Another great book in this series! I feel like this one dealt with more emotions than the previous two. Iris and Stevie both had their own things to work through and while it all started under false pretenses I could see the growth and realization between both of them as the story went on! I ended up listening to the last half and the audio was great!

Ashley Herring Blake’s IRIS KELLY DOESN’T DATE is a fun very and very sweet romcom featuring an actress with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and a romance-nonbeliever romance-writer with the worst case of writer’s block. Their chemistry is off the charts, and they’re so so kind and gentle with each other it was like a breath of fresh air. I love books about how messy gay relationships and friendships can be, while still being communicative.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for providing a copy for advanced review.

Ahhh Ashley Herring Blake, I adore you. I'm SO SAD this series is over and will miss my besties (yes, we're friends now) so very much. I was really excited to finally get to Iris's story. She was my second favorite character (to Delilah of course) and to see her get her love story was wonderful. I was cheering for Iris and Stevie the entire time and loved watching them heal together. Highly recommend. I'll miss this world and these characters very much.

Thank you for the eARC!

This is such a wonderful conclusion to the Bright Falls series. I loved seeing Iris get her HEA/HFN, and Stevie as well. There are so many good messages in these books, and so many characters to both see reflections of ourselves in and also to see into the experiences of others. It made me cry a couple times, it made me feel so happy and warm and fuzzy. And did I mention how hot the sex scenes were?! At the end, my heart was full as Iris accompanied her best friends down the aisle. I will miss them!

Thank you for giving me this arc!

I really loved the concept of it. This was my first book from Ashley Blake.

Although I felt disconnected in the middle I think it really picked up the pace! This was a cute (but spicy) romance

I used to think I didn't like romance novels but I absolutely love Ashley Herring Blake's series! This one didn't disappoint, except that I know the series is over now. I will definitely be recommending it, if we can keep it in stock at the library!

This review hurts to write. I loved Delilah Green Doesn’t Care and Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, but this one just didn’t work for me and here’s why:

1) I love a good fake dating trope, it’s a favorite of mine, but when it ends up as sex lessons, I’m out. Their arrangement was unbalanced and felt too awkward.

2) As a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I looked forward to relating to Stevie, instead, I was highly annoyed most of the time. It was 90% of Stevie’s personality and got old really fast. I understand what living with anxiety is like, and I know it’s not someone’s entire personality. I wanted to know other things about Stevie.

3) As for personalities, Iris’s was sex? And commitment-fobia? The characters felt two dimensional and weren’t fleshed out like the other characters in the prior books leaving me to question whether they had actual chemistry.

4) I really hate reading the words *ussy and *unt in sex scenes and they were used a lot. Maybe I’m just not a dirty talk person (I’m definitely not) but I’m also not a prude. This just felt excessive and unnecessary.

5) Every single person in this book was queer except for Iris’s family who all really sucked. I’m all for some representation, but it felt like it was trying too hard to represent everyone. It was a quality vs quantity type thing.

I turned the audio speed up and sped through it while getting ready for work for a couple days as I just wanted to finish it.

I did really enjoy the ending (a cute HEA) and being back in Bright Falls with the girl gang, Delilah and Jordan and my fictional besties, but this one just didn’t have the magic that the other two did.

Thank you to @netgalley and @librofm for the advanced copies.

I think Bright Falls and all its inhabitants might be my favorite fictional town of all times. Every single book i just fall in love with Iris, Astrid, Claire, Delilah and their significant others and friends even more. The characters are so flawed but in a loveable and believable way and I love that each of them finds exactly what they need in the end. I hope someday we maybe get to jump to the future for a story featuring an older Ruby but for now this ending was just perfect and I will continue to shout from the rooftops about this entire series to make sure everyone gets to experience the immense joy reading these books has given me

I love the Bright Falls crew, and this was no exception. It was a little weird to be reading about Iris writing books that are really similar to the other Herring Blake books, but ultimately I didn't mind. I love this series because we get to see the characters grow into themselves together.

