It wasn't for me, but I'm sure plenty of readers will enjoy it! I was intrigued by the premise of this debut romance, so I didn't hesitate to give it a try. I love the concept of traveling the world with someone you had one encounter with before things took an awkward turn, and I'm always up for a road trip romance with tons of forced proximity. However, I found the execution itself to be a little lackluster. The vast majority of romance novels out these days are written in first person, so I found the third person POV to be tougher to get into - especially since the heroine has a traditionally masculine name. It was just one extra thing to try to keep straight in my mind. I also didn't like Dylan's character all that much; she seemed kind of self-involved, and it was no wonder why Jack was irritated with her. Not that I liked him all that much better, but I was definitely curious about his character at the start. Ultimately, this didn't play out the way I was hoping and the lack of chemistry between the characters meant the love story didn't hold my interest. I ended up DNFing somewhere along the way.

This was a first time read for me by this author and I had such fun reading it, that it definitely won't be my last. It is a cute and fun story that will having you smiling and laughing along the way. Dylan is feeling kind of stuck in her life and on a whim, calls in to a radio station for a chance to win a trip around the world, and she actually wins. There is one catch, though. She has to randomly choose a travel partner from her contacts. And she ends up choosing the last person she would want to go with, Jack, an annoying and uptight guy who she had met on a night out. Despite all the awkwardness they initially had, after all they were virtual strangers taking a trip together, they ultimately began to bond and a wonderful chemistry developed between the two. I enjoyed following the character growth between Jack and Dylan and also how they championed each other. Both were well-developed characters and I liked getting to know them. This was an entertaining story and I look forward to reading more by this author.
I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

Dylan is a magazine quiz writer struggling to get her big break. On a whim, she enters a radio contest for a trip around the world. The only catch is that she has to travel with someone randomly chosen from her phone contacts. The randomizer chooses wound-too-tight Jack, who Dylan met months ago and ghosted him before their first date. He surprisingly agrees and the two set off on their trip together.

I really enjoyed the personal journeys of Dylan and Jack individually. The both really came into their own and found out what they wanted to do with their careers and with their futures. It made the romance aspect feel like the cherry on top and not their sole purpose, which was refreshing and appreciated.

Overall, I loved all of the travel adventures that they went on and their character growth. The family subplot was especially timely and I also loved the bi rep. The romance wasn’t the main focus, but when the slow burn came to a boil, it was definitely hot! I would recommend this one for anyone who loves to travel and anyone who loves novels about writers.

Thank you so much to Penguin Group and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I went into this book really hoping for a light, fun romance that was heavy on the travel.
What I got was different... And for that, I'm thankful!
This story did a lot of things well: We have likable enough lead characters, a fun narrative device that allows for forced proximity, our characters traveling to interesting locations, slow development of the lead character's relationship, and discussion of heavy/difficult topics is a really well done way.
What did this book do best? Definitely the story's conflict between our leads. Our female lead (and the reader's POV) does a not so great thing, which was refreshing. She made the mistake, she wasn't the "victim" of the mistake. The conflict doesn't make you want to roll your eyes, it's real, makes sense, and the male lead's reaction is warranted. Our character's discussion of the conflict and them working through the conflict allows for development of their relationship and communication, which is great.
I do wish the story had focused a bit more on the travel and the sights our main characters are fortunate enough to see. I also wish we would have gotten a bit more of our female lead's inner monologue with regards to her relationship with her parents, especially in the lead up to the reader understanding why there's tension there.
Overall, this was an enjoyable read and I would recommend giving it a read. It would be a great book to bring on a plane!

I loved this book until I didn't. And even though I didn't agree with all of the choices the FMC did I still loved Everhart's writing.

Loved the concept of this book and how it was executed. The idea of having to take a trip anywhere, much less around the world, with any contact from your phone is daunting, but Dylan is a fun, vibrant character that takes in everything around her with joy and interest. She is willing to take this chance for an adventure. Jack is a bit of an uptight guy she met a few months ago and never called him back. He decides what the heck and says he will go on the trip. Obviously they are approaching this in very different ways. Dylan wants to absorb everything around her. Jack wants to follow a schedule. Dylan is also hoping to gain more through her job by writing about her experience in each place. Jack asks that she just doesn't include him. As you can imagine, this is difficult and might prove impossible for Dylan. They have a great relationship building throughout each city. Highly recommend reading this one to see what they end up doing by the end of the trip.

