I was halfway through this book when I knew it was going to be 5 stars.

WHEN GRUMPY MET SUNSHINE had me literally screaming in the middle of the night with laughter. I absolutely loved the characters in this book and how they interacted with each other. Mabel was the literal physical embodiment of sunshine, while Alfie was grumpy personified. However, The way that they were able to have such endearing banter made me so happy. I have such a weakness for fake dating and grumpy/sunshine, and this book was just perfect. I wish I could write more, but I simply do not have the words for how much I enjoyed this book.

I received this arc from Netgalley and St. Martin's Griffin in exchange for an honest review.

Alfie is a retired footballer who is supposed to be writing a memoir. If he could stop firing his ghostwriters.
Their beginnings are more than rocky - think pepper spray to the face - but they eventually end up slightly argumentative friends, bonding over miserable childhoods oddly enough (warning for neglectful, abusive, alcoholic parents).
The media notices them together and, not knowing about the ghost writing situation of course, assume they’re an item and chaos ensues while the paparazzi try to out-scoop each other.
The two decide to combat this and keep their secret by leaning into their assumptions, and then the good old fake dating trope carries on in the usual way.

The way this one started made me think that instead of grumpy/sunshine (with fairly intense impulse control issues) I need something closer to mildly-annoyed/sunshine. Because, in the beginning, the grump was Too Much. I did eventually start to warm up to Alfie - being a Repair Shop fan helped immensely - but it was a rough start.

Mabel’s internal dialog is … a lot. She goes from zero to worst case scenario in no time flat. She seems to have good friends that would be supportive but she shuts them out more than she should. And for someone who claimed to be self confident, the sheer volume of self doubting thoughts didn’t back it up.

When it comes to Alfie and Mabel together, between her letting her thoughts run rampant and his acting much more quickly than he can think, it is very easy for even small things to get blown out of proportion. Throw in paparazzi and oof. Still it came across too overblown for me, and I missed when they were trying to actually write (but in the end the book was probably much better for how it was written, I admit)

Now for the things I liked - His tending for her (the hair, the furniture, ‘defending her honor’). Her tenacity, determination that he make a more enjoyable life for himself instead of the cold version he’d been living. The banter was good once they got going. The flirting while desperately trying not to flirt was entertaining. The concert and after were 🔥

I’ve heard this book has Ted Lasso vibes, and fans of the show seem to like it much more. I haven’t watched, so I’m thinking maybe there’s some layers here that I’m missing out on?

There were things I really liked, and things I disliked just as much. In the end it averaged out to an okay read.

Thanks to NetGalley and st martins press for the arc

Thank you to Netgalley and then publisher for an advanced electronic copy of this book. All thoughts are reflective of my personal experience.

I really, really wanted to love this book. I was incredibly excited to see it was one of my favorite tropes and a fat main character. The cover of this is adorable, too.

I have to admit though, I couldn't make it through this one. I only read about 40% of it before I finally couldn't push through anymore and DNF'd it.

The concept is interesting and arguably cute. But what really gets me is these characters and the writing style.

The banter is exhausting. I say that as a person who -loves- banter between characters. It just felt like way too much focus was on trying to create banter here. It took away from the point of the conversations at times and supported the miscommunication between them. Then alongside that, the formatting of sentences and paragraphs had such a stop-and-go effect that contradicted with the run on flow of the banter. It made it very exhausting to read.

I commend the author for putting together this book and all the work involved, but this just wasnt it for me. I think there is definitely room for growth if they do choose.

I also note that the style of writing may be representative of more neurodivergent thought processing. I personally am neurodivergent and so I recognized the pattern as similar to how my brain at times WANTS to write, but ultimately that isn't always the most effective.

I think this book will still find some people who will enjoy it though. I just personally won't be recommending this one.

I ended up DNFing this book at around 47%. The main character was no way the sunshine in the grumpy and sunshine trope. They were both just grumpy. I also had a major issue with how Mabel made every single aspect of her life and her conversations into something about her weight. She couldn't even have a guy touching her stomach without thinking that the guy has probably never realized a stomach can be anything other than flat. It was just distracting and annoying.

I wanted so badly to love this book as grumpy/sunshine tropes are my favorite, but unfortunately it fell short. I’m a huge fan of witty banter while flirting but this just seemed too over the top for me. I will say that the dirty talk and smuts were top notch.

