OH MY GOODNESS! This was SUCH a cute book! It was my first Crystal Kaswell book, and I was not disappointed. I loved the pining since childhood aspect, and I thought that using the dating app was a fresh story line. Watching River and Lexi fall in love made my heart SO happy. I just loved it!

This novel was a good feel book. A retelling with a gender-reverse twist take on the classic Sabrina with a STEM twist.

I love a good second chance book. The boy-next-door returns home.

This was my first book by Crystal Kaswell - her writing style perhaps does not mesh with my taste but I could not admire the characters or story very much. I found the love triangle between sisters a bit much. The dialogue was slight cringe.

Overall the ending though was sweet.

Read this if you like

Second chances
Force Proximity
Love Triangle

This was such a good read for February! It had all the great pieces that make romance so enjoyable to read. It had unrequited love, glow-ups, and friends-to-lovers. It very much had a little 27 dresses feel with the two sisters, without all the weddings. I couldn't put it down until I finished it. The characters were relatable, realistic, and their chemistry/relationships with each other was so great. I really loved the relationship between Deanna & Lexi...sisterly love for the win!! Also, that a person is more than what's on the outside or what they may portray.

I enjoyed this book. It had some really good stuff. Second chances. Good writing. Fun storyline. This is my first book by this author. There were times were this book dragged some through the middle. I thought it had good conflict and developed characters. All in all an enjoyable read. I'd likely pick up another book by this author again. Thanks to Entangled Publishing and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Thank you to Entangled Amara for the advanced reader copy. These opinions are my own.

The Neighbor Wager features Deanna, an incredibly smart woman in tech who has created a new dating app that highlights a compatability algorithm. She hopes to showcase her sister Lexi as the model example of how well the algorithm works. But Lexi doesn't want to commit to her match and is now keen to get to know the newly returned next door neighbor. River is all grown up and has transitioned from the awkward ners to the tattoed bad boy.

I found the love triangle element with two sisters a bit overdone. And there was also too much backstory. We were more than 25% of the way through the book before River and Deanna started interacting in the contemporary timeline. And when they did, it all moved much faster than I found believable.

I also found it tough to relate to any of the characters. They all lived in multimillion dollar mansions in Orange County, CA. But they regularly complained about their money woes.

The sister, Lexi, was regularly annoyed that people treated her as nothing but a Barbie stereotype who always dressed in pink. But her character was also written as precisely that stereotype. Generally, I found the characters too one-dimensional and the plot couldn't keep me engaged with its irregular pacing.

2.5 stars rounded up

I liked this one it was kind of crazy how this one starts I was a bit confused at first because of the romance.
When we get to the end of the first chapter I was hesitant, wondering if this book would be for me, because of the cover and the name of the book I thought the story was different, which surprised me in a good way.
Something I was surprised was the spicy scenes and the felt real, and raw. I liked the relationship between the sisters and the love interest. What I felt was missing was, the epilogue a little bit more of information because it is the last time we get to see the characters so we need to know a little more of their lifes in the future, or maybe the author could set the epilogue further into the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this book.

3.5 ⭐️

Okay, this was definitely something… Um, I may have mixed feelings?

This book is a retelling, gender-reversed take on the classic movie Sabrina with a STEM twist. In which a set of sisters create a dating app. However, their venture is put at risk when the boy-next-door returns home to put their algorithm to test.

I don’t think the writing style was for me— it felt to heavy and made it difficult to follow the storyline. They even fell in love way too fast when he was supposedly down bad for her sister.

And the way they talked about Lexi all the time was weird as if she was some sort of real-life goddess… Gave me the ick, I’m sorry.

But, anyway, I really liked the end —it was sweet.

Read if you like:
📲 neighbours.
📲 forced proximity.
📲 love triangles.

Thank you to the author, Entangled Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. The Neighbor Wager by Crystal Kaswell will be coming out on February 20th.

This was cute. I wanted to like it more, but it just wasn't doing it for me. Deanna is built on logic and reasoning while River is classically romantic. What started as a way to keep her sister honest and out of trouble became a whirlwind romance for herself. The beginning was sort of misleading in that it seemed like it was going to be River and Lexi instead of Deanna, and he just turned around really quickly on that and it seemed a little bit weird. Overall it was a nice romance.

enjoyed this book. I liked the tension and build up between Deanna and River throughout the book and the spice was good.

I struggled to connect to either of the main characters and found some of the storyline a bit slow.

Overall I enjoyed the neighbours/forced proximity story line.

Thank you to entangled publishing for providing me with an E-ARC!

There were moments where I was kicking my little feet but also moments where I wanted to throw it and stop reading. But overall I think the storyline is very sweet. I love the story between River and Deanna. Certain tropes in this book are what made me rate it lower but it is a very easy read!

River was always the boy next door that was in love with Lexi. Now, years later, River has a chance to be with Lexi, but her sister Deanna is suddenly catching his eye.

