You wouldn't think you could read a "coming-of-age" rom-com about a twenty-four-year-old, but Luna is embarking on an entirely new journey for her while coming out as bisexual. Luna is determined to have her first intimate encounter with a woman, and she just so happens to work with Hollywood actors. As her Hollywood crush walks through the doors, she daydreams about a scenario where she could hook up with her. But what happens if this dream keeps inching closer and closer to reality?

This book felt like pure, queer joy to me. I felt every bit of anxiety Luna felt, and she was relatable and easy to process her whole story with. The other characters are also lovable and funny, and they made the story well-rounded.

This book was written for you if:
1) You're looking for a queer coming-of-age rom-com
2) You want to read about love and life in Hollywood
3) You are on that side of Tiktok where people share all the pictures of them and their girl best friends before they get together and just keep saying "and we were JUST FRIENDS"

I did not like this book at all. Took me ages to decide to dnf but I just can’t deal with this anymore especially after reading some of the other reviews. Don’t want to put myself through that.

Thank you NetGalley, Publishers, and Carlyn Greenwald for gifting me a copy of Sizzle Reel in return for my honest review.

3/5 stars
For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her--but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that's-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway.

When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she's found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut--and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy's help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life--impress Valeria's DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.

But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble--straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she's destined to end up on the cutting room floor.

I wanted to like this book so much and if Luna wasn't so whiny and annoying I probably would have liked it more. The characters also didn't have much depth to them, they had one thing that defined them and it was that the whole book. We have Valeria the famous one, Romy the level-headed one and Luna the obnoxious, annoying one.

I will say that other then the characters, this is a well-written book. But it felt like more of a YA novel then I was expecting. While there were a lot of good moments there weren't enough for me to really like this book. For me it was just ok.

Sadly this book didn’t really do it for me. Something about the story just felt off and it made me kinda sad because looking at the cover and blurb the book sounded like it would be a fun read. Maybe I’ll enjoy other books the author writes in the future!

I‘m so sorry but I couldn’t bring myself to finish this. The style of writing is just so exhausting to read. These meter long sentences I had to read several times to understand were just not doing anything for my flow of reading.
Also the characters seemed to terribly stereotypical.
I loved the premise of this and I’m sure it’s for other people, but this is not for me.

This was a great coming of age story with a happy ending. I did not love the power dynamic between Luna and Val, however. This was a quick read that I enjoyed on a plane ride, but is not at the top of my list. I would read more from Carlyn Greenwald given the chance. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Well wasn't this just a big bag of relatability wrapped up neatly. Look, this wont be everyone's experience- and I think that needs to be strongly noted because I think at times the 'bisexual awakening' or 'I didn't know I liked women" can get made fun of as cliche or overdramatic in ways which just further aids in the stigma surrounding bisexuality or realizing later in life your sexuality isn't what you originally thought. OK, off the soapbox and onto the good stuff.

These characters are charming, hilarious, relatable, and quite frankly romanticizes the journey of early adulthood and exploring relationships in a really beautiful way. Carlyn Greenwald has crafted these fabulous characters that all offer such unique experiences and perspectives which in turn means there's almost certainly a story you can see your own in. This was such a quick and indulging read, I couldn't put it down because it balances the drama and tension with the mundane everday life events so perfectly.

More reads need to explore early adulthood exploration of sexuality. The concepts of virgin, what counts as sex, how to know your 'label', coming out- these are all such important and thought provoking topics that need to be brought to light and ditch the taboo. This is an author that I'm now keeping tabs on and am curious what else is brought to the table.

This was just ok to me. It felt underdeveloped and the characters could have been more fleshed out and dynamic. 3 stars

omg sapphic love with a hollywood vibe! this has so many great aspects and i definitely can't wait to read more from this author! thank you so much for the arc!

Sadly, I had to DNF this one after struggling with it for a long time.
I really, really wanted to like this and the premise of the book sounded like a great sapphic contemporary read.
Unfortunately it was anything but that. The MC was incredibly annoying, but I could have gotten over that and kept on reading, were it not for the thousand clichés and stereotypes this book showed. It read like someone googled “what are bisexuals” and then included every single cliché they could find within the first few chapters. The same goes for other queer identities. It’s fine to include stereotypes, of course, but maybe not make them the only thing about the characters?
Especially annoying was that the book fell into the trap of “bisexual women must be attracted to every single woman ever”, this rhetoric is actually harmful and ultimately was the final reason for me to DNF this book.
In general this book tries to be super progressive and queer, but fails in that as it reads like a conservative saying “I’m not homophobic, but…”, so it’s a hard no from me, sadly.

