Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Synopsis; In WILD THINGS, Eleanor (“El”) is challenging herself to do a year of wild things, one each month. Some of these things include getting a tattoo and being part of a threesome (although that second one didn’t go as planned). One of those things isn’t telling her best friend Ray about her years-long crush on her. When El, Ray, and their friends Jamie and Will agree to buy a house in the country together, that one wild thing may just have to happen.

I love a good rom-com, and this definitely had some good moments of both, but the humor dominated it. Between Jamie’s antics and the rapport between everyone and the motherclucking Twilight chickens, this book had me hooked on the humor alone. I also LOVE books about chosen family, and this ragtag bunch stole my heart.

However, the lack of solid plot and the romance didn’t live up. The first half of the plot was pretty much them buying the house and the second half was El eventually confessing her love to Ray, but the house buying came earlier than expected and the romance was a slow burn, but not a great one. It felt like a Ray had little to no attraction to El, even though they *spoiler-ish* end up together at the end. It felt forced, and I really wish there was a dual pov for this book. That would’ve helped solidify the eventual couple. The trek to get to their romance was kind of boring, honestly. The only thing keeping me going was the chaotic antics the rest of the cast brought.

I expected more from this book, and I really wanted to enjoy it, but some things weren’t wild enough for me to give it more than what I gave it. I had originally rated it at 4 stars, but eventually dropped it to 3.5 after some consideration.

If you’re looking for a little less plot but a lot more chaos, this book is it. Thanks again to the publisher and netgalley for the arc!

My friends and I have a joke that we want to sell all of our belongings and move to a commune together, so the description of this book made me giggle. I think this book had SUCH a good plot, but I cant help but get angry when it comes to miscommunication tropes. Its frustrating, especially when its over something so simple but these adults cant talk.
I really enjoyed the journey this book took me on, I just wish the conflict was not entirely based on miscommunication!

While I enjoyed this book and really WANTED to love it (queer commune! chosen family! queer romance!), it sadly fell a bit short for me. It dragged a bit in the middle. My main issue though, was that the author did too good a job making me annoyed at the love interest and not enough winning me back over towards her at the end. (SPOILER ALERT: they get together at the end - shocking for a romance, I know.) I was so frustrated and had hoped our protag would wind up with someone else. At the end I bought it, but I just wanted to be more invested. That said, loved the personal growth and side characters, but I'd have loved to see the side characters be granted a bit more personality and story.

Thank you to vintage anchor and netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this book. El is bored in her life - stuck in the same job, has a flatmate that she does not get along with, and has been secretly in love with her best friend Ray. To break out of her shell, El resolves to do one radical thing a month. However, despite this - she still feels stagnant. The book starts with her involved in an unsuccessful threesome and texting Ray while she leaves, driven by sheer awkwardness. The premise of the story continues with El, Ray, and two other friends moving out to the English countryside to live together. I quit this book around 10% - I found the characters uninteresting, I didn't see the appeal of either El or Ray. It does seem like a sweet read that is full of found family elements but it was too slow burn for me and the cast wasn't engaging enough.

This was a really fun and sweet book. As a fellow queer who would love to leave it all behind and move to the middle of nowhere with all my people this book was really fun. I really liked how heartfelt and sweet this whole book felt.
This is definitely something I would recommend as a sweet and easy summer read.

What a fun, sweet read! As a member of the queer community who talks about moving onto a commune with her friend group at least once a week, I really enjoyed reading someone's take on what that would actually look like in practice. I was a lot more interested in the friend group dynamics than the romance aspect of it (which is shocking for me, although I wasn't a huge fan of Ray admittedly), but I thought this book had many heartfelt and tender moments that made it worth the read.

I wanted to start Pride month off with finishing this on June 1. Well, it’s June 10th and I’m posting my review the day I finished. ☀️

What to say about this book? Although it took me a bit to get into it, I deeply fell into this group of characters for what each were to each other. The story follows El, but we get to go along for the ride with Jamie, Will, and most importantly, Ray.

