This book was just ok for me. I think it was trying to be too many things, the friend pining over their best friend, the brother situation, it just felt like too many storylines that none of them really had time to work for me. And I really wasn’t a fan of Ben.

WOW! A book with an FMC who is a plus size librarian?!?! As a plus size bookish girlie, I AM OBSESSED! 💖 AND also the plot movement of the book where Marcela and Theo are both in love with the people who make up the couple about to get MARRIED! Which only gets crazier once you add in the fact that Theo is Ben (the groom to be's) brother and in love with his brother's bride-to-be!
As Marcela kind of fake dates Theo and starts to try to have a fling with him so that she'll get over Ben, she starts to get more and more concerned for her feelings for Theo (which we kinda love)!
The sweet actions that Theo does (like library dates and being involved with the YA book club that Marce is in charge of) give him SUCH golden retriever energy and we love him for that!👀🥹
I enjoyed this book SO much and cannot wait to see, not only the next books in this series/collections, BUT also the other books by Gabriella Gamez. Thank you so much to Forever books for the AMAZING read and I cannot wait to tell everyone that they need to read this book!💛

The Next Best Fling is a debut book for author Gabriella Gamez, and I received it as an ARC from NetGalley for my honest opinion. I really enjoyed The Next Best Fling! The title and the cover are really fun and are what drew me to read it. It has some great tropes: best friend's brother; unrequited love; longtime friends-to-(will they?) love; faking it, and Gabriella Gamez does a great job of weaving and twisting these tropes to the book's benefit and to keep the readers on their toes. Oh, and librarians?!?! That is a book-lovers dream, she got me there!
Marcela, our FMC, has been in love with her best friend Ben since they were in college and briefly dated. He friend-zoned her and started dating her good friend Alice, and they've been best friends and had a great connection in the 8-ish years since. Marcela and Alice haven't had much of a relationship since, though. Ben is newly engaged to Alice, the same woman he friend-zoned Marcela for, much to Marcela's disappointment. Right before Ben and Alice's engagement party, Alice asks Marcela to pick up Ben's brother Theo from the airport. Ben's brother is a NFL player, and Marcela has never had a great impression of him. Ben and Theo aren't very close, either.
At the engagement party, Marcela finds Theo practicing a speech to Alice, where he is professing his undying love for her. Realizing how this will affect Ben and his happiness and although this could be the solution to Marcela's unrequited love problems, Marcela gets Theo out of the party. The next day, everyone thinks Theo and Marcela are together.
Marcela and Theo decide to pretend date so neither Alice or Ben or anyone else suspect their feelings for them. Hijinks, drama and a lot of emotions ensue. The author does a great job with the story, the dialogue and moving the plot along beautifully. I personally did not like Marcela-- she was supposed to be 28 and she had the emotional range of a 17 year old, which drove me crazy and made me dislike the FMC. I adored Theo, but was a little confused about his mess of feelings for everyone he had relationships with. Maybe that is part of the book, but Marcela's infantile behavior just drove me up the wall. Without giving anything away, I love how in the end you see a surprising bit of manipulation and understanding from the characters, that is done amazingly well!
I really enjoyed The Next Best Fling and I'm looking forward to more from Gabriella Gamez, this is a great first book and can't wait for more!

rating: 4/5

quick synopsis: the story follows our main character Marcela who’s had feelings for her best friend (former ex-boyfriend) Ben since they called it quits years ago and he began dating a mutual friend. just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, ben proposes to his gf and she has to continue pretending that none of it affects her. enter Ben’s, older, taller, Chris-Hemsworth-esque brother Theo who also happens to harbor feelings for his brothers fiancé. in an effort to not ruin the wedding, Marcela and Theo set up a plan to keep each other in check and keep other people from questioning their true feelings. A classic fake dating scheme begins and before they know it, lines begin to blur…

my thoughts: i can’t thank dana from forever enough for recommending this book! just from the first chapter I knew that it was gonna hurt, as most unrequited love stories usually do but im so proud of marcela and her journey. ben is a little weasel and never deserved her and theo was exactly the sort of person who does deserve her. Marcela’s struggle with her body and self-worth was so incredibly relatable and seeing that representation in a character is important to me. i also just loved that all the things that made her insecure with ben, were all appreciated by theo and he went above and beyond to make her not only feel loved but to show her that he listened. i personally loved how messy/complicated the relationships in this story were and it only made me want to keep reading. i did in fact finish this in one sitting 😗

thank you to the discover forever team for this arc!

Marcela and Theo agree to be each other’s rebound. Marcela needs to let go of Ben, her best friend/ Theo’s younger brother and Theo needs to move on from Alice, his childhood friend/ Ben’s fiancé. This messy love square had all the drama I anticipated and delivered it all so well. I loved being in Marcela’s mind during this story, she learns to put faith and trust in her relationship, something she hasn’t felt able to do until now.

Can we start by talking about the writing. and the fact that this is a debut😮. Gabriella had to have out crack in this or something because it was just ughhhh so good. It was so easy to get sucked into this book, & the characters.

Now let’s talk about Marcela. She’s such a strong but vulnerable character. I relate to her so much, she instantly became one of my all time favorite characters ever! I wanna give her a giant hug.

Theo was so sweet & so patient and he deserves the absolute world. New book boyfriend!!!

Now Marcela & Theo as a whole. Their relationship was the cutest ever!!!! They had me giggling, screaming, kicking my feet the whole book.

One character we never have to talk about is Ben. Ugh that dude, i wanted to just go into this book and set him straight.

I can’t wait to have the physical copy in my hands in July!!!

This book was definitely not my favourite. I just couldn’t finish the last 40% so I won’t be giving a full review

The book description is what really got me to read this book. This book gave exactly what the description promised. I very much enjoyed Theo and Marcelas relationship. At the end of everything Marcela is finally able to except who she is and goes through a lot of growth. I wish we had some of Theo's POV in this book that would have been very entertaining.