I do think that it should be noted that there is mention of abortion and online bullying and this may be triggering for some

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced copy, and I give my review freely

a cute and charming romcom that was delightful.

thank you to netgalley and to the publisher for this review copy.

#readpairsharereview

Thanks to NetGalley and Putnam Books for the eARC of this beautiful book & chance to give my candid review.

Wanderlust
by Elle Everhart

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (0-5)
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 (0-5) but only one scene

What I’m Starry-Eyed Over:
🤩 Just like the book blurb, it’s exciting and captivating right away.
🤩 The grumpy-sunshine and how it switches when Dylan is sleep deprived.
🤩 London and then traveling the world—I love to travel in my books. Especially in a forced proximity situation.
🤩 The magazine column writing & Instagram posting is interesting and fun.
🤩 Pro-choice representation.
🤩 Bisexual representation.
🤩 Opposites attract, possibly neurodivergent representation (but never discussed).
🤩 Precious, sweet, and supportive hand holding.
🤩 Rum buckets.
🤩 Slooooooooowwwwww burn to the max. One pretty hot steamy scene.

What I’m Wishing/Dizzy About:
💫 I wish I had the audiobook. Narrator Olivia Dowd sounds great on the Amazon/Audible sample. I love to be entertained with an amazing English accent.
💫 The secret keeping didn’t seem like Dylan’s true character.
💫 I’m a fairly quiet introvert of a person, but the silent treatment from Jack was not okay. It’s horrible to be the person living on eggshells, not knowing why you’re being quiet or when you’ll stop.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC. All opinions are my own. This post contains minor spoilers.

Where to begin? This book is absolutely amazing. It follows Dylan, a journalist who won a radio contest for a trip around the world. There was a catch, though: the radio gets to choose a random person to accompany her. The person selected is Jack, the man she made out with at a club once. Jack seems aloof and condescending in the beginning and Dylan quickly gets annoyed with him. But as their trip goes on, Jack reveals himself to be funny and kind.

I cannot express how much I love these characters. Dylan just wants to get a column for her magazine, but learns throughout that the column is not worth sacrificing her mental health. Jack wants to make his parents proud at the sacrifice of his own happiness. The two help each other to realize their own self worth and value. I love them both so much. There were a couple moments when reading I had to hug my phone and go "oh my babies *crying*."

There aren't a lot of side characters considering the majority of the story takes place with just Dylan and Jack on the road together. The side characters that were there, though, are amazing. We never meet Jack's sisters, but I love them. I hate Dylan and Jack's parents with a burning passion. I hate Dylan's editor with a burning passion. And I love Dylan's brother. Each side character had so much depth that I felt they were real.

On to the romance. Dylan and Jack had such an amazing relationship. They start off at ends with each other, but their forced proximity helps them become closer. Jack is such a secret softie; Dylan is definitely the one to tell the waiter that he ordered no ketchup when they go out. They help each other out with their issues and balance each other so well.

There were multiple moments when I had to stop reading to let out a little scream because I couldn't handle how much I loved them. THEY HELD HANDS WHILE SLEEPING!!!! How am I supposed to deal with that in a calm manner?

Suffice to say, this is one of my top books for the year. I will be forcing all my friends to read it.

This didn’t really work for me. The story and the romance felt unnatural and forced. Not enough details on the around the world trip, too many details on the backstory and family stuff. The setup was awkward. Found the ending to be unsatisfying

I really liked this book... for the first 60%. It became something else after awhile, with very little dialogue between the characters, too much angsty internal dialogue for the fmc, and a LOT OF HEAVY CONVERSATIONS around TW topics like abortion, toxic parents, toxic workplaces, etc. The romance developing at the beginning of the book gave me those 5 star butterflies, but they disappear around the time of the [nearly?] 3rd act breakup, which occurs at the 60% mark. After the conflict, there was little building of the relationship, even after the resolution.

The nitty gritty things: I hated that it took the FMC 2-3 cities on her prize vacation to apologize to the MMC. We missed seeing their adventures in a lot of the cities. There are 2-3 REALLY GOOD EXAMPLES of the adventures the two main characters went on and the things they worked through to grow closer together. Then, when the tension hits, we get an example of their excursion with the tension, but weeks go by without it being resolved and then suddenly they're together but they don't really talk to each other?