Now, I don’t read synopsis’s before I read the book. I try not to, anyways. And this was the cutest, and most real slow burn between 2 people. 😮‍💨

We meet the most important people in El’s life and see how they progress with their relationships with her as well.

One of the biggest parts of this book, you can see by the title, “Wild Things”. El is on a mission to have a Wild Thing year where she includes something out of the ordinary for her and I really took a lot out of that. How lost and stuck in our own minds we are and we always stick with the “norm” but it’s those “wild things” in life that kind of help us move along and enjoy life a bit more. I think that is why I truly enjoyed this book. It made me think of my own life. And the relationships I have.

The only difference between my life and this book? I don’t have a commune in need of fixing up. 😝

Thank you to @netgalley for approving my request for this, and @lauraekay for writing this beautiful, thought provoking book.

This romcom is true to the name, it made me laugh out loud. A little to start but the characters were funny, charming, fully imagined, and brave. Angsty and very British, the house renovations and quirky village setting were great fun! This is a new release, out May 23rd and you should check it out!

-Found family
-Slow burn
-Queer representation

If you’re looking for a light hearted romance this is the book for you! I love a good slow burn if done properly, but at times it felt a little slow for me. The idea of these 4 friends moving into “Lavendar House” together was so cute, and honestly sounds like something I would want to do with a few of my besties!

All of the characters were adorable and genuine, with some funny one liners too! I personally haven’t read many novels with queer themes/representation, so I can’t compare it in this novel to others, but I believe it was done well! At times this didn’t feel much like a romance to me, but nonetheless I would highly recommend you to read this!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced e-copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Eleanor a crossroads of her life. She takes us through her experience of trying to find her best life.

Cute but the pacing felt very slow to me. I really enjoyed the premise and the ensemble cast, but to me this just wasn't engaging.

This was a cute read! I loved the village setting, the found family, and the idea of buying a house with friends. I would have loved the story more if we focused more on El and her Wild year. I would have loved to explore more of her going on adventures and going outside her comfort zone. Some of these things were actually wild in my opinion. I also think Ray wasn’t the right person for her. There was something about Ray as a character that I didn’t enjoy and honestly felt she was a little rude with the MC.

My other bigger grievance was that they never took out the carpet in the bathroom. Any sane person would have done that first before redoing hardwood floors or painting cabinets. The face the bathroom was moldy and gross, tackle that first. I just want to know if they did anything with that bathroom by the end of the book

This was a light, fun, and quick read.

I enjoyed it and the characters. A gay commune?! Friends to lovers, slow burn? Yes, sign me up! But there was just something about this that I didn't love. Rather than a queer contemporary romance, this one reads more like women's fiction to me (the vibes). Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it...I just felt like the romance was the subplot and it took soooo long. I don't mind slow burns but usually we get more tension/angst. If you like a good plot with a side of romance, this is the one for you!!

Also, for those wondering, this one isn't spicy.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eArc of Wild Things. This is my honest review.

I want to thank the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC for my honest review. I have to admit, I have struggled to write this review a bit. I did enjoy this book, and felt it was well written, but it really took me a while to get into it. I loved the friendships in this book, and how they really formed their own family. I loved reading about the cute town, and the party, and the Instagram stories. I really feel like the romance piece of it wasn’t the part of the book that I looked forward to reading more of. Maybe it’s because I have never read a LGBTQ romance, and I honestly didn’t even realize that was what this was until after I started reading, so it was a little out of my wheelhouse. I thought the first half of the book was really pretty slow, but the 2nd half had me hooked.

3.5 stars.

