boring, bland, tedious. i’ll admit, the first hundred or so pages were not bad, i was actually semi-enjoying myself, but??? it was a complete shit show around the halfway mark. i get that it was a love triangle, but if you’re gonna have a love triangle, at least have the main character actually consider both love interests as potential lovers as opposed to having her spend the ENTIRE book pining for one woman only to change her mind in the last 5~ chapters. like there wasn’t much romantic connection between luna and romy other than the occasional “omg we touched and i think my stomach fluttered maybe?” at least give them some depth :/ romy was also just an overall boring love interest. i didn’t even consider her at all until i noticed the change in direction between luna and valeria.

one thing i didn’t know fully before going into this was how much EMPHASIS was going to be put on virginity. i get that she was supposed to have deconstructed that concept for herself by the end of it but it didn’t work and wasn’t well written at all. luna just sounded so annoying and obsessed. her obsession made her act like a high school girl and was so childlike.

ALSO speaking of childlike! i get that luna and valeria had an age difference (24 and 28) but having people say “did you even check if she’s underage?” and “can she even drink?” is so crazy in a book. that shit was so infantilizing. i would understand if throughout the book people assumed she was super young or looked down on her because of her age, but to just throw that in there for essentially homophobia? boring. i’ve read better and i think everyone else should too.

If I wasn't trying to up my NetGalley ratio, I would have DNF-ed this book. There was a lot about this book that bothered me so I'm going to break it down into categories to organize my thoughts.

1) Misunderstanding and erasure of asexuality. There's a point where Luna says "I just want to have sex like every allosexual human on Earth" and an offhand comment about how Valeria should come out as asexual because she isn't dating anyone. Luna's comment totally ignores the fact not every allosexual person is comfortable with sex and not every asexual person hates sex. Demisexual people exist. But not according to this book. Being on the asexual spectrum, I found the way this book handled asexuality to be careless and hurtful. If you don't have anything nice to say about a sexuality you don't understand, don't write about it.

2) Harmful views on sex and sexuality. Wow there's a lot to unpack here. Luna's attitude about virginity, being weird for being 24 and a virgin, and her acting like sex can only be penetration were a lot. It was like an angry twitter discourse was a person. And it was not challenged nearly enough. When it was it was in a super preachy way from Romy about how sex isn't just penetration, which is fair. But this book never interacts with the idea that it's okay to be virgin at any age and to not be ready at any age. Also, virginity is a social construct and that doesn't get looked into enough

3) The love triangle. I can't get into this much without spoilers but I didn't realize the that there was going to be a love triangle. The romance with Val blatantly ignores the power imbalance between a huge celebrity helping Luna with her career and Luna as an assistant trying to make it in Hollywood. It made the whole relationship feel uncomfortable. And then the other love interest felt like something that came out of left field with no good build up or solid understanding of why the characters get together. The romance wasn't developed at all

4) The Jewish rep. Luna mentions a few times that she's Jewish but the only times it really comes up are when she talks about her family being jewish and wanting her to marry a nice Jewish boy. It came off as Luna viewing Judaism in a very negative light. Also just very unnecessary for her to be Jewish if it literally only comes up negatively and has no meaningful role in her life. It felt like a failed attempt to make her look anything other than two dimensional. Like with the discussions of asexuality, this felt like it shouldn't have been included because all it does is harm and ignores how accepting of queerness many sects of Judaism are

Just skip this one

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to the Netgalley and the publisher, for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy. This honest review was based off my experience reading this eARC, which in no way biased me. All opinions are my own.

Going off of the cover and the synopsis, I was fully convinced that this book was going to be right up my alley and be a hit for me. Unfortunately that was not the case.

I did not care for the majority characters, the writing, or the story. I didn’t find anything that held my interest. Luna’s internal monologue was just so frustrating. As a later in life queer, it feels like she is doing all of these things, ex. coming out, dating a woman, etc., not only before she is actually ready, but she is forcing herself to do this to, honestly it feels like shes trying to ‘prove’ that she is queer? IDK that was the vibe I got. Like she has this list of things she “has” to do, in a specific order, before she can ‘accept’ herself being bisexual?

