This is a very lighthearted fun read overall. I did enjoy it there were some parts that dragged. I do love the women in stem representation I love that it was very sex positive.

Text Appeal by Amber Roberts is a fun and spicy friends to lovers rom-com full of sexting and secrets.

A sex-positive novel with women in STEM representation.

Lark is working in tech, and as many women in STEM, she’s underappreciated, passed up for promotions and barely listened to during meetings. Toby’s just broke up with his girlfriend, who made him abandon his friendship with Lark. Now that they’re trying to get their friendship back to what it used to be, old feelings and curiosity are coming back up. When an incident at work gets Lark fired, Teagan suggest that Lark could get into sex work -and most specifically, into an app where people can sext for money.

I feel like this would’ve been better categorized as women’s fiction rather than a romance. What this book did well was the overall sex-positive message and the Women in STEM representation in our protagonist Lark. This was a very interesting premise and I have to say the cute cover really drew me in. I do recommend it if you are looking for a lighthearted and funny read.

This book starts off really strong but by about halfway through it just felt very lacking and it dragged on.

The premise of this book sounded amazing. It was very sex positive, strong female and male characters. And it had great representation and the female main character was a woman in STEM. I was here for all of that.

Lark starts off very meek and mild but when she's forced for financial reasons to start s*xting people professionally seems to become very empowered very quickly.

Toby is kind of lacking as a character for me. But I did enjoy seeing his friendship with Lark and how he's really trying to grow that friendship to what it used to be.

There are certain aspects of this book that were not great. Some of the friendships I don't think needed to be repaired at the end of the book because they were just not healthy.

All in all I would say this was an average read because it definitely had some great moments in it but it also didn't hit the mark for me completely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This had such potential but with unlikable characters, and a lot of slow areas with absolutely nothing going on, the story fell flat. It wasn't your usual likeable romcom and the immaturity was unnerving.

I really wanted to love this one, it had all the qualities I look for in a romcom, but it just didn't hit my expectations.

I'm glad I stuck this one out because I enjoyed the end, but getting through the beginning was a challenge. Pros, the girl group, even if the dynamics were kind of inconsistent at the end. These are friends in varying life places who still make the time to be there for each other, even if only via text. I like that their challenges were real, but so was their commitment to each other.

Lark is kind of annoying to start but she gets better. Her original workplace was so awful it bordered on sexist parody, and she wines excessively about the sexting job until she gets into the swing of it. The sexting job feels very forced in alongside the friends to lovers story. Like this was a hook someone thought of and built half the story around it. There were moments around it that made me laugh, but Lark's perspective on it was so overly negative that it brought the potential down.

But I loved Toby. When they finally start being the center of the story, and gradually moving toward each other, it gets so much better. The first time they kiss was such a good scene, the tension was really working for me, and I like their fumble into a relationship. These are two nerds who are meant to be.

When everything blows up, as it inevitably does, Lark is mad about the wrong things. The resolution feels good, but her logic is completely missing.

Overall, I did enjoy the second half and got wrapped up in it. It just took me awhile to get there. I am definitely pro-Toby. He was delightful. Also, despite her crap talking about the sexting app, the direction her career headed in was really satisfying, and approached in a way that was positive about an industry that often gets trashed.

I had really high hopes for this book, and it just fell flat for me. The pacing was off, and I had trouble actually finding chemistry between the protagonist and her love interest. Also, for the title and premise being what they are, the actually sexiness was not what I expected. It could be a case of right book wrong reader, but it just didn't work for me.

(Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change upon final publication.)

A really enjoyable and fun read. Wasn't sure what to expect but ended up loving this book from the characters to the overall story

I've been truly excited for this book since I adore texting romances, but I struggled to get into this one. Lark made it so hard for me and I don't think I'll be able to get past this.

Thank you so much for the publisher for my ARC!

Lark is a woman in STEM and in a male dominated office, she is over the moon when she lands the lead on an account for a new client. But after she accidentally shows her co-workers an unsolicited photo from her phone she is let go.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Now jobless and quickly running out of money to live, Lark looks to her best friend Teagan for job advice. Teagan quickly turns her text trouble into a way to make money; sending naughty messages.

