucker for a friends to lovers trope and this sure did deliver. Throw in a book lover and some book stores, mixed with small town charm? Just what I needed to crack my reading slump.

I recommend this to anyone looking for a light hearted, fun read with a beautiful ending.

A huge thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!
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A book about a bookstore with a main character that loves romances? Yeah, sign me up every time. Lizzy and Jack have been best friends for twenty years, and he has been in love with her the entire time. It's a good thing they only see each other a few times a year because he can't handle his attraction to her at all. Yet, he still comes to her first court case just to see her pass out during opening remarks due to anxiety. A need for vacation sends her back to his hometown and fixing up a local bookstore because to-do lists are the ultimate relaxation tool. The chemistry between Jack and Lizzy is mentioned on basically every page, but for two people who have known each other for twenty years they seem pretty terrible at reading each other's body language and tells. There is continuous miscommunication, that to a point felt like it was overdone. You are fully grown people, so just speak, rather than telling the same lies over and over again to yourself and others.
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The pacing is slow at the start and picks up in the final 25% of the novel. I wish there were more outside circumstances halting their romance, so their internal struggles weren't the only reason they have a will they, won't they back and forth for so long. I did really enjoy the representation of Korean-American culture throughout the book. There was some exposition around the dishes being made and customs that I'm sure natives would not need, but to an outsider this was so helpful and brought me into the fold of the households. Overall, it was a cute pairing that I wanted to succeed, and just wish that the plot unfolded faster.

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Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee
Booked on a Feeling
by Jayci Lee (Goodreads Author)
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3.5 stars = I liked it

Two life long friends take it to the next level but finding love isn't easy when you are still finding yourself.

I liked this for the most part. Friends to lovers is a favorite trope for me and I love stories set around bookstores. The road to the HEA was a bit bumpy with the leads both trying to figure out what they want from life and whether that includes the other. I did appreciate that that they both figured that out separately before trying to figure out what a life together would look like. This is the third book in this series so past players have cameos and the leading man here is brother to the leading lady in the previous book.


ARC courtesy the publisher via NetGalley - release date 7/26/22 -this is an unpaid review

Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee 📚

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Pub date: July 26, 2022

Such a cute best friends to lovers story! This is the 3rd book in the A Sweet Mess series. I didn’t realize it when I picked it up, so now I’ll have to go back and read books 1 and 2!

-Dual POV
-Charming characters
-Best friends to lovers
-Mutual pining
-Spice
-HEA <3

Our main gal, Lizzy, works as an attorney at a big law firm in LA. She decides to take a 3 week vacay from work and visit the town where her best friend Jack (our main guy) lives. She stays in a cutesy loft above a run down bookstore and she becomes friends with the store owner and decides to help the store owner renovate her bookstore. Lizzy is a super relatable character for me because she loves romance books, to-do lists, and also struggles with anxiety and panic. During her renos with the bookshop she and Jack realize that they are in love w/ each other, but don't want to ruin the friendship. The chemistry between the two of them is off the charts and I really loved reading their love story!

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and the author for this ARC <3

Lizzy is, quite simply, an overachiever. She’s almost partner at her law firm, quickly rising up the ranks. Jack, on the other hand, does not quite have the same aspirations. He’s a bookkeeper at his family’s brewery. While they’ve always been best friends, things may change after Lizzy has a panic attack and takes time off to be in their hometown with Jack.

I thought this was a fun read. I enjoyed learning about Lizzy and Jack, and their similarities and differences. I think that both of them needed a dose of each other to help them understand their lives, and what they need and want to be happy and successful by their own definitions. I would have liked a bit more backstory on Lizzy, as I didn’t feel I got a lot about her lawyer job, other than about one case that was wrapping up. However, I did appreciate that it gave more time in the book to learn and experience Lizzy and Jack. Overall, I would recommend this to those who enjoy romance and some lighthearted reads.

Considering this was friends to lovers, I didn't really understand why or how they were friends. Not a lot of background was given, so that also made it unclear why he was so obsessed with Lizzy. I sensed that gift of the magi- like twist, not to mention her final decision coming for at least 100 pages. My favorite scenes were the ones with Jack's family which gave a sense of the culture and their personalities.