I really loved Set On You but Exes and O's just edges it as my fave out of the two. Tara is a bookstagrammer and loud and proud hopeless romantic. After her failed engagement she sets off on a quest to have her own second chance romance by reconnecting with all her ex-boyfriends - with the aid of her new firefighter roommate, Trevor.

Tara and Trevor jump from roommates to friends fairly quickly and their friendship grows very naturally and organically. Tara is completely herself around Trevor since she has deduced she couldn't possibly be his type and he "doesn't do relationships" but still manages to get him to open up to her, let his walls down and he let's her know him better than anyone else. The burn in this book is slow, deliciously slow, and the tortuous climb from friends to lovers is so so worth it. I laughed out loud, I swooned (hard) and I had to bite my knuckles and time or two - "you can take it, baby" 😮‍💨 - and Trevor turned out to be the perfect nonfictional boyfriend for Tara. His actions, his words and his grand gestures (THE BOOK HAD ME MELTING) had him staking his claim on MY *book boyfriend* list.

Being an avid reader, I enjoyed all the references to book tropes and the bookish discussions. I also appreciated the way Amy Lea tackles the nonchalance of people throwing around the word "crazy" especially in regards to emotional women or ex-girlfriends. We are all allowed to be emotional, passionate and, dare I say, a little clingy without being invalidated with harmful labels.

I think this was a fun read. I love the roommate trope I just wish there was a little bit more tension between the characters as felt he wasn't that interested in her until the end. But I liked that the story had heart.

I really enjoyed this and think I liked it even more than Set On You which was the first book in this series. This one follows Tara who loves to read romance books. She moves in with her roommate Trevor. She has dreams of having a second chance romance as it is one of her favourite tropes. She makes a list of all of her exes and with Trevor’s help goes through seeing them all again but perhaps the person she needs is right in front of her.

I loved he grumpy/ sunshine trope in this book and liked seeing Tara and Trevor get closer together. It was nice to see a main character who loved romance books and I felt that Tara was a really relatable character. I loved the romance in this book and the banter between the two characters. Overall I really enjoyed this and I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Adorable, charming, and very hard to put down - meet Amy Lea's Exes and O's!

In the second novel from Lea, we meet Tara; a hopeless, romance-book obsessed bookstagrammer (so cute) with an undesirable relationship history. She has 10 exes that all left her in the lurch and broke her heart, so after being dumped by her fiancé, Tara is left to move house and start looking for love - again. She decides to scrap anyone new and try to rekindle the flame with one of her exes, a challenge that mortifies her new roommate Trevor (and me, tbf).

Exes and O's is the perfect mix of easy relatability and believable modern society - she manages to incorporate social media/bookstagram/technology without it coming across as cringey or forced (as many many reads seem to these days). Tara and Trevor are incredibly likeable characters you actually want to root for, and the humour is well-placed and actually fairly funny.

An incredibly enjoyable read, and an easy rom-com tick. Would recommend to any modern romance readers - and it's made me want to seek out Lea's first book Set On You as a result... watch this space.

Hopeless romantic (and stage-five clinger) Tara Chen decides to revisit her former boyfriends, to hopefully find the perfect second chance love. Tara's extremely hot but guarded firefighter flatmate, Trevor Metcalfe, has no interest in relationships. When she enlists his help, he begins to let down his walls.

If you loved the movie, 'What's Your Number?' this one's for you. I loved Tara immediately. As soon as she mentioned pointy elbows on public transport, I knew she was my kind of person. Yes, she really is intense about love, and yes, she's sometimes impulsive, but, just like Trevor, I couldn't help but to love her. Meanwhile, Trevor was ADORABLE. I absolutely loved his seemingly resigned acceptance, then growing fondness for all of Tara's quirks. The slow burn was perfection, and I LOVED the mutual pining. The Disney references were perfection, and I could literally picture Trevor dressed as Flynn! *Chef's kiss* The Bookstagram moments were cute, although I didn't personally see the point of the staging directions. But that's a minor issue. This was my favourite kind of romance: utterly swoon-worthy.