Again the vibes were just not there here, and this book unfortunately missed the mark for me.

Sizzle Reel is the story of a newly out bisexual woman, Luna, who is trying to navigate her sexuality and her attempt to break into the film world to become a cinematographer. Her main romantic relationship in the book is with movie star Valeria, and their romance and flirting is really fun to read. That's a big part of what kept me going. Valeria is just wonderful. But there were sideplots I started noticing early on that had me wishing books had AO3 style tags - a moment of "wait, is this what I signed up for?" Even if it worked, it was still jarring.

Whiole I found the book a lot of fun and I teneded to read in long runs, I also could have put it down and forgot it exists. The story is fun, but it tries to be deeper than it pulls off, which makes it harder to keep into it. It did do a really good job at showing the questioning and nervousness in being a baby gay, but epecially in being bi.

Would recommend for a fun read, but don't expect it to change your life.

Shout out to NetGalley for an advanced copy, which I waited way too long to review.

Loved the the premise of this book, but was left unsatisfied by the end of the book. I felt like this book couldn’t decide what it wanted to be about so we were left lacking depth from the characters and their relationships.

I received this book for free from netgalley for an honest review.

One of my favorite queer and Sapphic ya books. Cute and summery. With all the feels!

3.5. For one, I feel like this is an important novel to be in the world for baby gays. Lunas crew of supporting characters are top notch and I love how they constantly challenged her skewed definitions of what it means to be bi and archaic concepts such as virginity. But JFC luna was unbearable as a character at times and that’s most of my stars knock off.

Sadly, this one isn't for me. I thought the writing wasn't great and didn't like the characters. The protagonist is so focused on losing her virginity that I just didn't get it. I wanted to love it since it has LGBTQ+ Jewish rep, but maybe I need to read it at a different time.

Very cute rom-com vibes, love that it’s about some one realizing there sexuality later in life that kid of rep is really important and I'm glad we’re staring to see more of it in media

this book was okay and all but throughout i just felt too much like i was reading a twitter thread and it was just not it for me. also the center conflict being about the way luna considers virginity felt so out of place with luna's entire character like she's so incredibly progressive why would she hold on to the idea of virginity being about JUST penetration or whatever. i did love the messiness and the queer love triangle where it felt realistic and not contrived or unnecessarily made. instead these were just 3 adults navigating their love lives and appreciated the one page sapphic sex scenes but some things stopped me from adoring this book.

Very cute rom com vibes. I was rooting for the main characters, and the plot wasn’t too predictable - which can happen in the over saturated genre of romance. Would read again! Very solid queer read.

not much to say about this book tbh, as it didn't really do anything for me. 'sizzle reel' by carlyn greenwald follows 24-year-old luna who has just realized she's bi. an aspiring director of photography, she works as an assistant to a horrible agent who barely remembers her name. but when she's introduced to current a-list star valeria (who might also be queer???), she jumps at the chance to work on val's new indie movie. maybe working on the film will hit two birds with one stone: impressing the film's DP & potentially losing her virginity to val?

i think what this book struggled with most was too much time spent on luna's inner musings on her identity & feelings for val, and not enough plot. i found luna INSUFFERABLE, and not in a cute way, but in an "oh my god, get over yourself" way, which felt really juvenile for someone in their mid-20s. the instalove for valeria was a bit cringe, and the set up of a love triangle was introduced so early that i knew how the book was going to wrap up from the second chapter. the book's writing felt very gen-z in a way that was trying to be quirky & relatable, but honestly just missed the mark for me.

i applaud the author for writing a book about discovering your queer identity in your mid-20s, as we don't see these written as often, as well as for including nonbinary representation in the book. however, i think this story & writing just wasn't amazing, which was really unfortunate to realize.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a fun easy read, that contained some important conversations. It was nice to see a coming of age story featuring a slightly older character (24) and some of Luna's questions and fears around the validity of her bisexuality were pretty relatable. Ultimately I found Sizzle Reel became pretty centered around Luna's quest to loose her virginity and her whole character arc seemed to be around learning that sex could be more than penetrative sex, which i found repetitive and way too drawn out, I think this distracted from the relationships and friendships and fun setting which were the books strengths.