“See, I knew this would be a mistake. I could tell you’d be all insufferable with me, saying all your cute things until I’m completely turned around. Well, I’m not having it,” he said all in a big, angry, frustrated rush.

When Grumpy Met Sunshine was a story about a retired footballer, Alfie, and a writer, Mabel, who is hired to ghostwrite his memoirs. Alfie has built a reputation as a gruff and grumpy guy and has went through seventeen ghostwriters already. At the meeting to see if Mabel should be hired on, the two banter, leaving Alfie drawn to Mabel and Mabel thinking Alfie insulted her weight. After a little stalking on Alfie's part, Mabel realizes that Alfie's comment wasn't saying what she thought it was and she agrees to help write his book. They then are caught by media and social media hanging out a lot and the speculation becomes that they're dating and to shut down some not so nice comments, Alfie blurts out they are dating and the trope fake-dating starts. As Mabel and Alfie pretend to be in love, the attraction between them builds and eventually Mabel is scared that she might have actually foregone the fake part.

she was enjoying unravelling him.

This story was written in all first person point-of-view from Mabel and in a stream of conscious narrative with short choppy sentences, this, personally, is a very hard writing voice for me to get into and I struggled mightily with being able to lose myself into the story and follow along with what was being said. A lot of this story is talking back and forth between Mabel and Alfie, the sense of setting is them talking in the car, in a house, and a random quick moment at a Beyonce concert. There were also end of chapter additives from various social media sites, Twitter/X, Reddit, etc., to try and help bring the outer world in but they also didn't work for me, I'm not a big social media person, so I think I missed some of that connection and the funny and/or cuteness it was supposed to bring. With only getting Mabel's voice, Alfie came off very unclear to me as a character, and for being late thirties, pretty immature. Mabel, I had a better understanding of but her constant misinterpreting Alfie's comments and actions began to feel a little forced as, you can take into account her insecurities lying to her, but his words and actions really gave no reason for her to think he thought negatively about her weight.

But there was something underneath it, she suspected.
Something else they were saying without really saying it.
About alcoholic fathers, and the effect they could have on you.
Sometimes they turned you to the drink.
And sometimes you went the other way.

The above quote gives some of that lovely connection between characters, they shared a painful childhood trait of having alcoholic fathers but the way it's laid out, short and choppy, imagine the whole story written that way, it just kills the flow for me. (another example:
His hair seemed newly trimmed.
She suspected he’d brushed his beard.
Or that someone had brushed his beard.
Most likely a barber who cost more than she spent on rent per month.)
I also am not sure I fully understood or went along with why they had to start fake-dating at just before the midpoint of the story, it just didn't make sense and felt like a forced popular trope thrown in.

Because yeah, you weren’t supposed to want violence. But god, sometimes it was good to know someone thought it should happen on your behalf. That you weren’t just weak or nuts or exaggerating. Something didn’t just deserve pity, or whatever else she usually feared she would get, if she dropped some of her Bubbly Girl armor. It was bad, and they would do things about it, if they could.
Things that made her want to do good by him, in return.

The second half was more talking with adding in dirty talk and some open door scenes but since I had issues with the style, and therefore couldn't connect with the characters, I wasn't feeling the chemistry between them and it all just ending up feeling like more words on the page I was struggling to read. There was a moment of sweetness I liked between these two, Alfie brushing Mabel's hair, but the writing style didn't allow the characters or me the reader to slow down and sink into it, I wanted Mabel to simply breath for a second so we could feel the moment. The last twenty percent had Mabel admitting to herself that she loved Alfie but then getting scared he didn't feel the same way, so after she's done writing the memoir, the story has them parting for a year. The very next chapter is the book launch, which brings them together and misunderstandings are talked through when Mabel reads a passage in the memoir that Alfie wrote himself and she sees his actions and feelings in a different light to deliver the HEA.

“I am happy, hanging around with a grumpy arse like you. Because you’re not that. You’re sweet, and kind, and most of all, I trust you. So you know what? If we have to kiss, we have to kiss. I know it’ll be all right. I always know everything will be all right when I’m with you,” she said.

I've read in some other reviews that Alfie seemed based off a tv show Ted Lasso character, I've never watched the show, so I could be missing some connection there and like I said, the narrative style of a character speaking in written word how people talk/think (stream of conscious) is a personal hard style for me to get into, I had to go back and reread so many passages to try and understand what was going on. A personal dislike and some writing that I think needed to be cleaned up, along with talking seemingly ninety percent of the three hundred and twenty-nine pages, made this a story that I could never get into.

