I really wanted to read some sapphic romance and this was a very lovely surprise. I enjoyed the fact that they were both academic girlies, queer, HOT and showed different queer experience. This book would have benefited from having both perspectives integrated in the book, I would have loved to see what was going through Maeves mind when Val was having an existencial crisis because she felt attracted to her and it would have been nice to watch her internal monologue while they get closer. This was enjoyable, HOT and different from other books I’ve read. Thank you so much for the advance reader copy <3

I don't know if I read the book too fast in one sitting or I need to reread the book once it's published, but it wasn't my favorite sapphic story. I really enjoyed the mental health representation with Valeria and how much it can affect someone, I don't think that's something you see often (especially with real life celebrities). However, I was a little thrown off with how quick Maeve was to change her attitude towards Val, then immediately become friendly and flirty. It's a very quick jump for her character.

Despite my few negative feelings, I really enjoyed reading the book! It makes me want to sign up for a queer film studies class and learn more about films featured at festivals since that was huge for Valeria. I can't wait for everyone to meet Val and Maeve, their story is very sweet.

DIRECTOR'S CUT is wonderfully queer and exceptionally fun.

I Had a lot of fun reading this book. There were many many times where I was laughing or gasping out loud, I was in it from the beginning. The plot is simple but effective and has some great representation. I loved reading about an actress and director who recently came out as a lesbian, as this resonates with me so much. I am also a lesbian who acts and directs, and at times it felt like I was reading thoughts from my own head. I felt very connected to Val because of this, and I hated to see her struggle with anxiety like I have.

The relationship between Val and Maeve was cute, if not slightly rushed. I loved them together and how they challenged and pushed each other, however I wanted more of their "rivalry" at the beginning. It felt like the conflict between the two of them was over before it truly began, I would have liked to see more of an in-between period. They went from adversaries to best buds- and more- very quickly in my opinion. I appreciate Maeve's healthy communication, especially in the act three conflict. It was very mature and responsible. That being said. I have many problems with miscommunication and hiding things as a plot point and this book relies heavily on it. I just want Val to be honest and talk to Maeve!!

I received an advanced readers copy from Vintage Publishing and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First off, a huge thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

*2.5 stars rounded down*

I loved the premise of this book. I was so excited to start it, but the further I got into it, the more I realized it just wasn’t for me.

I’m not a huge fan of a single POV story, and miscommunication tropes might just be my least favorite thing in the world. It also took me such a long time to get invested in the characters and the story. To be fair, I am working on getting out of a reading slump, so that might be my fault! The writing was definitely not bad, and the spicy scenes were pretty decent; but overall, there was something about this book that just didn’t click for me.

This is the follow up book to Sizzle Reel, which I have not yet read, so I’ll probably give that one a try to give the author a fair chance.

I didn't love Valeria, one of the fmcs of this book. I did think the IBS rep for her character was done well, though. I did like Maeve, the other fmc. Well, I liked who she was for the last 80% of the book. In the first 20 or so percent, Maeve doesn't like Valeria, but when she starts to like Valeria, it's as if a switch flips and she becomes a completely different person instead of the same person but more open and kind. there was also a lot of technical jargon thrown around in this book, but most of it was interesting.

3.5 Stars Director's Cut by Carlyn Greenwald is a sapphic coworkers-to-lovers, celebrity romance set in the worlds of Hollywood and academia.

Oscar-winning actress Valeria Sullivan takes on a guest teaching gig at USC and finds herself immediately at odds with her co-professor, Maeve Arko, whose beauty and brilliance throw Val off kilter. Since Val came out, her acting options have declined and her transition to directing isn't going well, so Val is determined to finally leave Hollywood. She hopes to leave for a full-time teaching gig, but this one class with Maeve is proving to be a challenge, one that Val is more than ready to rise to the occasion for. As things begin to soften with Maeve and sparks fly, Hollywood decides it isn't done with Val. Will Val choose to honor her obligations to her class and Maeve, or to continue to pursue the Hollywood dream?