Overall Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Heat Rating: 🔥🔥
Emotional Rating: 😂😱🙈🥰😬🤪💓😉😢💔😍🤤🥰

*Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to leave an honest review*

I really liked this, I’m a sucker for forced proximity and this surely delivered. I would be honest to say that I didn’t enjoy this as much as Set On You, but I still recommend.

Having read Set On You by Amy Lea a few months ago, I was eager to read this, especially when I saw it up on NetGalley. It was even more exciting when it was announced to be focused on the BOOKSTAGRAMMER sister from the first book. You heard me right, bookstagrammer. Something I like to think of myself as.

Anyway, this book had a lovely amount of pop-culture references (hello Taylor Swift references, I'm talking to you) to get me excited at every mention.

This was such an easy read, and I'm so glad to have read it, can't wait to go out and buy the physical copy to keep on my book shelves!

Massive thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I post reviews on Instagram and Tiktok also, at @blondesbooknook

My thanks to Netgalley, Penguin and Amy Lea for an advanced copy of Exes and O's in exchange for my honest opinion.

I love a good romance book, and I loved the fact that Tara is obessed with them too. The whole dynamic between her and Trevor is really fun, and watching them go from roommates to more, all whilst Tara is on a mission to see if she can have her own second-chance romance story with an ex.

I really enjoyed this, and can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy!

This book has a fun and interesting concept behind it which makes for a very intriguing plot and kept me hooked from the first page. Whilst I occasionally found the main character a little cringy, overall I liked her bubbly personality and couldn’t help rooting for her to find the love of her life. I was expecting this to be a very typical romance book but I actually thought that the plot and characters were very unique.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rating: 3,5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!

This was good. I am kind of disappointed I didn't read the first book in the series beforehand however it wasn't impossible to understand as it is still a standalone book. I loved the premise of an "ex hunt" and as a sucker for a second chance romance I was looking forward to it. However I did wish it was done differently so we actually believe there could be another outcome. Maybe if we saw events from another POV such as Trevor's it would have been more exciting at times.

I did like the slow build up. It isn't a slow burn but it doesn't feel like instant connection/attraction either. There is some awkwardness between the main characters that makes it more believable.

Overall there was more potential in the whole "ex hunt" plot that could have lifted the reading experience. But I enjoyed the characters and their chemistry so much that I will definitely read more from Amy Lea.

Tara loves her romance novels but has yet to find her own hero. Then she moves in with Trevor but he's not into serious relationships so she decides to track down her exes. Maybe one of them is worth a second chance.

As a book lover and a hopeless romantic I loved this story. I enjoyed all the references to romance novel tropes that litter through the book. The plot is a slow burn but it keeps you reading as you meet all the exes. The ending was so perfect and sweet. Tara deserved her happy ending. I loved how final moment with Seth as well, she stood up to him well. I love Tara she reminds me of myself so much. A fun romantic read.

Unable to read due to bizarre formatting on the download. There are numbers at the end of every sentence for the entire book! Sorry.

Thankyou to netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book. I loved it. I really enjoyed Set on You and it was great to read another book with characters that i was already familiar with. I love the second chance romance trope and this book was full of it. Tara and Trevor were fantastic characters, the plot flowed very well and i cannot fault the writing style of Amy. Cannot wait to see what comes next.

This was such a good book! I loved how relatable Tara was and just how well her character was written. I also adored Trevor! I have to say, even though I did love Scotty, Trevor was definitely the superior romantic interest. These characters felt so real and relatable, and this book did an amazing job in just how well it was embedded into reality.

Amy Lea really knocked it out of the park with this one! These characters sit high on my favourites list and I can't wait to see what more Amy Lea has in store for us.

Soooo, i'm a huge Amy Lea fan. I loved her last book and i'm sure this won't be any different.

But i had trouble with my copy? It was formatted strange and had numbers on the end of each line. Not an author issue at all! I know i'd enjoy this so i'm just going to buy it - i'lll do a review on my Instagram.

Let the publishers know about formatting - hopefully it was just my version that was like this.

Either way, love you Amy.

