The premise of this book was very exciting for me. There is something about the drama regarding people who are famous or at least close to fame that really adds something to a story in my opinion. I settled in ready to absolutly adore this only to come away liking it okay.

The found family aspect of it was really great and probably one of the best parts of the book, but as a romance book the romance really needs to be a shining star in my opinion. There was chemistry but the main love interests, Sammy and Max, really did not feel like they should be together. In a romance, you must root for the couple as it is the main reason for the book.

Other than the romance, the book was quite good, but again if I am reading a romance I want that to be the best part of the book.

Thank you, Netgalley, the author, and Random House Publishing/Ballantine for the gifted e-book! ❤️ #gifted. My review is comprised of my honest thoughts.

Read this book if you like: Pansexual mc, second chances, rockstar

I liked this one, but I feel like the romance was way in the background. I needed so much more. This felt mostly like women's fiction. I had a hard time buying Sammy and Max together. It didn't develop enough for me. I liked that Sammy had a lot of growth through the book. I do recommend it.

I think the best thing out this book was the way it explored relationships. I always believe that platonic and familial bonds need to be talked about more, and Mejia hit the nail on the head with this book. Complex messy relationships were a big part of this story (be it occasional fights with a well-wishing friend or painful gaps with close family), and I love how they were dealt with.

The romance in itself felt messy and relatable, but Sammy's earlier encounter with Max? Not so much. I think the second chance trope in itself was unnecessary, also seeing how there wasn't a 'revenge' aspect to it as the blurb claims. Miscommunication, secrets, banter, and vulnerability are important factors in a relationship, so I enjoyed reading that part of the romance though I feel that it was too slow paced for my liking.

For tropes and rep, this story covers LGBTQ, with the MC being bisexual, neglectful parenting, death (not in depth), found family and so much more. I did enjoy all of it, so gonna rate 4 stars and highly recommend for a heartfelt read.

New author and NetGalley find! I wasn’t expecting to love this has much as I did. A bittersweet, family drama emotional with a side of romance and music.
Thank you NetGalley and Dell (an imprint of Random House)

I struggled with the FMC. I didn't always understand her motivations or decision making. Maybe I'm not the audience for this book.

The beginning of the book started out strong but I started to lose interest; there was too much lying and miscommunication for me to root for the couple. I really loved the music element to this as someone who loves and connects with music. Overall it was fine but not a favorite.

😊liked

💁‍♀️read if your favorite One Tree Hill character is Peyton

I haven’t been this frustrated by a fmc in quite a while so this will be a rant-y review. Sammy was immature, manipulative, jumped to conclusions and was incapable of making the right decision. I also did not buy this couple at all. Their independent issues made them incompatible in my opinion and I wish they had not ended up together in the end. I think Max deserved better, even though we never actually got to know him well because Sammy is not a reliable narrator, especially when it came to him. I also found Sammy’s descriptions of Max and their time together to be incredibly cringey, sort of like what a 13-year-old teenage girl would say about their first crush. I love spice in books but I had to speed up the audiobook during the sex scenes. I think the audiobook narrator saved it from being even worse. She did a great job narrating.

This book dealt with some serious issues and I don’t think it handled them well. Honestly, many of my issues with this book would have been solved if this had been YA/NA so the fmc would’ve been younger and I could’ve understood some of her actions.

*Spoilers* - Non-extensive list of issues:
- she called herself a journalist but then was acting unethically by manipulating Max and hiding her job from him until the end
- I wish she had not been in therapy because why wasn’t her therapist helping her resolve some of this very obvious issues with her mother and feelings of abandonment. She should get a refund from her therapist.
- it was soooo predictable that her mother purposely kept her from her grandparents, I was hoping this wouldn’t be the case
- her reasons for “hating” Max at the beginning were all in her head. I wish he had actually done something to her but while it was rude of him not to call, he knew her for a couple of hours and his life was about to change. Holding on a grudge for 10 years over this was unreasonable
- I hated the lack of resolution with her mother
- she was a bad friend. She was so self-involved she didn’t notice anything was going with her friend
- she could’ve withdrew the article without self-sabotaging herself
- she should’ve grovel more for betraying Max
- none of their issues were resolved, she still has abandonment issues and he still has trust issues, so 🤷🏻‍♀️


CN: parental neglect, parent death (off page), grandparent death (on and off page), addiction

Sammy Espinoza’s life is headed straight for utter chaos. When she tries to get back with her ex-girlfriend and it ends poorly enough to threaten her work, Sammy hatches a plan to reconnect with another ex - well, ex, one night stand. If she can get an in with Max Ryan, a rockstar about to debut his solo album, her career will be saved, but she has to navigate the messy history of her hometown and their brief fling to do it.

