This was such a fun book. If you love the movie John Tucker Must Die and the Bachelor I think you will enjoy this book. I thought that the premise of it being a second chance/revenge plot was interesting. I loved the reality TV aspects of this book and the characters. I think that I would read more from this author .

"Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Sophie Gonzales is a refreshing and heartwarming YA contemporary romance that explores themes of love, friendship, and self-discovery. Protagonist Mariam has sworn off love after her messy breakup with her ex-girlfriend. But when she's tasked with organizing her school's charity event alongside her ex, she finds herself confronting unresolved feelings and questioning if a second chance is possible. Gonzales crafts a compelling story with relatable characters and genuine emotions. With its witty dialogue, authentic portrayal of teenage relationships, and empowerihttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6430268196ng message about embracing one's true self, "Never Ever Getting Back Together" is a captivating read from start to finish.

I liked the behind-the-scenes of a dating show, and in this case, I thought it sounded very authentic. What I especially liked was the way the producers could easily change the narrative and the perceptions of the participants. It was very clear that the show participants didn’t have much input into how they were portrayed and how these types of shows can be easily manipulated in order to please the audience.

At first, I thought that Maya’s need for revenge was a bit over the top, but as I got to know Maya better, I began to understand her need for revenge a bit better. I liked Skye the best, she has such a good heart and seems to balance Maya’s cynicism really well. Jordy was horrible, but he made a good villain for the story.

Omg this book was so cute!!!
I really enjoyed getting to read from Skye and Maya. Especially at the beginning because they were enemies.
Their ex boyfriend invites them onto a reality dating show for teens was so intriguing for me. It gave you all the bachelor/bachelorette vibes.
Loved the setting, characters except Jordy. Amazing girl power!!

I really enjoyed the premise of this book and love the idea of being the scenes bachelor romance between girls. As we’ve seen in recent years a lot of previous bachelor contestants have come out as gay. With this story, I do wish there was a little more spice and time towards the end with the main couple. I also think the whole thing about it all being his ex girlfriends wasn’t necessary like I would have preferred it being more similar to the actual bachelor concept. I think the whole story could have been more nuanced but overall the couple was cute and the story was fun.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I won't lie, I did not like this book.

I have loved Sophie's previous books specifically Only Mostly Devastated and Perfect on Paper which ended up being two of my favourite YA books of all time. While I didn't love If This Gets Out, I was excited to read Never Ever Getting Back Together hearing it was very angsty with a revenge plot line following two girls going on a dating show trying to bring their ex down (and falling in love with one another in the process).

Literally everything about this book screamed that I would love it and yet I really struggled. There were even times I seriously considered DNF'ing.

Lets start off with the plot line. Maya and Skye get asked to join the cast of Second Chance Romance which, like the name suggests, is a TV show trying to find "the one that got away." This year's bachelor? Jordy Miller, Maya's ex boyfriend who had a relationship with another girl while they were still together. Now he's famous with a sister who's married to a prince and Maya sees his face all around her, reminding her of a time when he said he loved her, and betrayed her.

So Maya hatches a plan to bring Jordy down and expose him for who he is by going on this show, hoping to dump him at the Grand Finale in front of thousands of viewers.

The one thing she doesn't count on is falling in love with Skye, the girl he cheated on her with.

To me there are two key ingredients to creating a great romance story: great chemistry and great characterisation. To me, there was no chemistry between Maya and Skye. There didn't seem to be a true connection between them and it didn't help that they went from enemies to lovers in a heartbeat with no development or romantic tension to set that up.

I blame the characters for that. I didn't really connect with any of them. While I loved the angst of Maya, apart from her anger there was nothing else I knew about her. I felt like I knew slightly more about Skye, aka I knew she loved nature but apart from that, there was nothing else that drew me to her. The side characters were not spared from this. The competing girls had no other characterisation or personality other than their motives for being on the show. Perrie was one of the side characters that appeared a lot and yet I knew nothing about her apart from being an influencer.