A very sweet and earnest friends-to-lovers romance that charts the ups and downs of coming out, but gets a bit bogged down as it tries to educate the reader rather than engage.

This was honestly disappointing. Loved the first part and thought it was really interesting to see the main character fall for a star, but things quickly went south and I thought her relationship with the main love interest was super instalovey. Ending was super rushed. Main redeeming point was the spice.

This book had some major weaknesses, but I want to start off with the positives. The two romantic interests, Romy and Valeria, are both interesting and engaging in different ways. Romy, a nonbinary, non-male loving she/her, is also a talented play writer and long time friend of main character Luna. Romy is overly patient and explains so much about queer life to newly out Luna and tries overall to keep her from getting hurt and rush into things. Valeria is a up-and-coming queer actress and director and supportive of Luna's moving into cinematography. Relatedly, the cinematography descriptions in the book are also pretty cool, even to a layman.

Now, for the weaknesses.

This book's use of sex comes across as acephobic many times. Clearly I expect sexual encounters in a romance books and for the most part those were fine. But, because of Luna's anxiety--almost to the point of obsession--about virginity and not climaxing, the discussions of sex, it makes having sex the cornerstone of queer identity. In one scene at a Dave & Busters, a character does point out ace people exist... and it's pretty much glossed over and then never brought up again.

Luna also feels pretty flat, perhaps because she defines herself so much by those around her. The relationship between her and Valerie, which takes the bulk of the book, is thrown away in like the last 1/4 to focus on Romy and Luna. I saw this coming a mile away, but the speed at which Luna 'suddenly' understands the attraction and that she loves Romy in return is too fast. The slow pacing of the rest of the book to suddenly rush through the end was a lot.

Content Warnings for Public Outing of a Queer Character

This was a miss for me personally. While there were several elements of the story I was VERY excited by (show business, queer characters, self exploration), the conversations around a queer woman's sexuality were pretty upsetting to me as a lesbian woman. The notion that the only valid sex is penetrative is deeply worn out and problematic within the sapphic community and to hear that driven home over and over was exhausting and really took me out of everything.

That being said, I did adore the side characters. Everyone felt very fleshed out and like they stood on their own two feet.

Can’t wait to read this book with my class on YA fiction to analyze the recent turn toward romance in the genre

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC! My review for Sizzle Reel was so delayed because I finished reading and then immediately bought the audiobook. I loved the pacing of this story -we weren't thrust into either relationship or dynamic fast and without care. The Booksmart meets Devil Wears Prada comparison was spot on.

Interesting book with cool characters and engaging plots. Not my favorite but also definitely worth the read.

My Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

I had an interesting experience with this novel. On one hand, there were moments that I enjoyed the narrative, while others had me scratching my head. It’s safe to say that I simply wanted more from this novel. More development, more plot, and more reckoning with the themes Luna’s journey was presenting.

As far as writing styles go, this one was average. It was an easy read, and I never had an issue falling into Luna’s head. But what did surprise me was the lack of emotions I felt while reading the book. Despite the narrative being written in first person perspective, I felt held at arm’s length from Luna. I do believe that emotional distance was tied into the plot—or lack of subplots, rather. The plot was straightforward: Luna was discovering her identity while trying to make it as a cinematographer in Hollywood. (She also was obsessed with sex, and often felt more focused on that versus finding a romantic connection with another.) I would have loved to see more of Luna’s family involved, or greater conflicts in the workplace. For the most part, it felt like jobs and positions were handed to Luna versus her gaining them of her own merit. In an odd turn of events, I wished that Luna had faced rock bottom at least once during the novel.

(This is a side note, but I did wish there was more explanations for Hollywood terms. Constantly reading acronyms did grow confusing.)

Where this novel lacked was in reckoning with the societal themes set up from page one. In terms of the themes, Luna presented many on page. She was dealing with traits of biphobia, homophobia, and antiquated ideas about virginity. While she learned to move away from those learned societal “ideals,” it was never a smooth development throughout the plot. The themes were apparent and suddenly Luna appeared to unlearn everything she was seeing and/or saying herself. (This happened around the same time she realized she was in love with Romy, not Valerie.)

