Although this book is funny, a bit chaotic at times with multiple things happening at once, I didn't feel as though it was a true romance; at least not the romance I'm used to diving into. The MFC wasn't terribly likable, but the concept of the book was good.

Seven Exes caught my eye right away with a cute pink cover and a synopsis of a girl finding her seven significant exes based solely on an old magazine author. I really thought this was such a cute summer read. Esther was an interesting main character who had plenty of flaws. She just wasn’t confident in herself and didn’t believe in herself. But her best friends, Bibi and Louise were hilarious. The storyline of Esther speaking to all of her exes again and finally finding her happily ever after was really cute.

A fun, fast paced summer read. I loved the dual timeline where you learn the background of each of her past relationships. Also, made me think of my exes and the magazine article Esther read was pretty spot on.

Overall, this was a great book. It took me a bit to get hooked, but after about 100 pages I was in and had fallen in love with the characters. There were many small hints throughout that lead you to the two main twists that help pull it all together in the end.

Esther is a heroine you love but also roll your eyes at a bit, and her besties Lou and Bibi are great counterparts to her throughout to balance her out.

There are many different characters and the overall storyline is brilliant.

Thank you for the eARC!

🔸 Seven Exes started with a very good premise. I liked the bond between Bibi, Esther and Louise with which the story started. They looked so comfortable with each other and always supported another no matter what. Until when the ‘Seven Exes’ project started. Esther just grew unbearable increasingly with the story moving on. She was downright selfish, rude, jealous and indifferent to her friends as well as exes. I felt most for ‘Idris’ for the way she behaved with him as well her after reaction when Idris mails her back. In fact I did not like Esther’s behaviour with any of her exes - in past as well when she reached out to them and ended the relation for good. The way Alistair’s story was ended was also pathetic and insensitive. It’s a very difficult to like a book if you end up not liking the protagonist and their values. Was a tad disappointed with this one. Would want to check other stories of Lucy Vine but this one was a definite miss.

Thanks to @netgalley and @harperperennial for sharing the review copy in exchange for honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

a cute and charming romcom that was delightful.

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

The summary is what initially got me interested in this book. It seemed like a fun romcom and just my cup of tea. However, once I started reading, I couldn't really get into it (read only at 30%). From what I read so far, Esther is a bit unlikable. At the beginning of the book, she spends the majority of her time complaining about being single at 29 (which there is nothing wrong with being single at that age, btw). After seeing an article from an old magazine article, she starts tracking down her exes to find "the one" amongst them. That is where the fun should begin but for me, something was lacking in her approach of this mission.

This read was not for me.

Holy wow was this book a good time!!! It's rare that a book makes me literally laugh out loud, but the banter between our main character, Esther, and her friends, put me in such a giggly mood so many times throughout this novel.

One thing that I will say really stood out to me about this book was how REAL it felt. A lot of times, books described as "romantic comedies" end up feeling so cheesy and contrived, but this book felt so naturally funny and real. Esther ACTED and talked and thought like a smart, capable 29-year old and I so appreciated that fact. This is what I want more of in romantic literature!!

Will be posting on my instagram account and recommending to my friends at length!

Juvenile and flat writing, and I saw the "twist" coming a mile away. As someone who *never* sees twists, this means it was obvious as heck. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

3.5 stars (rounded up)!

"Seven Exes" by Lucy Vine might be hard to get through for a lot of people, and that's completely understandable. Such is the nature of a story like this. The main female character, Esther, is a absolute hot mess of a person. She is a very selfish, dishonest protagonist who only seems to care about her own feelings, wants, and desires. She's the friend who always brings the conversation back to her, who lets others pay for her and doesn't pay them back, who uses people within an inch of their lives, who lies to get what she wants, who pushes people's buttons but gets mad when they push hers. We all know an Esther. If Lucy Vine's goal was to make her readers absolutely dislike Esther from the get-go, she did a great job.