I picked up Sammy Espinoza because of the promise of a celebrity romance and really liked the spin on that aspect of the story! I also thought the representation in this was phenomenal. I love seeing more books published with Latina main characters and pansexuality representation. Lots of queer joy in this one that made me very happy.

I really wanted to like this book, but I found I didn't connect with the prose at all. It took me a little time to get into it, and when I finally did, I still felt a little lost in the narration. Whether by design (because Sammy is really a disaster), it made the reading experience difficult as I couldn't find enough about Sammy to relate to her and root for her. I honestly wish this had been written in third person, I feel like I would have connected with the writing a little more had I not been in Sammy's head the entire time.

Ultimately, I look forward to seeing more from this debut author! While this wasn't the book for me, I'm excited to see what else Tehlor Kay Mejia does.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for providing me a copy of this book for an honest review.

With found family, queer characters, a second chance romance and an absolute mess of a female main character, Sammy Espinoza's Last Review was my top read of July. Five stars and I'm still thinking about the book almost two months after finishing it. A huge thank you to Random House Ballantine for the e-ARC.

There is so much to love about Sammy's story that I can't possibly list them all without massive spoilers. I won't lie, Sammy can be hard to like at times but I think everyone can. Max I had a harder time warming up to but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. This book has all the witty banter my little heart desires plus drama, romance, music and more.

Tehlor Kay Mejia writes so beautifully and I can really feel myself in their books. I need someone else to pick this book up and read so we can talk about it.

Sammy Espinoza's Last Review is out now and may very well be in my top 3 books of the year.

This was a heartfelt and romantic read, and I enjoyed the diverse cast of characters! Sammy, a music critic, destroys her credibility for her musician girlfriend, who still breaks up with her. To try to save her column, Sammy promises her boss that she'll get an exclusive listen to Max Ryan's new album. Max was a star who stepped back from the limelight years before, but rumors are swirling that he's been secretly recording a solo album in his hometown, which is also Sammy's hometown of sorts. The problem is that right before he made it big, Sammy and Max met one night and she fell in love with him instantly, only for him to break her heart. Now she has to return to the one of the few places that ever felt like home during her chaotic childhood with her flighty mother, and not only reckon with her unresolved past with Max, but also with her own upbringing and what it truly means to be family.

I think that returning to Ridley Falls causes Sammy to have to confront so many aspects of her life and her past all at once. Sammy wasn't necessarily a super likeable character - she makes poor career decisions, she lies to her friends and Max, she stands up for a mother who clearly won't stand up for her. But despite that, I felt like Sammy wanted to be a good person and goes through a lot of growth during the course of the book. She has people that are rooting for her and that want to help her grow. This was not only a romance but a story about finding your family and letting go of toxicity that is no longer serving you. This story definitely had a big heart and I was rooting for Sammy to figure things out. Max also had his own burdens and needed to grow so it was nice to see their journeys as individuals and together.

Sammy Espinoza is a music critic who's job is in the balance because of an entanglement with a music artist clouded her objective vision, and then she got left in the dark by said music artist. This forces Sammy to get out of her comfort zone and go to the only place she would consider home base, a small town in upstate Washington to spend time with her best friend Willa. The problem is, Sammy's had a memorable night with the towns most well known music artist Max Ryan when she was 18, and apparently he doesn't remember the life changing connection they had. In an effort to save her job, she convinces her boss that she can get an exclusive on Max's new album, but is that something that she can really do?

I found this book to be a charming look at chosen family and the importance of friends in peoples lives. Sammy's own mother seems to constantly run from her problems, which we learn from her lack of relationship with Sammy's fathers family. Sammy's mother might be one of the worse in book writing history, which definitely caused the reader to feel for Sammy. I appreciated the characterization of all the main characters, loved how I felt like I was a part of Ridley Falls myself. I found Sammy to be reasonable most of the time, but sometimes she seemed slightly immature. I did, however, appreciate her growth as a character at the end. Overall I found this book to be a fun, but charming look into how our parents choices can affect their children and how their children overcome such challenges.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

I really wanted to love this book, because I'm a sucker for romance and the premise was super adorable. However, I just didn't get the feeling that these characters belonged together. It was challenging for me to root for them with everything else going on in their lives taking center stage. I wonder if the focus of the book should have pointed elsewhere than the romance, to make it a more compelling narrative. However, the voice the book was written in was really engaging and charming at times.