As someone who read Amy Lea's last book, I was excited to see if this one would be just as good. And my god did it live up to my expectations. If there's one thing i love, it's that the fmc's are not the kind of influencers you'd expect. Especially in Exe's and O's. I loved how Amy wrote the fmc. She was relatable but also not cliche. I loved the whole second chance.

I feel like anyone who loves Romance will find this book enjoyable.

Completely devoured this within days, I absolutely adored it. You know you've enjoyed a book when you struggle to put your thoughts into words. Our FMC Tara was incredible and very loveable, I saw so much of myself in her. I loved the fact she was a bookstagrammer and the entire ex mission! Was so much fun to read about.
I will definitely be picking something else up from this author, got my eye on the first book from this series!

After reading Set On You and loving it, I knew I had to read Exes and O’s immediately (or as soon as I could get my hands on it!). Tara was the perfect protagonist! A book lover who categories her life into tropes? Sounds a bit like myself haha!

When Tara moves into her new apartment with Trevor, the old roommate of Crystal’s (her sister) boyfriend, she is met with a surprise. Tara and Trevor didn’t have the perfect first meeting, in fact, Tara saw a lot more of Trevor (and the woman he was with) than she bargained for. Tara is a book influencer, she has a very popular bookstagram, and her love of romance novels, reminded me a lot of myself! She is determined to have her perfect book-worthy romance, and has decided that dating apps are not the way to go.

‘Big feelings. To the point where I don’t even know what to do with myself half the time. I’ve tried to get you out of my head for months, but your stubborn ass just won’t leave.’

One of Tara’s favourite tropes is second-chance romance. After having a conversation with her Grandma, who recently reconnected and married her childhood sweetheart, Tara decides to create a list of all her exes and reconnect with them to find her second-chance happily ever after. Of course, she can’t possibly go it alone, so Tara enlists the help of Trevor. At first, he appears reluctant, but over time he starts handing out a few bits of advice. As these two spend more time living together and their spare time outside of the house together, they grow closer and Tara begins to realise that maybe Trevor is one of the only guys out there that likes her for who she is.

Obviously, I fell head over heels for these two. The tension between them, and their almost kisses had me swooning. Tara and Trevor had a slow build up but what made them perfect was that they got to know each other very well before their friendship could even entered relationship territory. There was so much chemistry and Amy Lea has solidified herself as an instant-buy author!

4.5

Tara loves romance novels and after her grandmother has her second-chance romance, Tara sets out to find the same for her. She decides to contact her ex-boyfriends to see if she can rekindle a spark with the help of her new roommate, Trevor.

I devoured this book, it reeled me in, and who can blame me? The MC is a bookstagrammer! If you’ve read Amy’s previous book, Set On You, you’ll know that Tara is Crystal’s little sister, and this is Tara’s story.

I loved the interactions between Tara and Trevor, they were polar opposites in a lot of ways, and I found myself laughing so much!

This may have been predictable, but that did not dull my enjoyment one bit. Very excited to see what Amy Lea comes out with next.

Set on You was one of my favourite books of 2022, and I was so excited when I was able to get an ARC for Exes and O's. I would read Amy Lea's middle school assessments and call them classics. Expectations were through the roof!

While it was really good, it fell short compared to her debut novel. In part, it could've been due to my inability to fully relate to and empathise with our female main character, Tara.

I loved Tara when we first met her in Set on You, but I struggled to comprehend her obsession with her exes and romance in general, and I ended up finding her a tad bit annoying at times.

I liked how her friendship with Trevor develops (can I please have a Trevor for my 30th birthday? thank you), and their interactions were amusing and endearing, but that was the end of it. They sounded like they were really good friends. Period.

Some people are Dual POV type of people,  while others are not. I respect that. But in this case, it would be immensely beneficial to be privy to our MC's thoughts and feelings. I'm not surprised Tara didn't suspect that he liked her, I didn't think he did either!

He's really sweet but comes across as friendly, brotherly even. 

It's a slow burn (injured turtle, going up a hill type of slow burn), but that doesn't make it boring or uninteresting; just something to consider before reading.

Perfect for hopeless romantics and Taylor Swift fans (I'm afraid I don't relate to either).I will surely read whatever Amy Lea writes next, even if it's an essay on endangered amoebas.

Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.