In an effort to revisit all seven of her ex-lovers, Esther gets back in touch with each of them and casts away their feelings and the feelings of her friends so she can attempt to find the one that got away. She shirks off her works responsibilities and is then surprised when she thinks she's going to het fired. It becomes painfully oblivious right away that Esther is the cause of most of her breakups. From ignoring her exes to cheating on them, she is the source of most of her relationship problems. It is exceedingly difficult for some people to read a book about a protagonist like this. For me, despite Esther's unlikability factor, I found enough in this book to call it a success overall. I laughed many times. I liked to overall story, regardless of how bonkers the premise may seem. I loved Esther's friends Bibi and Louise, and I would totally read novels about them! The pacing is good and it doesn't overstay its welcome. I didn't have a problem with the writing. I found it to be funny and witty at times, painful at others, reflective and introspective here, difficult to process there. The British humor and the potty humor won't land for every reader, but I didn't mind it. I will definitely read another Lucy Vine novel if the protagonist isn't such a selfish jerk! It's hard to deny that Esther is a pill, but we should strive to support women's wrongs as well as women's rights, right? I wish there had been a touch more recognition from Esther about her terrible behaviors...her "ah-ha" moment felt a little too easy to me. Still, I liked this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lucy Vine, and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for my review.

Loved this book! I was in a reading slump for awhile - most especially when it came to romance novels - so this (along with a couple of other ARCs) were exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of things. I loved the romcom premise of this story (i.e., realizing your exes each fit a specific archetype) and the whole book in of itself read as being very British almost. While the FMC *was* a bit annoying at times, I overall found her to be quite endearing.

The story switches between past and present with looks back at each of the seven exes and 3 interactions from the past that explains their relationship from how it started to how it ended!

I mean it’s not life-changing literature that makes you examine your life (which isn’t a bad thing!); it’s an easy and enjoyable enough read. The writing is okay but there are some parts that felt forced like the discussions on feminism and the patriarchy, it was randomly placed and made no sense.

Esther’s friends feel more like background characters there to prop up Esther instead of being fully formed, complex characters themselves. We get zero descriptions of any characters so I couldn’t picture anybody, I usually prefer at least some descriptions.

Esther is kind of immature and selfish (she’s like Carrie from Sex and the City, and I mean that in a derogatory way 😂), i didn’t hate or love her but felt meh towards her and just couldn’t get myself to really care about her, often feeling annoyed at her playing the victim with her friends and a couple of her exes.

The ending was well done but predictable (I saw it coming by the 15% mark). Reminds me of What’s Your Number-that 2010s romcom with Anna Faris and Chris Evans-and kind of gives me Sex and the City vibes. It’s a fun, quick read which I think many will enjoy especially as a beach read! I didn’t love it or hate it, it was a decent enough read that was enjoyable but ultimately forgettable and one dimensional.

Although I enjoyed the premise of this book and the writing style, I couldn't stand the main character. She takes her friends for granted, is a horrible employee, and is ungrateful. I did, however, like Lucy, Bibi, and Shelly's characters.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. I could not make myself stop reading! So good and my patrons will absolutely adore this!

The premise of this book was SO promising, but it didn't play out strongly, unfortunately.

I loved the pacing and format of the story, but the main character was rather insufferable and never quite redeemed herself. The male characters ended up behaving quite predictably. Overall, this was a miss for me.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. It was not a bad story, it just fell a little flat for me. The characters seemed kinda average, and nothing different from some we've seen before. And while it was a quick read, it didn't really have me captivated.

Seven Exes was published on June 20, 2023. Thank you to Harper Perennial and Paperbacks, NetGalley and the author for the digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

What would you do if, one night after a few drinks at your favorite whole in the wall bar with your best friends, you found an old magazine tucked away with a story in it claiming that each woman will only ever date seven different archetypes romantic partner in their lives, proving that one of them will be her soulmate? Well, in Esther's case, you absolutely lose your mind over the prospect, labelling each of your past exes as each archetype and realizing they match up *perfectly.* So perfectly that, of course, this means there is no one else out there for you and thusly, one of the seven must be "the one."

Despite finding the idea a little crazy, her best friends are supportive of her as she hatches a plan to meet up with each of her seven exes and to see if there was something she missed about them that might prove they were her one true love after all. Along the way, she reunites with a long lost friend, forms a friendship with her first love, learns her lesson on a few different counts, and comes face to face with a lot of past mistakes, heartbreaks, and traumas. It's messy, it's chaotic, and all in all, it was a pretty good time to read about. The only thing that made it a difficult read for me was how genuinely unlikeable Esther was for most of the book. She was dishonest, she was selfish, she was unforgiving and pushy, and more than once she jumped to conclusions about others and gave no opportunities for them to prove her wrong while expecting the opposite from others where she was concerned.