This was an interesting one. I really liked the concept and wanted to love this but some things held me up. The strength of this book is in the dialogue. You really get a sense of the character's voices and most of the scenes read like movie scenes. There was also a good humor to so much of this. I loved River's grandmother. She always had me laughing. The spice was also very well done.

All in all, this was a interesting spicy romcom!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted copy!

Overall I enjoyed this book and the story, however, I did have some hesitations with the character development, I think it was weird to start the story with how rich the girls next door were, while not being explicit about the main male character’s socioeconomic background. While it starts off with a bet meant to deter the main MC from getting with her sister for a good reason, I still think it’s weird that this man had a crush on someone for over 10 years and then just suddenly decides he’s into the sister more. That was a big ick for me. However for the purposes of the book and the development of the characters I understood, I will say too, the grandma subplot felt like a dangling plot line that was only used when we needed the female main character to be relatable or to explain “why now” and it wasn’t really seen through, I thought it was a weird way to anchor the story in some other plot that didn’t really need to be there. Overall, it was a good story, I would’ve made some different plot choices personally.

Ehhh I was kinda on the fence about this book since it is outside eof my usual, but I'd seen some good reviews so I requested it. Unfortunately it was not the right book for me. I found all of the characters annoying and very up their own ass about stuff. Unfortunately a pass for me.

'The Neighbor Wager' by Crystal Kaswell is an opposites attract romance. No new ground is trod. If you like the genre it will be a fun read.

Honestly I devoured this book! Such a fun and easy read. Witty banter, fun characters!

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review

The Neighbor Wager by Crystal Kaswell is a wonderfully written romance story.
A really fun, refreshing contemporary romance! Loved the chemistry and banter between the leads.
I enjoyed Crystal Kaswell’s writing and look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Thank You NetGalley and Entangled: Amara for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

In this take on the Sabrina story, River lives next door to the well to do Harrington family. He’s a teenage artist with an over the top obsession with the younger daughter Lexi. Older daughter Deanna tries to let him down on her behalf - as her younger sister is totally blind to his interest - giving him the push to go to NYC and advance his art.

Years pass and the sisters have a dating app startup, MeetCute, looking for investors.
And, of course, River comes back, hotter than ever. Still obsessed but this time he’s actually caught Lexi’s attention (if not recognition)
Except Deanna can not let them date, because the fate of their financial future rests on Lexi’s current relationship thriving to prove the app works.

-

I liked the 1954 movie version of Sabrina
I thought the 1995 version of the movie was decent too
And this book was fine
There’s not anything wrong with it, but I had higher expectations of a gender flipped modern update than a basic rehash of the same story. And for the first third of the book that’s what it felt like, and even after that I didn’t feel the chemistry.
I think I would have liked it more if I *hadn’t* watched the movies an inadvisable number of times over the years, to be honest, so a reader without that hanging over their expectations might enjoy it more.

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled for the ARC

River has always had a huge crush on the girl next door. Now that he's back in California visiting his family he wants to see if he can connect with her. Deanna is totally focused on her business so having to spend time with River to try to save her business just makes sense. But what happens when they realize that they are a good match? She's not looking for a relationship and he wants to connect with her sister! Will they find a last love or heartbreak?

Deanna is kind of a cliche. She is the strong boss woman type character who can't form a relationship with a man because the man always makes false assumptions about who she is and what she wants. To add insult to injury they all want her sister instead of her. This isn't me complaining about the character just stating the facts. I was worried that Deanna was going to be one dimensional, but the author gives Deanna some depth and really shows that there are hidden elements to Deanna's personality that fit well with River. River starts out as the geek next door but returns years later as a complex man who is confident and smart and caring. His confusion over being attracted to both sisters could have had a creep factor but the author managed to avoid it by showing how River worked his way through those feeling to figure out what he wanted. I enjoyed how their relationship developed and how they were so honest with one another. There are side characters, but they don't play much of a role beyond being there. I really liked how the author chose to end the story.

My one issue was with the side characters. I felt like they kept getting mentioned or included in a scene but I never learned anything about them or from them. It meant that the story focused tightly on the main characters which was nice but how do the side characters affect the actions of the main characters? The only exception is Deanna's sister because she's the object of River's affections but other than that I felt like the other characters were hollow.

This is a contemporary romance that takes place in California. Both characters are adults with busy careers and complex histories. I will read more from this author in the future.

This book wasn’t for me.
The concept of the dating app was kind of interesting but this really didn’t seem to make sense for the character Deanna to be leading it because she didn’t know much about relationships or really believe in it.
Lexi’s entire character was just cringy to me and I didn’t really like anything about her, especially when she dumps her boyfriend to date someone she finds attractive.
The way they talk about relationships in this book I feel is so shallow and lacks any depth. I prefer a slow burn book with real conflict that’s realistic for the characters to have, and a relationship that builds slowly based on a genuine and pure connection.
I wish the author all the best on their book release!

Thank you NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A DNF unfortunately. I am constantly dreading picking it back up. Nothing makes me want to read further.

Thank you Entangled for the review copy. All opinions are my own.