"Wild Things" by Laura Kay is a low-stakes, slow-burning queer found family romantic comedy about a group of friends who kiss living in London goodbye by buying a home/commune in the countryside. As I said, the story is slow to start... actually, it's slow in the middle, too. The romantic aspect doesn't really start to pick up until late in the book. In fact, the romance really isn't the focal point of the book. A lot of the story revolves around main characters El, Ray, Jamie, and Will buying and renovating their countryside house so they can turn it into a commune. They get chickens, they make a big garden, they figure out the perils and trials of homeownership, they learn how to rebuild and fix things via YouTube videos, etc, they prepare to throw a lavish housewarming party, etc. The found family aspect is also focused on a lot, and this is where I believe the book succeeds. Laura Kay has written such a wonderful sense of friendship and community within these characters. Each one of the four main friends gets time for their personalities to shine. We get to know El, Ray, Will, and Jamie on intimate levels, get to know their quirks, etc. Still, El and Ray are the main protagonists here, as is El's infatuation with Ray (that she seems to be painfully oblivious of, even after being told about it). The "wild year" that El starts to have in the beginning of the book sort of falls by the wayside once she moves into their shared home because all of her adventures shift to focus on their endeavors there. El spends most of the beginning of the story trying to be someone she's not because she thinks she's boring and not adventurous. She starts the year off by doing things that scare her, like (trying to have)/having a threesome, doing Molly, etc. I liked her better as a character when she was just being herself, though she learns to find confidence within herself as the story goes on. I sort of disliked Ray for the most part... she seemed oblivious in a mean way. El made her feelings known on multiple occasions, that she has had a crush on her for years, but Ray disregards them and continues to hurt El. Their "relationship" is one-sided until about ~85%, and even then, I didn't really buy what happens in the end. This is a fine book, but it likely won't be on my year-end list of best-of novels.

Thank you to NetGalley, Laura Kay, and Vintage Anchor for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for my review.

WILD THINGS by Laura Kay was a real delight! Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC which I received in exchange for my honest review.

WILD THINGS chronicles the story of Eleanor "El" who commits to do one wild thing every month for a year. Together with her closest friends - loveable Ray, hilarious Jamie, and endearing Will - and with heartwarming appearances by her brother and his partner, El embarks on a wild journey. El, Ray, Jamie, and Will purchase a country home outside of London to fix up - calling it their queer commune - and El confronts her long-held love for Ray, her best friend. This story is equal parts romantic and hopeful and heartfelt - I loved Kay's writing and I will definitely look out for her future work!

I need to start out with, this is a SLOW (maybe slowest) BURN. While I loved seeing our MC grow and mature throughout the novel it felt like it took half the book to get to the countryside, which was what I thought the location of the book was going to be from the beginning, and then ¾ of the book to get to the romance. I loved the witty one-liners that Kay provided and the found family + queer representation made up for some of the other parts I felt weren't as developed and lacking a bit.

I found this book to be a light and enjoyable read. While it was advertised as a romance, it felt more like a story of four friends navigating life in the country. Their chemistry as a group and the funny moments they shared were highlights for me.

Although there were a few significant events, the pacing felt a bit slow overall, relying heavily on the friendship dynamic. The romance between El and Ray didn't resonate with me. El's unrequited feelings and the lack of honest communication made it frustrating to read.

If you're seeking a light romance without heavy themes, this book would be a good fit. It's satisfying to witness El's personal growth and self-belief throughout the story.

I think this is a fine book, but it didn't sell me in practice the way the summary sold me. Found Family is such a buzzword, and it does get me every time, so I liked that about this -- otherwise, I found it a bit boring. I love a road trip as a concept, but I think in play it needs to be a bit more exciting to fill a book.

I initially found this difficult to get into, which I think was just a me thing. I had trouble keeping all of the characters straight. But I did really enjoy it once I got further along in the story.

What I really loved about this book was the found family moving out to the country together. All the characters were fun and unique, and I really enjoyed the romance. I liked that the found family aspect took on a bigger role than the romance.

If you’re looking for a sapphic friends to lovers story with a fun cast of characters look no further than Wild Things!