It was a really fun read with hilarious dialogue, a fun inner monologue carrying the reader through the story, and very funny dead ends and red herrings in the background to trip you up. I also loved her two best friends and their plots so much, and despite having seen it coming (honestly, this isn't even a negative, as it's common and enjoyable in pretty much every romcom ever haha). the romance in the end was so sweet and a perfect relationship to help Esther grow into a better person and also see the good that was already there in her.

Esther is almost 30, and feels the rush to get married and have a family. She revisits 7 of her ex relationships to see if someone of her past can be the one of her future. This was a cute plot and idea for a story, I just couldn’t connect to Esther. I felt she was whiney and judgmental, and she found flaws with everyone right away. I did find her comical at times, though, and that was a redeeming factor for me. I liked how she found herself by the end of the novel, and the relationships she had with her girl friends, but it wasn’t enough to make me love Esther and the overall story.

Huge thank you to @netgalley, @harperperennial, and the author for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for a totally honest review.

Esther is feeling like her life isn’t progressing. She comes across an article talking about the seven types of love in a girl’s life. She decides she’s going to revisit her seven loves, to see if one of them is the one that got away. Surely one of them is the one she’s meant to be with, right? It sounds simple, but it’s definitely not.

This was so precious. This is like a fiction meets romance, yes there is some romance but honestly most of it is watching the FMC grow. It’s definitely a rom-com, there were so many moments that made me smile. I loved the friendship and the relationships throughout. The chaos was so good. If you want a nice light-hearted rom-com to read by the pool or on vacation, this is a good one!

Unfortunately I couldn’t get into this book after several chapters. I’m not sure if it was the writing or the characters, but I couldn’t finish. :(

Esther Adams is out for a bout of day drinking with her two best friends when she stumbles on an ancient issue of Cosmo. As she’s about to turn 30 and trying to recover from a strong of bad dates, she flips through the pages of the magazine, feeling nostalgic for the dating tips. And that’s when she comes across the article about the seven different types of relationships a woman encounters while dating. And Esther realizes she’s been through all of them.

There is The First Love, The Work Mistake, The Overlap, The Friend With Benefits, The Missed Chance, The Bastard, and The Serious One. As she thinks through all her exes, she decides that she missed the one that she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. That life partner was there all along, and she let him get away. She has no choice but to look them all up and figure out which one is her truest love.

Her friends at first think she’s crazy for doing this, but they decide to support her. Louise is in a long-term relationship with Sven, and Bibi isn’t interested in dating at all, but they’re all-in for Esther’s walk through her past dating mistakes. She starts easy, with Alistair, her first love from high school. And after meeting him for a drink and finding out he’s in a relationship, she moves on to her next ex, the missed chance.

But as Esther reconnects with these loves from her past, she starts stirring up a lot of emotions, and the effects of that spin out first to her best friends and then to the others who live in her building and even to her assistant at work. She becomes obsessed with this journey back in time, and focuses her energy on her exes, while not dealing with the repercussions for those closest to her. Will it all be worth it? Will she rediscover the love of her life? Or will she just burn it all down and end up alone again?

Seven Exes is a playful, whimsical rom com about taking the time to look at your past. Author Lucy Vine asks the questions that all single women of a certain age ask themselves, namely, did I already meet the person I’m supposed to spend my life with and blow it completely by being an immature, selfish partner?

I really enjoyed this book. I love the premise of the seven types of relationships, and I certainly remember the desperation that comes along with certain milestone birthdays, and feeling like I just wasn’t performing the adulting as successfully as I was supposed to. Tagging along with Esther on her journey was a lot of fun, and it stirred up a fair amount of nostalgia for me. It’s a little frothy, but it’s also got a lot of laugh-out-loud moments and a lot of heart.

Egalleys for Seven Exes were provided by Harper Perennial through NetGalley, with many thanks.