Overall I enjoyed the story and would definitely would read more by this author. I love the body positive representation and this book and generally love writer/ghostwriter tropes. Some parts felt awkward and clunky but it really picked up for me about 50% through

I was super excited for this one! It's full of tropes I love and romance that has a plus-sized main character is dear to my heart. The idea of it is so sweet but I think the execution missed the mark. As a lover of Emily Henry, I never thought there could be something as too much banter, but this book managed it. The banter is over-the-top and, unfortunately, too immature to be cute anyway. The internal monologues and constant miscommunication were also very frustrating after a certain point.

I hope to see more from an author who is writing romances with fat characters, but I think a little more time needed to go into this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!

This title is really out here doing ALL the characterization for the grumpy/sunshine trope. Really, it’s an insightful look at the book, because if it’s not some of the worse dialogue I’ve ever suffered through in my life, the prose literally has never heard of show don’t tell. Who even is the sunshine, not the pepper spraying, insult-your-place-the-first-time-I-see-it, Peppa pig mug drinking MC right? He honestly seems positively delightful in comparison to her. So you would think this would be fine for a younger audience, maybe those who think falling over a banana peel just isn’t going far enough—but it has an impressive amount of swearing for a romance and then it shifts and you get some super spicy scenes. So I give up trying to guess whom this is for.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this arc.

The story is told completely from Mabel’s POV so we don’t know what’s going on in Alfie’s head until right near the end. Mabel’s belief that Alfie could not possibly love her could have been annoying I suppose. It was, essentially, what was keeping them apart. But I understood it. Alfie Harding is a superstar. He’s rich, famous and yes, he usually does date supermodels. Mabel is a normal person who does not move in Alfie’s usual circles. Her whole life she’s been told, by various men, that she’s not good enough and not deserving of their attention. As a result, she’s built up a thick armor. It’s really no wonder that Mabel tries to protect herself or that she takes a lot of convincing that Alfie does in fact love her to the moon and back.

I laughed out loud so many times as I read. Actual guffawing and snorting occurred. Mabel and Alfie have such a delightful dynamic. Both of them are head over heels for the other but neither can or will believe it is possible for the other to feel the same so they are constantly at cross purposes and constantly trying not to let the other know what’s really happening.

It’s not all laughs. Over the course of the book, Mabel finds she recognises in Alfie things that resonate with her own experience. She finds out who the real man is and he’s not very much like the public persona at all. There’s a reason he’s so angry all the time. And, he’s never angry with her. (Occasionally frustrated and yes, grumpy, but not angry.) Alfie is much more than a “football guy” in the public eye who gets in trouble a lot. There’s far more to him than that and Mabel, for her part, appreciates what it means that she gets to know the real him.

Even though I understood Mabel’s fear and belief, I did wish she had been a little braver near the end. I did wish that they didn’t have to spend so much time apart (in terms of temporal-time if not page-time). (I was reading an ARC which was clearly not the final version so I’m not exactly sure if the time frame I read is what’s in the published book. Still, I can only review the book I actually read.) Perhaps it is a sign of the book’s success with me that I reacted so strongly to things going pear-shaped. As it was though I experienced quite the disappointment.

Of course, this is a romance novel and things turn out right in the end. Just… did it have to take them so long? They were miserable for too much time!!

While my overwhelming memory of the story is laughing at how great they were together, there was no lack of the more earthy kind of chemistry either. Mabel is delighted to find that the tell-all stories from former girlfriends are all completely true: it’s huge and yes, he can go all night.

But, what sticks in my mind the most is how charmed I was and how much I laughed.

I always love a grumpy character so I was excited to dig into this read. The ghostwriter angle was an enjoyable premise and I enjoyed the read and their banter.

This was a quirky British rom-com that had a great deal of spice. I loved it! My heart felt for both characters, as the miscommunication trope was strong.

When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein is currently scheduled for release on February 6 2024. When grumpy ex-footballer Alfie Harding gets badgered into selling his memoirs, he knows he’s never going to be able to write them. He hates revealing a single thing about himself, is allergic to most emotions, and can’t imagine doing a good job of putting pen to paper. And so in walks curvy, cheery, cute as heck ghostwriter Mabel Willicker, who knows just how to sunshine and sass her way into getting every little detail out of Alfie. They banter and bicker their way to writing his life story, both of them sure they’ll never be anything other than at odds. But after their business arrangement is mistaken for a budding romance, the pair have to pretend to be an item for a public who’s ravenous for more of this Cinderella story. Or at least, it feels like it’s pretend—until each slow burn step in their fake relationship sparks a heat neither can control. Now they just have to decide: is this sizzling chemistry just for show? Or something so real it might just give them their fairytale ending?