The other criticism I had was with the dual perspectives. It was extremely difficult for me to work out if I was reading Skye or Maya's chapters mainly because they were so similar and there was no differentiation. It's rare for me to say (because I'm a sucker for dual perspective books) but it would've been better if this book just remained a single POV rather than two.

I'm very sad this book wasn't the book I expected to love.

ACTUAL RATING: 1.3 STARS

DNF at 30%. Usually a bachelor style reality show would be a huge win for me but not even that could keep me interested in this one unfortunately. Felt too immature and over the top (even for the reality show).

I love this type of inside look behind-the-screen of reality romance tv! A fun romcom with great queer rep.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me a free E-Arc of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This was a great book! I loved the dating competition concepts. It had a wonderful enemies-to-lovers vibe. Overall, it was a very quick read for me. Well done Ms. Sophie Gonzales!

I really enjoyed the reality show aspect of this book. The characters were all so much fun and the romance was done perfectly.

I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's been out for ages, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

I throughly enjoyed this book! Enemies to lovers? Check. Man put in his place? Check. Power of friendship? Check.

I requested this book on NetGalley because I’m picking back up on my romcom era, but it fell a little flat for me.

Maya was cheated on by Jordy Miller, who was then just a guy but is now brother to a royal by marriage. When she gets a call to go on a dating reality show where Jordy will reconnect with his exes, she thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on him for cheating on her. Once there, she forms a plan with Skye, one of Jordy’s other exes, and in their quest for revenge, they start to fall for each other.

My biggest struggle with this book was Maya’s complete unwavering obsession with revenge. It got to a point where I was exhausted with her every choice being about Jordy, a person she claimed to not care about at all.

I also kind of hated that Jordy was such a big villain in the story. I know that was sort of the point, but it didn’t work for me.

This book was fine. Not great, not one I would read again, but I liked it fine.

A cute and fun romance, but nothing that felt too special. The name of the title pulled me in with the Taylor Swift reference, and I enjoyed the idea of the side characters falling in love with each other instead of with the main man.

Sadly, this was another miss for me. There are a couple of reasons for this though.

The first reason is that it had a very juvenile feel to it. The first thing I heard before I started reading is it's like a mashup of high school and the Bachelor, which at first sounded like a fun concept. It quickly became obvious to me that I wasn't a fan, and that pitting women against one another because of a man simply wasn't my thing.

Characters themselves would be reason number two. Especially Jordy, the man looking for love. This guy gave me the ick the whole time, which is probably intentional, but it got in the way of my enjoyment of the book. You never really get to know any of the ladies, they all seemed very surface level.

Again, plenty of excellent reviews, but it wasn't for me. The YA books I have been reading have been a little disappointing, so I might have to move on for a little while.

2.5 rounded up to 3 / 5

This book was such a cute wholesome read! I loved the story, the revenge plot, and loved the representation of the LGBTQ. Overall the was a good read for me and though some parts were a bit mature for teens I would read this book again!

This book was like a breath of fresh air as compared to my other reads. After reading, nothing really stuck with me or made me think about the book twice so for that reason I had to lower my rating. I think a fantastic book should stick with the reader. I liked the characters in this book a lot, especially the side characters and I’m glad that there was some LGBTQ+ representation in here!! Overall it was a good book and I would recommend it to one of my little sisters and their friends for sure.

5/5 stars!! This has to be one of my favorite Sophie Gonzales books so far! You'll want to put this on your TBR!

This was honestly so cute, so funny, read *so* fast, and was just a heckin' good time. Excellent dialogue, great characters, the reality show shenanigans were nice and absurd, and with Jordy, Gonzales struck just the right balance between making him so, so truly terrible, and not so much an absolute caricature of a guy that you spend the whole book wondering how on earth any of these girls ever fell for him. A whole lot of fun from start to finish.

This type of reality dating show trope is like candy to me -- contestants on a dating show fall for each other instead of the man they're meant to fall for -- so I was really excited about this one! It was really fun to read, though I'm slightly unsure why it was classified as YA and not adult (although the book does have a YA ~feel~ if that makes sense).