I loooove love loved this one!!! Iris is the most relatable character (and also sexy as hell 😮‍💨). I loved everything about this story and it definitely was my favorite of the whole series. Also a perfect ending for all characters in Bright Falls

Closing the series on another great book from Blake, I think she did a great at bringing all the characters from the last two books into the finale. I did feel at times the plot was a bit lost and I wanted to shake them both into doing what they both knew was the right choice but c'est la vie. This was definitely my least favorite was the three books but I still loved them a lot and liked how they were SO vastly different from the MCs in her previous novels.,

2.75 ⭐️

A better title: Iris Kelly Needs Therapy. For a rom com, this was missing the “com” part.

I wanted to love this book, I really did! After LOVING Delilah, Astrid’s story didn’t work as well for me, but I was sure Iris’ book would be my favorite. Iris is hilarious and with a setup of fake dating, I thought this book was going to be so much fun. Instead, it’s stressful and sad as you watch a character make the same mistakes and fall into the same anxieties over and over. Iris’ character completely changed from the funny, sassy one to that all being a mask to hide her deeper anxieties, which just made her so sad and didn’t even remotely match my expectations going in.

There’s so much going on in this world beyond their relationship, but this book didn’t choose to focus on any of those details, so the world building feels very surface. I would have loved more details about the play they’re in, Stevie’s acting career, even Iris’ writing career. (It actually really annoyed me that Iris had never acted before, got cast as a lead in Shakespeare, then they decided to include zero details about it but don’t worry, she got a rave review in the paper! And don’t get me started on Stevie’s acting career, but those would qualify as spoilers). There’s nothing to latch onto except their relationship which I was rooting for but got annoyingly repetitive fast. I decided I really didn’t like it at the 75% mark and the whole ending felt completely intolerable and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Argh.

✨“I’m just a girl standing in front of another girl, asking her to fuck her senseless.”✨

I mean I think that quote pretty much sums it up! I really loved this one. I think book two remains my favorite—I would do illegal things for Astrid Parker—but Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date is definitely a close second! I loved both Iris and Stevie, and we definitely got a lot of the friend group content.

I’ve been seeing a lot of fake dating hate recently, but I really enjoy it, especially here. I loved seeing Adri get jealous because she thought they were dating—hello getting the only one bed FAKE OUT LOL—and it wasn’t a crazy leap to think that the fake dating was actually pretty logical (given the circumstances).

I only lost a bit of steam around the third act breakup. Don’t get me wrong, it needed to happen, I just lost some interest due to how it happened. But the reunion was dramatic, and the epilogue/conclusion to the series (I think???) made me tear up.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5 🌶️🌶️.5/5



Thanks so much to the publisher for an eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are honest and my own.

I enjoyed this one so much! I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump and this is the first book in a while that kept me wanting to come back to it. The writing was well-paced, the characters fun and relatable, and the romance was super swoony. Definitely recommend!

The third book featuring our favorite girls from Bright Falls might be the best of the series. I don't know if it's because I identify with Stevie (part anxiety, part long term comfort dater) or if finally getting to read Iris's story, but I just really enjoyed this one.

I loved this book! From the commitment/confidence issues to the slow burn fake dating, I thought all of it was done really well. I love Ashley's writing so that's no surprise. And, as usual, very romantic! Very sexy. I've already suggested this to a few customers.

When I started this, I thought I wouldn't like it as much as the first two (something about me losing interest or something) but I actually think this may have been my favorite in the series. I love a good theater romance, and fake dating, and I loved the diverse characters in this one.

This was the perfect finale to the Bright Falls series! I loved reading about how Iris found her happily ever after, and having all of the characters I've come to love be a part of it. Blake's romcoms are some of my favorites and I cannot wait for what she writes next.

Thanks to Berkley for the copy to review.

“Maybe I was just built for you.”

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date is the 3rd and final installment in the Bright Falls series by Ashley Herring Blake.

I always struggle to write reviews for books I love and therefore, I have been sitting on this review for quite some time. This series is so special to me and has become the ultimate comfort read.
Every time I finish a book in the series, I immediately listen to the audiobook. Kristen DiMercurio does a phenomenal job bringing the characters to life.

Blake writes endearing but flawed characters with depth and an underlying softness. I have adored every character from this series but found myself strongly resonating with Stevie.