This was a mix for me, I liked the present romance and the two leads but it was also sometimes hard to root for them and the author took their time getting me there

I liked this one, but it had a trope in it that I usually steer clear of, which is where one character knows something about the other character but pretends they don’t. In this instance, Sammy kept the fact that she not only knew Max but also that she was there in the town for the sole purpose of getting close to him and hearing his upcoming album to review for her article. I don’t like the power imbalance that this type of setup creates and the amount of lying that usually happens when it is involved in the plot. I wasn’t really rooting for the two of them to end up together.

Beyond that, I did enjoy some elements. I found the family aspect far more compelling, and Sammy’s journey to reconnect with her roots. I would have liked to see that area developed more and had less about Sammy and Max’s relationship, honestly.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine - Dell, and Tehlor Kay Mejia for an e-arc of Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at about 25%

I usually love contemporary romance, and the famous person/regular person dynamic is one that usually interests me.

In this case, I just couldn't get into the story, and the deception was making me nervous. Usually I can handle drama, but this was too much and it was making the reading experience not enjoyable.

I would read other books from this author though; I like their writing style.

I didn't know what to expect when going into this book, but I loved it!! Sammy Espinoza is a character that will stick with me for a long time! She's had a difficult life, but still manages to be strong. The relationship between her and Max hits you right in the feels! Ridley Falls is a dream, I would love living there! If you love second chance romance and found family, this is the story for you!

The romance in this book was fine: a celebrity second chance romance where trust is fragile.
, lost, re-earned and found again.

However, the family aspect of this book made me sob big, ugly tears. It truly pulled at my heart and sent me on a roller coaster of emotions.

Sammy has grown up outside of her culture without a father and with an absent mother who is fickle and immature. Seeing Sammy be able to grow roots into her own culture is such a beautiful thing.

At times Sammy does a bit too much rationalizing and doesn’t help in the miscommunication but seems honest from someone who has grown up with so much trauma and hasn’t dealt with it.

I really loved this one, some fine tuning and it’d be perfect!

4 glowing stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book so much! really felt for Sammy. She felt so untethered to any family or a place to call home. She did have friends who were like family, but no actual family that could make her feel like she had a home somewhere. She has a very complicated past with her father dying before she was born and never knowing her grandparents. I had a grandmother who I never met and only learned of her death after the fact, so I could relate to how Sammy felt upon learning that her grandfather had died.

This is a romance, but it’s also about Sammy finding her identity, and to deal with the way her mother chose to bring her up. She has a lot of past trauma to work through. This book really tugs at the heart strings and had me tearing up.

I did like the second chance romance between Sammy and Max. But for me it felt secondary to the rest of Sammy’s story. Overall a very emotional read about finding love in unexpected ways.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Sammy Espinoza's Last Review so much! I was expecting a typical romance trope of young person escapes to her small town hometown after troubles arise in his/her big city life. While, this book delivers on that, it does so much more! This book speaks to deep subjects while not feeling heavy overall including how trauma effects our relationships going forward and how our past relationships inform our future ones. It also speaks to each human's compelling need to know where she comes from and to learn her familial stories.

I especially appreciated that this novel explores more than just heterosexual relationships as it has a prominent gay women relationship as well as a lead pansexual character.

Sammy Espinoza spent her childhood with a mother searching for a great love with trying to maintain an apartment they would not get evicted from. As an adult, Sammy is a well-known music critic writing under the pen name Verity Page. She is successful, but in trouble with her boss when she breaks the rules about dating musician and lets it influence her reviews. Sammy goes home to Ridley Fall, Washington, a place she lived briefly with her best friend's Willa's family to interview reclusive music artist, Max Ryan. Max is overcoming his own past and trying to restart his musical career. Sammy gains more than just an interview in Ridley Falls!

Five stars! I cannot wait to read what Kay Mejia writes next. I received this book in an exchange for an honest review thanks to Net Galley and Random House. I will post this review on Goodreads, Bookbub and Amazon.

When Sammy Espinoza returned to the only place she ever called home, she had hopes of figuring out a way to save her job and mend her heart. Staying with her best friend and her wife, Sammy began the long road to recovery from a bad breakup. Misunderstandings abound as she reconnects with people from her past and the reader can tell right away how things will end. However, Tehlor Kay Mejia wrote the missed connections and misunderstandings in such a way that the reader stays engaged throughout. The primary characters are so likable and the reader misses them once the story concludes. Ideal for romance fans who like spicy love affairs.