I SPENT THE WHOLE BOOK LAUGHING. I quite literally read whole chapters out loud to my husband while we both cackled. This book somehow fit both of our sense of humors completely to a tee and it was immediately perfection. Will this work for everyone? No, there is a LOT of words and half the dialogue only barely makes sense but that's what I found so entirely captivating and hilarious. I highlighted basically the entire book I swear, and I've gone back and read certain parts over again just to send myself into tears again. The hands down, absolute, funniest book I've ever read in my life and I only wish I could be a literal part of the book - that's the only way it could be better.

I really liked the idea of this book and always love a curvy mfc but this book sadly didn’t work for me.

2.5 stars

Mabel Willicker is to be the ghostwriter for Alfie Harding's memoir. I agree with other reviewers about Alfie giving off Roy Kent vines, but other than that, I didn't get a good picture of what he looked like. Mabel is a plus size woman who thinks someone like Alfie wouldn't be interested in someone with her body type. There's a lot of miscommunication involved between the two of them.

This book felt way too long for a romcom that basically only had two characters in the whole book. There was way too much banter and parts just dragged. It needed a little more action to move the plot forward since it was so long.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Mabel is Alfie's ghost writer for his upcoming memoir. As a former footballer he has quite a reputation for being standoffish, grumpy, and closed off. Mabel could not be more opposite. Every thought she has comes out which leads to a lot of banter and silly flirty conversations. When they are spotted together, it leads to a fake dating lie. As the two of them spend even more time together because of the lie, Mabel gets to know the real Alfie that he has kept hidden from everyone. With Mabel, she has low self esteem and can't believe someone like Alfie could truly like her. This is the basis for the very tired lack of communication trope that causes our conflict. The weakest part of the story was this part of the story, but that is a personal opinion. I appreciate our plus size heroine, but it would be nice if it wasn't always the cause of her insecurities.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

I had such high hopes for this book as I'm a sucker for grumpy/sunshine, forced proximity, and of course fake dating. And the adorable cover too? It had so much that appealed to me. Yet this book left a lot to be desired and I honestly couldn't wait for it to be over. If I was the kind of person who could DNF books, I would've. Real rating of 2.5.

It's one of those books you keep reading in hopes it'll get better and never does. The dialogue was not only lengthy in every scene but it was also super immature for characters in their 30s. I wasn't a fan of the banter and it followed the "tell don't show" method instead of the other way around and I was left bored and never got to a point where I even liked the characters who felt so shallow. The miscommunication was awful and overall I just could not get into the story and skimmed most of it since it since it was mostly chaotic and confusing dialogue and banter the whole book. There's a little spice and honestly it needs another round of editing as there was a ton of typos and sentences I just did not understand grammatically. It's very rare I say this, but I do not recommend this book, even just for vibes and no plot as it has virtually neither.

If this book is up your alley then I'm happy for you! But personally I cannot recommend it in good conscious as it didn't tick any boxes for me and left a lot to be desired. I like the concept and the story that was supposed to be conveyed (a grumpy footballer having to meet up with a ghostwriter to write his memoir), but it just wasn't... conveyed.

Ugh this one is hard to review because I ended up liking it but I had to push through the reading. Off the bat I couldn't connect to the book and felt like I was missing something. BUT fake dating is one of my favorite tropes and I wanted to love this book. I loved the banter between Mabel and Alfie, even it it was a lot of banter. Mabel being plus sized and how she feels will have girls understanding how she is feeling about herself and how others may look at their relationship because of her size.

I got 11% in to the book and just couldn't carry on. I love grumpy sunshine but Alfie felt like a caricature of a person. The writing was also just ok. I think maybe this author just isn't for me though I did laugh at some of the antics. I do think this would have turned out to be a solid three star read if I would have finished it because it wasn't bad it just wasn't for me. I think grumpy doesn't have to mean leaving an interview because they ask where you get your hair cut. I guess I prefer mine more stoic. And also while he talks to Mabel you see that he isn's as grumpy as they are trying to push and thats something I like to learn a little later in the book.

While I had super high hopes for this novel, unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. I thought the premise was interesting but there was too much banter and not enough substance to the characters. The writing was extremely choppy and very hard to follow. There were several times throughout the novel that I found myself having to go back and reread what I had just read because I had no idea what just happened.

•••𝘿𝙉𝙁 @32%•••

𝘼 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙮, 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙨-𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙖 𝙜𝙧𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙖𝙗𝙪𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙚-𝙮 𝙜𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧.

I really tried to get into this book, I even the audiobook going in hopes I could finish this. I got 32% into the audio and decided to call it a day - which was quite a disappointment.

I usually am a fan of the Grumpy/Sunshine trope, but I didn’t care for it in this. There were so many inner thoughts that had me annoyed with these characters. The banter in this also didn’t work for me.

One of my goals this year is to start DNF’ing books I’m just not vibing with. I usually struggle what that part as for some reason I just have the urge to finish every book, but there’s not enough time to be doing that.

I don’t think I’ll pick this one back up at a later time, it just wasn’t my kind of read.

Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy in exchange for my honest review!

•𝗧𝗪/𝗖𝗪: Sexual Content, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Child Abuse

Mabel has been hired to ghostwrite retired footballer, the reclusive Alfie's, memoir. Their first meeting is a bit of a disaster, but they bond over their similar childhoods, and Mabel is quick to agree when Alfie proposes a fake relationship to hide their business arrangement. When the feelings start to become too real, Mabel has to decide if she can trust Alfie, and more importantly, herself.