I loved when they climbed the bridge in Sydney together. I loved when Dylan helped Jack make a list for his future. I loved Dylan's apology when it happened, eventually, and her grand gesture. I just feel like I read two halves of different novels a bit. Plus there was a lot of righteous beliefs in there, which showed some really tough conversations (re: emails, tweets, more emails, etc.) that didn't empower the way I think they could have. As an early-30-something, I might draft an email, but a lot of particularly Dylan's behavior felt like she thought she was always right and therefore she had a *right* to behave the way she did. From my own experiences navigating challenging adult relationships with my parents, yes, it is frustrating and yes, I'd love to write a heartbreaking email, and yes, it's okay to feel the way you feel, but you also need to acknowledge that there are differences in generations and sometimes you want people to love you in exactly the way you want them to love you, but that's just not possible. So if anything, this book is a reminder to please, be gracious with people. Get frustrated, but teach them to be better. You can't harbor negative feelings for years and expect them to just GET BETTER RANDOMLY. It takes work.

Anywhoooo... this book gets... 3 stars? from me. I liked some parts more than others.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for advanced access to this one! These are my honest thoughts.

Wanderlust is my kind of book! Traveling city to city and experiencing different cultures, while figuring out your own life! The love story along the way was the cherry on the top! The execution could've been better, but it was a solid story! I would recommend! 3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

🧐 my thoughts:
I was super excited to read this since reading that it was being compared to The People We Meet on Vacation. I really enjoyed the concept of that book, so I knew this was one that I had to read!

👌🏻what i liked:
I really did enjoy all of the travel despite it being quick stops in each place. I felt like I was along for the ride with them on this wild adventure. The banter in this book was top notch, very enjoyable! Even the banter between the side characters was great! I loved the character growth between Dylan and Jack.

🙃 what i didn’t like:
I really thought that the description of the places that Dylan and Jack travelled to could’ve been more. It was hard at times to paint that picture of where they were at. I also felt like they moved from place to place too quickly. They only stayed in one spot for a couple chapters before it was on to the next stop. I feel like this could’ve been so much more than it was.

🥰 special thanks
Thank you to NetGalley, Elle Everhart, and Penguin Group Putnam/G.P. Putnam’s Sons for granting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was cute and fun and a great summer read. I love the idea of meeting someone when on a trip like that. So ideal!

Dylan was having a bad day when she grabbed her headphones and decided to listen to the radio. And it was that same irritated mood that caused her to grab her phone when they introduced an actual radio contest, where the tenth caller won an epic trip around the world. But when they told their winner that they would be forcing them to go on the trip with a random contact from their phone, they declined the trip. The deejay said they would start over again, and the tenth caller would win. Dylan’s mood lifted when she became that tenth caller.

Dylan writes for a magazine, hoping to one day turn her pop quizzes and short pieces into a column. She can’t help but wonder if writing about a two-month trip to amazing locations could get her social media engagement numbers up enough for her boss to actually come through with that monthly column. So as she travels to the radio station, she’s thinking about how she could turn this into the job of her dreams.

At the station, they download her phone contacts into a program that will choose one at random. The name that pops up is Jack the Posho. They call him and tell him about the trip, offer him a chance t travel with Dylan for two months. As they talk to him, the memories start to come back to Dylan. She had met him on a night out, and they’d had an amazing connection, despite her teasing him about his posh accent. He gave her his number and waited for her to call. But he didn’t know that her life melted down the next day, so their night of drinking and kissing was lost to her drama. But now, he’s on the phone with the radio station, and he’s saying yes to the trip.

After a couple of weeks of preparation, Dylan and Jack are ready to leave London to head to their first destination, Sydney. And almost immediately, Dylan is filled with regrets. Jack is an uptight traveler, rigid about being early, a fastidious packer, incredibly organized. Dylan is full of eye rolls, showing up on time, tossing her clothes into her suitcase (and on the floor of the hotel room, at times, when they arrive), and wanting to take it easy on the airplane. But after she sees Jack battle his fear of heights on Sydney Harbour Bridge, she eases up on him. And when she insists he sit out next time his anxiety is so extreme, he lets his guard down some.