As far as relationships and dynamics with other characters I had a hard time believing in Angela and Marcelas friendship. At around the 50% mark I understood it a tiny bit better but this relationship I didn't really believe. You don't get very much from other characters in the book it very much centers around Marcela and then Theo and Marcela.

I would say this book was more of a 3.5 stars for me. Still very much enjoyed it. An amazing debut and I can't wait to see from from the author.

A best friend's brother book with unrequited love, trust issues, and a hot man that looks like a mixture of Thor and Captain America? I'm in. I'm all in.

When Marcela's best friend of 10 years (that's she's secretly been in love with the entire time) announces his engagement to Alice, his girlfriend of almost as long, Marcela tries to be happy for him. But when she catches his brother, Theo, about to tell Alice that she's making a mistake, their plan to stop meddling in the relationship of two people they care about becomes more than they had bargained for.

I almost came to tears over the sweetness that is Theo Young. His love for Marcela is so evident over and over again, showing that the person Ben, his younger brother, painted him to be couldn't be any further from the truth. I loved this book. 6 stars. My only note is that I need a scene of him in the Captain America costume (which I was worried wouldn't reappear, but when it did I giggled and kicked my feet).

The Next Best Fling was a cute quick read. A nice palette cleanser if you're reading a heavy series. I loved Theo I thought he was a great character. Marcela was okay, though to be honest I was a little annoyed that she took so long to be honest with Theo.
I pity Ben, I understood why he acted the way he did - hopefully, he gets to find his happiness particularly away from his family because of the problems he has with them.
3 star book!

One thing I loved about this story with Marcela and Theo is how they both come together with their own insecurities and struggles. The premise is a little unique in that Marcela is secretly in love with Theo's brother and Theo is secretly in love with his brother's fiancée. From the moment the two meet, I fell for their banter, interactions, and watched them slowly learn more about themselves and each other. Gabriella did a fantastic job of creating an engaging story that kept me turning the pages and wanting to find out what will happen next for Marcela and Theo. For a debut novel, Gabriella created a wonderful story that drew us readers in to the world where I was rooting for Marcela and Theo!

Loved this book! A plus sized librarian and an NFL football player caught in the crosshairs and unrequited love. It was messy, but not overly so. I cannot wait for the next book!

This was a fun book, I enjoyed majority of it. Sometimes it did feel like it was dragging a bit but overall I did enjoy it. The storyline was interesting and watching the characters grow and learn was nice. Overall I would definitely recommend this book to people in the future.

I was hoping for a cozy romance and ended up with a love hate relationship with this book. And honestly that’s the best kind of relationship. First off, this book talks a lot about boundaries and being honest. I didn’t think a fake dating/friends with benefits romance book would get into emotional cheating. And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the main character when I started.
Does she love to read? Yes. Is she awkward and dorky? Yes. Is she plus size with self esteem that fluctuates? Yes. But I couldn’t stand her relationship with her best friend that she was pining for. It was giving the vibes like “Something Borrowed,” the movie/book. I really struggles with her constant white lies and having a decent guy who was completely open with her. Was it complicated because he loved her love interest fiancé? Absolutely yes. But pushing through the book I respected that the author addresses that. So if you’re against emotional affairs, this may not be the book for you.
I will say once you get past that, you really see a chemistry from the two main characters that just feels natural. There’s no unrequited love by chapter two but there is attraction. And it just overall felt like a good story arc. The main character redeems herself and I really enjoyed that the author puts all what if away for both characters. You’re left feeling like they chose each other because they wanted each other. Communication being a big deal for a man! Hallelujah! The love interest had faults but he was open with them. Overall I loved this book and really left me feeling satisfied. The spice is there but the communication is better.
Cant believe this is a debut author! She really nailed it from someone who reads a lot of romance books. Can’t wait to read her next story!

I did not like this book. I really wanted to like this book. The premise of a plus size librarian falling for the brother of her friend/ex, who happens to be a retired football player, is a good idea.

However the friend/ex is an absolutely horrid friend and the heroine just allows it because she's got confidence issues. It's 2024 and I know that women still have confidence issues, especially plus size women, but the way this woman was written made me want to throw my phone across the room at several points.

The football playing brother has his own issues as well, but he is still one of the better characters in this book. The same can be said with Marcela's best friend, Angela.

I will say that after the halfway point, the book quickly got better and wrapped up in a nice neat HEA bow, but getting there was a struggle.

If you can handle a self-conscious character that has massive communication issues, then you might actually enjoy this book. I apparently cannot handle it.

This book was impeccable!!! Like ever in my life have i wanted to be a FMC more than I wanted to be Marcela! Loved the plus sized rep and a youth librarian…I AM SCREAMING! I have read this book from front to back twice already and it is sure to be added to the comfort read list!

very interesting tropes!!! i loved it!! it was very fun to read and i would definitely read more books by this author!!

I really enjoyed Theo and Marcela's story! Fake dating tropes are my fav and this didn't disappoint. Marcela is in love with her BFF, Ben, who is Theo's brother. Theo is in love with Ben's fiancee and drama ensues. I love the inclusivity of diverse characters and a happy ending. Buy this book! I can't wait for the next installment.

This was a fun, enjoyable read. There were moments that felt like they dragged a bit, in terms of the plotting but Marcela was a fun character to follow and I especially appreciated the inclusivity of different character types.

A cute twist on the fake dating trope. I loved how Marcel’a and Theo were in the same situation and so neither had the upper hand. I love how Theo ended up being the sweetest.

There were so parts that I found myself a little bored. The story line did have me want to yell Just communicate already.!!!! Overall it was an enjoyable read.