I'm torn on my feelings about this book. The premise and tropes were there, but I never connected with Mabel or Alfie, and the scenarios they got into were quite unbelievable, even for a romance novel. There was too much miscommunication between them and Mabel's inner thoughts made the actual writing hard to follow. The story did pick up in the last 20%, but it was a bit too late for me.

I really wanted to love this book. It’s got an adorable cover, it includes one of my favorite tropes (grumpy/sunshine), the MMC is inspired by Roy Kent, and the FMC is a plus sized ghostwriter by trade. It’s alternately an emotional exploration of two damaged people, and startlingly filthy(in a good way!). Somehow though, the pieces just didn’t come together as well as I’d hoped. The dirty talk is top tier, and the pining was sooo good. Overall though, I found the pacing a bit uneven, and the miscommunication trope really started to wear thin for me by the end. I still found it an enjoyable read, but I can’t help wishing for more.

This read was not what I was expecting, but I think that made me love it even more. This was much more of an emotional read than the adorable cover and synopsis lead me to believe. I never expected a book that looked like this would make me sob by the end. It was only Mabel's POV which I disliked while reading because I thought Alfie was so obviously falling hard and fast for her and I wanted his POV so badly. Stein seemed to be reading my mind because she used that to pull on my heartstrings when we get to the ending. I loved Alfie and Mabel and their dynamic was a picture perfect grumpy/sunshine pairing. The banter was fantastic and just weird enough that it really worked well as a window into these characters. Overall, this was a great read that managed to worm its way into my heart much deeper than I was expecting and I imagine I'll be thinking about Alfie and Mabel for quite some time.

(3.75 stars, rounded up!)

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read an advance copy of this book.

I am such a sucker for the grumpy/sunshine trope and this really delivered. It did take me a bit to get used to the author's writing style. I had read the novella Curve Ball and I really did not vibe with it. As I said in my very short review of that one, it was disjointed. However, that was not the case in the end with WGMS.

On top of loving the grumpy/sunshine trope, I also love books that make me feel aaaaaaallll the feelings. This book had me emotional but also amused. It was so sweet and so hot. The chemistry felt so real and they felt like a real couple. That might not make sense to some people but sometimes in romance books, the relationships just feel superficial. With this one, I could tell they actually really liked each other. They weren't just in lust. That like grew into love and it was so pleasant to experience.

The premise of this book sounded so cool and I am always a giant fan of a grumpy/sunshine book. Every trope that I typically love was in this book. I absolutely was so excited to read this book. There was a good premise and honestly, there were so many bits of this book I enjoyed thoroughly. My issue with the book was mostly just that there was a lot of lengthy dialogue sections and not too much of the actual story. A lot of immature banter was thrown in and I had to keep reminding myself how old everyone in the story was. I also, at times, had a hard time following what was going on in the book.

The FMC of this book is a funny, curvy, sunshine of a human and I truly did like her a lot. The dynamic between her and Alfie our MMC was good and they truly did play off each other. I will say I did laugh when he was slightly stalking her. Or as he says, unintentionally stalking her.

I want to see where this author goes in her writing as the book was everything I was looking for, it just didn't hit for me but that's not to say that someone else isn't going to enjoy the book. I'm going to keep an eye out for more books by Charlotte and give those a try.

I really wanted to love this book. It was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I just didn’t vibe with it.

I really wanted to love this one, but it just wasn’t for me. I originally DNFed but then went back to it with the hopes that it would get better, but I just found myself bored and annoyed with the lack of communication between these two characters. Miscommunication can be realistic, but when characters are in their late 20s or older, it really angers me!

also… can a book have ~too much~ banter? because this one seemed to! this one just felt like they were trying too hard…

This was a DNF for me. I almost didn’t choose it based on the title, but the description pulled me in. I only got about 10% in and I couldn’t continue. The writing was terrible. It jumped around and there was too much talking.

The title is the book equivalent of click bait because both the main characters are sunshine and I just want to squish their cheeks like a stereotypical great-aunt! I would suggest the alternate title: Largely oblivious woman meets terribly awkward mess of a man. Although that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

I’ll be honest. As cute and fun as I found these characters, they’re also just on the side of delightfully weird that feels a little like a fan-fiction. Did I enjoy this book? I really truly did. Did it feel like a fleshed out novel? Not exactly. There’s a lot of stream-of-consciousness from Mabel (the female MC) and I love it dearly, but I often got confused what was retrospection/introspection versus imagination versus actually happening in the moment. Sometimes moments between the characters felt a little half-baked before the next scene fell into place. It’s all fun and delightfully adorable, but to sum it up, I’d say this story is quirky and a bit underdeveloped.

Read if you like:
⚽️ Sports/Celebrity Romances
📖 Celebrity Memoirs
💋 Fake Dating
🌤️ Grumpy x Sunshine Trope
🔀 Opposites Attract

I was so excited for this one since I absolutely adore opposites attract, workplace romances, grumpy x sunshine tropes that this one promises with the splash of one of my favorite tropes of fake dating.

Despite my excitement this one didn’t work quite as well as I was hoping due to the way the story was structured that just didn’t fully work for me with the way the dialogue and lack of movement in the plot occurred leaving the pacing to feel slower and off.

Overall, I know many will enjoy this one, especially if you like slower-burn paces of your romances, but for me, personally I needed a bit faster of a pace to enjoy this one more.

Thank you so much to the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my thoughts/review.

Thank you to St Martins Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was such a sweet and steamy read! Grumpy sunshine trope is one of my favorites to read and adding the athlete and ghostwriter into made it even better!

Definitely add this to your TBR for February if you’re a RomCom reader!