When Lark starts to fall for one of her ‘clients’ though she quickly realised she needs to put a stop to it before it jeopardises her new relationship with Toby.

I absolutely loved the realness of the texts and think that Amber Roberts hit the nail on the head with this fun idea. And I definitely worked out what was going on about halfway in!

The only reason I gave this one three stars and not four was simply because of the Teagan involvement….

Thank you Netgalley, Amber Roberts and Alcove Press for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I give it a 3.5-star. Halfway through it, I could not wait for it to be done. It dragged on for a while with the texting and drama of who Lark should be with, hoping for more Toby than the texting Cosmic guy.

Perhaps Text Appeal gets better. Perhaps the main character is not the whiny, simultaneously self-obsessed and self-loathing “ugh” girl she reads as in the first few pages. But. Yknow. I am not going to find out and I am pretty okay with that. I cannot stand a doormat, woe-is-me character…nor dated references. Perhaps this writing style and this character will appeal to others, but it is a hard pass from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ebook ARC. All opinions are mine alone.

A DNF for me, unfortunately. I really wanted to like this book, but the FMC was very unlikeable and immature. It was hard to root for her and get into the story.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

This a STEM meets romance book that's perfect for a light read way into the night if you need something steamy but cute. The book follows Lark who is a programmer who has every girl's nightmare at work when she projects a scandalous picture from her phone . She doesn't recover from it as her coworkers take over the huge client. So she decides to get a side hustle and signs up to be a text message–based sex worker, But how far does one keep this secret from her crush and loved ones? It was quite an interesting read with an interesting character.

There's a line between a slow burn and a slog, and unfortunately this novel fell on the wrong side of it. There was some fun potential in the plot, especially in the sense of humanizing sex work and including characters of many various orientations, but the execution fell mostly flat for me. A lot of how Lark's sex work was presented on page seemed to be complaining about sex work, either her clients or her discomfort in performing it.

It was hard to buy into chemistry and root for the relationship between Lark and Toby. They certainly turn each other down a lot for people who are supposedly super into each other. There wasn't much heat between the two of them and their intimate scenes were surprisingly tepid. There was a lot of time devoted to secondary characters, some of whom (Teagan, I'm looking at you) were very hard to like. Even if it was part of her growth arc, I found Lark's inability to set boundaries or act for herself to be hard to like. Sadly, this wasn't fun, steamy, or gratifying enough for me to enjoy in my leisure time.

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

Lark is the only woman programmer at her firm, and she's just landed the lead on an account for a huge client, which is quickly taken away from her when a unsolicited photo projects from her phone to her presentation in front of her coworkers. Before she knows it, she's jobless and broke. Her friend Teagan suggests applying to do text message based sex work. After a clunky start, the income starts rolling in, and so does her connection with a particularly charming client. Her long-time best friend Toby starts to feel like more than a friend, and now she's caught between telling him about her "job" and taking things to the next level, or keeping up the gig and the anonymous client who has her feeling some type of way.

I absolutely wanted to love this book so much. On paper this book has it all: women in STEM, sex positivity, LGBTQ+ friendly, friends-to-lovers - the execution just fell so flat. I'm shocked Lark was able to keep up the sexting gig because her skills were far from good, lol. The chemistry between Lark and Toby seemed fine through texting, but was lacking in person. Teagan seemed like just an outgoing, boisterous best friend, but she became WAY too much as the book went on.

I think the author has potential to improve on her next novel and I would give her another shot in the future! This just wasn't the book for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very cute STEMinist romance novel that was sex work positive and very heartfelt! I really enjoyed my time with this one.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It promised some tropes I like, including friends to lovers and a two-person love triangle, but there were things about the book that made me uncomfortable from the get go.

The romance between Lark and Toby was underwhelming. They needed more time on screen together and for me, to make a two-person love triangle work, there needs to be a serious emotional investment into "both" people. Instead, the romance often felt like a side plot to the main sexting plot.

Though the resolution felt rushed, I did Like the cover of this book, colourfull

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a bit of a mess. No chemistry between the leads, a toxic bestie she should’ve cut long ago, and not hot at all.