Sizzle Reel kind of fell flat to me. I quickly got annoyed by the main character and her definition of losing her virginity. I wish the tension between Romi and Luna had been fixed quicker. I felt that the tension there could totally have been resolved with a conversation after a little of the tension and still kept the storyline almost the same. I don’t enjoy the degree of miscommunication. I also felt like some of the sexualities and genders were sloppily done.

I did appreciate Luna’s baby gay awkwardness, because same. But ultimately I found this book to just be okay.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a gifted copy of Sizzle Reel, all opinions are my own.

This book was very... meh. I found myself struggling to finish it solely because I didn't care how it ended for anyone.

Things I did appreciate: late bloomer representation, a great discussion on consent/getting exactly what you want in bed that wasn't cringey, and bisexuality being acknowledged as a real thing rather than a cop out.

It really wasn't that bad of a book, just sort of forgettable (I honestly already forget all the character's names... I think Luna was the main girl?). Still worth your time if you like queer stories and cinema.

We love a messy MC! Luna decides that it's time to come out to her friends at 24 years old. The story follows her as she struggles with her sexuality (and the fact that people are stupid and don't accept it as valid) but she also struggles with her friendships and where her career is going. When all of that overlaps, she needs to figure out what it is she really wants out of life.
The highlight for me was Val, the love interest. I feel like she really balanced out Luna's sometimes selfish actions. While Luna is a fun MC to follow, she also grated on my nerves a few times with how she kept ignoring everyone's issues but her own. Then again, I loved how we got to see her anxiety play out, so take my criticism with a grain of salt.
Enjoyable, fun summer romance that works as a nice reprieve!

What a wonderful debut! First of all, this cover though?! So gorgeous. So bisexual 👏👏 The queer representation in Greenwald’s adult debut was son wonderful! I love later in life bisexual awakenings, and this story was exactly what it promised to be.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC of this novel. For a book called Sizzle Reel, there was a distinct lack of sizzle. Luna was not a great main character as they spent so much time in their head rather than talking to anyone. Anxiety is understandable but her character made the whole book feel so slow. It took so long to get through this and get to an ending which worked. Luna needed to be compelling and she just was not. Love the message of this book and more representation is needed but I cannot recommend this.

Sizzle Reel is a messy, queer, FUN romcom ride of a debut novel.

It is the bi awakening hot mess of a story I did not know I needed to read - it is full of allll the inner turmoil and drama one expects in the early 20s as they're figuring shit out. Or at least attempting to get somewhere somehow with the right people alongside you for the journey.

I consider this messy in the best way possible. I loved the FMC even when I wanted to shake some sense into her. The love interest and supporting cast also provided great depth to the story while not taking the focus off the three main characters. And I LOVED the filmmaking perspective and descriptions - it's really cool to read about the "how" behind the camera.

I highly recommend this book if that sounds fun to you and you love a good coming of age story.

I want to say thank you to the author and Vintage Books for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Okay Sizzle Reel is everything I thought it would be and so much more. I had been hearing about this book for months, and when I got approved to review it I was so excited. As a queer person, reading Luna's coming out story and seeing her struggle through worrying about her parents acceptance, facing homophobia in the workplace, it all just hit so close to home.

And as an aspiring film maker, Luna's journey to be a PA in the film industry felt like it would be super interesting to me. One thing I wished for more of was more of Luna's journey into the industry, because it felt like it would be such a big plot point in the beginning of the book between conversations with her boss, internal conflict, etc, and it felt like it got a little sidelined for the sake of the romance. Which I will admit was a very cute one.

Things I loved: VALERIA, the issues that this book tackled, and the romance

Things I wish there were more of: Luna's job, not just how it was a stepping stone to get to Valeria

Thankyou to Net Galley, Carlyn Greenwald, and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing me this ARC