As the days roll by and the cities show them their beauty—Tokyo, Mumbai, Marrakech, Cape Town, and New York City, just to name a few—Dylan and Jack find themselves opening up to each other. They share drunken nights and family issues, meaningful experiences and inside jokes, Dylan’s writing and Jack’s photos, and they find themselves moving closer to each other. But when Dylan lets down her defenses and shares a little too openly about their flirtation, Jack feels betrayed. Can they find a way past that, or will the rest of the trip be as cold as that glacier in Reykjavik?

Wanderlust is the debut rom com from Elle Everhart, and it is quite the trip. It’s smart and sweet, with a slow burn romance that starts them out as opposites, then they become friends, and then they almost lose it all. The travel destinations lend an exciting backdrop to the story of these characters, and it creates some fun scenes for us all to experience with Dylan and Jack.

However, this book is not just travel and romance and fluff. There are some difficult topics in this book also. Dylan had written an article about a very personal decision, and there were those on social media who had bullied and doxxed her for that. There are family struggles for both main characters. There is homophobia and talk about an abortion. Anyone sensitive to those issues may want to skip this one.

Personally, I wasn’t bothered by any of that. My biggest complaint about the book was that I wanted more of the story to take place in these exciting places. For example, there is a vibrant scene set in Tokyo at a restaurant with a Robot Cabaret, but we didn’t hear all that much about some of the other cities. I could have used less airport and hotel scenes, and more excursions. But I still loved this book. I loved these characters and the journeys they went on, both physically and emotionally. And I can’t wait to see where Everhart takes us next.

Egalleys for Wanderlust were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Dylan Coughlan is given an unforgettable opportunity when she wins a trip around the world. The only catch is that her traveling companion will be chosen at random from her phone contacts.

Wanderlust is an opposites attract, second chance contemporary romance. I never know what to expect with a debut novel but this one is a delight. It has such a fun, unique premise. The storyline flows smoothly and the author’s sense of humor shines throughout her writing. While Dylan has a sensitive backstory, the author handles it in a realistic but thoughtful way.

Content/Trigger warnings including: abortion, bullying, online harassment

I hope to read more from Elle Everhart in the future.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)!

What to expect
🧳second chance romance
🧳forced proximity
🧳dream vacation
🧳Bi rep 🌈

💭My Thoughts
I thought this was more Just My Type for the journalism vibes than it was PWMOV by Emily Henry.

It had a strong start. I was invested with the radio contest playing phone contact roulette to pick Dylan’s travel buddy, and I cringed so hard when the “winner” was a guy she drunkenly made out with and ghosted! But as conflict rose, the drama started making less sense to me. Not sharing spoilers, but I was asking, “Who DOES that??” Then Dylan and Jack resolve all the issues, but we were still only 85% in. That last 15% dragged and I think it could have ended there and been fine. I’d recommend giving this book a try if you loved Just My Type AND the Unhoneymooners—I did not care for The Unhoneymooners so consider that when deciding if this book is for you.

I really enjoyed this book. Part romance, part travel book, part finding a new self.

Dylan is a writer for a magazine called Buxom. She's been working hard to have her own column.

So when she wins a trip around the world in a radio contest she thinks it will be a great series that will help her at work. Catch is she'll be going with someone else, someone the station picks from her phone.

Enter Josh. A "posh" (that's snob or rich right?) Guy she honestly can't remember at first. He agrees to go on the trip.

These two can't be more different! It was interesting to see these two mostly strangers navigate their way.

There's pressures from work and family that Dylan has to contend with. (And Jack too!) Also a past article has made Dylan a more known figure. And since the article was about a very, very decisive topic it made her life pretty bad. This book shows an examples of how cool online can be, and how dangerous also. I understand Jack's fears about the future, that hit home.

I really enjoyed Dylan and Jack. The travel part was really cool. And how they grew from each other.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

CW: doxing, internet bullying for discussing past abortion, biphobia, toxic workplace, family tensions

This was a really interesting story regarding the impacts of the internet how it can help make your career but also the harms of it too.

Steam: 3

This was such a feel good story for me. A once in a lifetime trip with someone randomly selected from phone contacts? Yes please. I loved the slow build romance, and the way both characters grew so much over the course of the book.