Stevie is the sweetest; she suffers from General Anxiety Disorder and social situations can be triggering for her. Despite her shy disposition, she finds peace while performing in plays as an aspiring actress.

Iris has sworn off dating after her 2 most recent breakups left her feeling unworthy. She comes across as confident and extroverted, but deep down has a lot of pain and insecurities from those experiences.

It was so special to watch Stevie and Iris fall in love. Stevie shows Iris that she is worthy of a grand love full of romantic gestures and declarations. Iris fights her every step of the way, but Stevie is consistent and steadfast which allows Iris to finally fall.

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date is a tender romance filled with heart, humor and heat; the perfect conclusion to a wonderful Queer series. This series has cemented Blake as an auto-buy author and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.

Thank you so much to Berkley Romance for the e-ARC; all thoughts are my own.

THINGS
•Bisexual/ lesbian pairing
•Rake and wallflower but contemporary and Queer
•Romance novelist and Apsiring Actress
•Hook, Line and Sinker vibes (Iris is Fox)
•Disastrous one night stand turned Fake Dating
•Anxiety Rep
•Found family

The very first thing I wanted to point out in this one was the anxiety rep. As someone with anxiety, who often times gets migraines and pukes because of them from my anxiety, I felt SO SEEN. The day I met my husband’s aunt (who raised him) I got a migraine that made me throw up. The day I turned in my EOP test to get my Masters degree I had a migraine so bad I threw up. I know the effects of anxiety, and vomit is a nasty one, but to have it portrayed in a romance novel and for the person it happened in front of be grossed out but also so gentle with them made my eyes water. And I get it, there’s going to be someone somewhere that says this representation wasn’t great, but to that just a simple reminder that we are not all a monolith and I say for me and my anxiety, I felt seen and I would like for no one to try to erase that.

Well, that was a hell of an opening paragraph lol I almost never do that! But I was really touched by that and I thought it needed to be said. Moving on from that, I just thought it was ok. What I liked about the first two books was their friends and the small town and how they all hung out and were doing things with those same friends. In this one we get a whole new set of people, and let me tell you, I didn’t like any of them. They were all terrible and I didn’t feel like any of them were her real friends. Which was proved in the middle of the story because that dinner? WTAF. And the fact that she didn’t see it? Lordt I was like girl, are you not seeing on purpose? Had to be. Only way I’d accept that lol

Plot wise I liked it. With everything that was happening I was talking to the book out-loud, and that was saying something because my ass listened to the audio. I had to pause it, talk to Iris, and then unpause it again lol Her stubborn was unmatched and at times I was rolling my eyes because it got to be too much at some points. I get what the author was doing, and of course it needed the build up, but I did think it made the book long and drawn out. And I wish we could have seen some of the things that Iris had written while she was “learning from Stefania.” Like just small snippets of what she wrote as the time went on. It could have been really cute.

I expected more from the romance tho. Like they kept arguing about getting together and arguing about why they just knew they didn’t need to be together and it was annoying. I always find myself wishing there was more romance than they got. Like why couldn’t we get more scenes of them together? I like the build-up ok, but I stay for the love and the romance. And the things they do for each other. This was actually kinda meh. I wanted more. I mean like, if you’re giving romance lessons, GIVE SOME DAMN ROMANCE LESSONS. They seemed like an afterthought during the whole thing.

The ending was cute tho. I liked the turn the friend group took. They’ve always been my favorite, so when it was time I was crying my face off. I thought it was the perfect celebration for them and I think it went full circle. AND, as a reader I would be remiss if I were to get on here and not talk about the grand gesture. Was that not the cutest thing? Not gonna lie I think about the fact that I won’t get anything like that in real life smh lol

The narrator was someone I’ve listened to before from the rest of the series. And they were still perfection. I really don’t know how Kristen DiMercurio was able to do all of those different voices for all those different people. I still don’t know how she was able to get those characters to be completely different like that.

Was this my favorite of the series? No. Was it still a good read and worth your time? Yes. I hope all of you have followed this story till the end and I really hope this isn’t the last story in this series. Maybe we can get Ruby’s dad? Idk I just don’t want to be done with these friends/people yet!