This is another smaller note, but I wish there was more backstory about Luna, Romy, and Wyatt. It would have been amazing to see full backstory scenes where the reader saw why Luna had passion for cinematography. I also wanted to see more reasons why Luna didn’t feel comfortable coming out to her parents. It is completely valid to want to explore one’s sexuality until comfortable sharing it with others, but apart from her parents being immensely interested in her career—and presenting unsolicited advice—I never saw a true reason why Luna was hesitant to share that truth. I wanted more set up to really make the subplots and themes shine.

While this was a decent addition to the LGBTQ+ genre, I can’t help but wish the novel had a little more to offer. More reckoning with themes and more learning for Luna. I also wished for a better build up of romance between Luna and Romy—that development felt like it came from left field. But this novel did well in terms of easy-to-read writing style, and one could tell the author had fun playing with a Hollywood setting.

Thank you to Vintage and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the open communication about virginity and fighting against the archaic definitions that have been instilled in us. Luna was the babiest of baby gays and a messy gay at that, but I really loved this insight into someone super fresh into her sexuality and being taken along for the learning curve. Luna was just a bit cringey here and there and the relationship dynamics were strange.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for the eGalley I was initially reading for this review. I ended up running out of time for the download and finishing by checking the book out from another library.

If I could give half stars, I'd give this one a 3.5 but since it did well discussing some serious topics, I rounded up to 4 stars. I did enjoy it! It just had some issues.

The main issue being this is a book that will be immediately dated by its constant references to Luna being from Gen Z along with all the references to current media in the 2020's. For that, I cannot say it will end up being a timeless novel (one day it'll be considered historical fiction for how blatant it is with its dated references) but at least it can connect with other Gen Z queer folk at the moment? As a (queer/sapphic) millennial myself, I found myself connecting more with Valeria and Romy than Luna. Luna is in her 20-somethings and is realizing her queerness for the first time, so this novel was very clearly meant to be for a very specific audience and that's fine! I just worry that it won't be as relevant just a few years from now.

Another issue I had was that while we got so much interesting information about the film industry, movie history, and some major Californian cities, there was so much that wasn't explained and readers are left scrambling to Google just what the heck some of the acronyms and terms even mean. I absolutely love the nerdiness in this book, but I'm not that well-versed in industry lingo. Authors need to literally spell these things out for people interested in the story but not familiar with the setting. It was frustrating having to search for context clues and putting the book down just to pick up my phone and look up what some things mentioned were. This happened a *lot* with the industry lingo, particularly the different positions on a film crew. Only a couple were spelled out in full before being abbreviated. It wasn't consistent.

My final issue is the obsession with sex being Luna's endgame. Sex isn't the only validation for queerness and while Luna eventually figured this out, it was still her main motivator and it was mostly all because she didn't want to feel left out of conversations with her friends and colleagues. Which... fine. I know how that can feel. And I do appreciate that near the end some sense is talked into her about how her bisexuality doesn't need to be validated by having sex with someone who isn't a man and certainly doesn't need to have penetrative sex of any kind. I really do appreciate that it's a look at how stereotypes of us bisexuals can be damaging to ourselves and our relationships. I genuinely appreciate that Luna and Valeria realized they had pursued their relationship for different performances they felt they needed to put on or take off for other people and that they both amicably decided that that wasn't healthy and they would be better as friends and colleagues. I just wish the bulk of the story didn't revolve around Luna's desperate need to figure out how queer sex works. I know how it serves the story and the "lesson" learned at the end, but I just can't shake the bad taste it's left in my mouth.

This whole story is full of disaster queers, though, that's for sure. If you're looking for drama, you'll absolutely get it with this story. It's messy and everyone's either oblivious or repressed and it's definitely, well, queer for that. I loved the sincere commentary on social issues it provides (my favorite comment Luna has is how she doesn't want to be a lesson for her parents, which--wow, that's a powerful sentiment I didn't realize I had ever shared until I read it) and Luna's public, non-consensual outing was very uncomfortable to read because it was so real. Some of the drama felt a little manufactured, but for the most part it all felt very realistic and relatable. Romy being a nonbinary character was also refreshing. And the debate about whether Luna and Valeria's relationship would be considered unethical because of their positions is definitely one worth having.

So could it have been better? Certainly. Was it worth at least the one read? I think so. Would I recommend it to anyone but Gen Z? Probably not. But it was good for what it was and I absolutely came out of it learning a heckuva lot more about the film industry at the very least.