When Grumpy Met Sunshine is a contemporary romance. I have to admit that this is a hard review for me. I adored parts of this book, so much. I am a big fan of the grumpy/sunshine and the fake romance tropes so there was a great deal that I enjoyed. But there were other parts that just felt a little off for me. I loved the premise, and was highly entertained by some of the interactions. There were moments that I could picture the moment and laughed, and felt some second hand embarrassment and awkwardness. However, there were a few times that I had absolutely no idea what was going on, so went back to reread a passage, still had no idea so just shrugged and moved on. I thought the sexy scenes were never going to happen, but when they did they were plentiful and very well done. I liked the resolution to the issues at the end, but was less than thrilled with some of the in between moments. The whole book ended up with moments that were absolutely spectacular alternated with moments that just okay. I think the great moments just made them less wonderful moment just stand out that much more for me. That being said, there was some really great writing here and I will be looking for more from the author because I think they have a lot of talent.

When Grumpy Met Sunshine is a romance with a little bit of everything,

When Grumpy met Sunshine is an adorable, funny, romcom that leans into favorite tropes - fake dating, he falls first and harder, taking care of her, witty banter - and adds in healing and acceptance with your soulmate. I actually laughed out loud, teared up, and swooned multiple times. This was a quick and fun read, set in England, and has a good amount of spice in the third quarter.

Mable is a plus-sized ghostwriter trying to help Alfie, an ex-footballer, write his memoir. My initial impression was Keely x Roy from Ted Lasso, which I was excited for, but it also brought in Jamie’s rough childhood and became so much more. As they got to know each other, they realized that they came from the same background, and had always tried to hide things about themselves or make themselves fit other partners, but from the beginning they were both able to be open and honest and accepting of all of each other. Soon those feelings turned much bigger, and as they were forced to fake-date to save Mable from the influx of paparazzi, their fast friendship quickly turned into more.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing and eARC for my honest review.

Currently looking for the right words because this book made me feel all the feels and it’s like it stole the words from my head in the process.

Mabel, meet Alfie.
Athlete, handsome, grumpiest man alive.

Alfie, meet Mabel.
Sweet, curvy, cupcake of a human.

I am a sucker for this specific trope, but when I tell you it’s like every single one of my favorite RomComs rolled into one, and made better… I mean it.

It had me giggling out loud.
It had me holding my breath.
It had me feeing rather flushed on more than one occasion 🔥

Hands down one of my favorite reads, ever. Thank you thank you thank you!

DNFing this based on the writing style and miscommunication trope. Just not for me. I read it for the first 10% and could not get into it. Sad because I love the grumpy/sunshine trope.

This was quite cute. I like the curvy representation and it's nice to see that's something that slowing coming into more books, at least the one's I've seen. It was interesting and kept me engaged, but the dialogue also felt clunky at some points and I hate unnecessary miscommunication.

I enjoyed this book. It's about a retired, famous footballer and the woman who was hired to ghost write his biography. He's terrible with technology, awkward, and has little personal self confidence. He's dated supermodels. She is comfortable with her talents, but hasn't had good luck with love and she's quite a round girl so she has little confidence.

Each of them is attracted to the other, but having such low self confidence, they agree to a fake romance for the paparazzi and other social media critics. It certainly sets the stage for an unusual romance between parties who have trouble sharing what they are really feeling.

This book made me laugh out loud in quite a few places. However the book is very "British" and there are phrases that are unusual for American readers, even those who read a lot of books set in England.

I'd recommend this book for readers who are looking for a different kind of romance, one where neither of the lovers is gorgeous and comfortable with themselves.

This was a such a hard read for me. I found it was choppy and almost confusing. I had to go back and reread pages because I just couldn't figure out what was happening..

3.75 stars. Thank you Netgalley for the E-ARC. This was such a cute literally LOL book that my son was giving me that side eye and asking whats so funny. I love everything about Alfie his humor how his actions it was all super cute. Mabel was a hoot as well and I loved their vibe.