I loved the thoughtful conversations this book had about the homophobia, both overt and covert, in Hollywood and academia. I adored Val and Maeve, both as individual characters who were very well written and as a couple. The only thing that bothered me was the miscommunication/lack of communication by Val. It was aggravating that she wouldn't tell Maeve her news (no spoilers) and made the entire situation worse with her self-sabotage. The anxiety and lesbian/bisexual representation in the book were excellent and I definitely recommend this one for a summer read!

Thank you Vintage and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a solid book. I do not think that I am part of the niche this story is directed toward, but I still had a pretty good time. Valerie is a very well rounded and layered character. The story felt a little frustrating at times because it would've been so much easier if we just used our words!!!!! overall, I think this book will do very well

i enjoyed it a lot, there’s so much talking about musicals and the semi-hollywood setting is always a favorite of mine,the dynamic between the characters at the beginning was a little tense since maeve looked like she didn’t really liked val too much, and i would’ve loved to see a little more of how they change that tension into something more romantic but it happened so fast in my opinion that it felt not natural at all, so that was a little disappointing.

overall the dialogues sometimes felt too long, i know there was a lot to say but i think the conversations could’ve been more back and forth than a long monologue sometimes.

val’s feelings about coming out and realizing that now that she’s out she’s finally free and doesn’t have to hide from the public even in while in hollywood was actually really emotional and i felt so proud and happy for her.

it was a nice, sweet and heartwarming sapphic story and if you’re looking for more of that, specially this pride month, i’d really recommend it.

thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange of an honest review.

rating: 3.5 stars

I received an ARC for this book without really knowing anything about it. I felt as if it was the second in a series as it seemed to start without my knowing a lot of facts. I just looked, and our heroine Valeria was a main character in Sizzle Reel. I think reading that first might have helped.
So, Oscar winning actress Valeria Sullivan is a hot mess. She has apparently come out as a lesbian quite recently after years of pretending her gay friend Charlie is her boyfriend. (He was my favorite character, by the way)
She has an intense anxiety order and failed her PHD dissertation at Oxford, which caused her longtime girlfriend to break up with her (apparently, what happens in England stays in England).
She is now in Hollywood and has directed a movie, but is thinking of becoming an academic (she got a PHD somewhere. )
She meets the professor she is co teaching with at USC, and basically, this is where the story starts.
So, what do I think? The book is a nice love letter to LA, which I liked as I lived in LA for 10 years. The many different relationships in this book was interesting.
Lots of lesbian sex,some of which I skipped.
I am afraid Val's many hangups became very frustrating to me, and I must have yelled, just tell her already, many times.
I did like the Jewish parents, the gay guy best friend, and seeing some of the goings on in Hollywood development hell.
As I said, I wish this would have been marked second in a series, as I would have read Sizzle Reel first and not been so confused at the first few chapters of this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the EARC. This is my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! Val was such a great character with such a great heart, and I appreciated the way the anxiety rep was portrayed. The love story between her and her co-professor Maeve was well developed and swoony but my favorite relationship was actually between Val and her best friend Charlie who I absolutely ADORED. I'm really hoping he'll have his own book (what do you say, Carlyn). Finally, the inside look at the entertainment industry, specifically musicals was really interesting and a learning experience that I didn't have to pay or study for. Win/Win!!

-professor x celebrity
-forced proximity
-hate to love
-mental health rep

3/5 ⭐️
2/5 🌶️

valeria is guest lecturing while she's taking some time away from acting and directing. maeve is the co-professor that val is supposed to work with for the semester... but she immediately hates val

after a series of tense encounters & disagreements surrounding their lectures, val & maeve are undeniably attracted to each other. they both have a lot of baggage that comes up. gotta love therapy

i wanted to love this, but i didn't. i wanted more sweet moments, but they went from hating to forgiving to being in love all at the same time. i told my boyfriend "i think i have whiplash". i wanted more build up before they were together & val frustrated me

Whenever you encounter episodic storytelling, be it on a TV show or a Cinematic Universe or even a series of a books, the work often needs to justify itself while it catches you up. Yes, it's often subtly side-eyeing you for walking in during the middle of its performance, but it acknowledges that not everyone necessarily has seen the beginning of the story (or, if they have, don't have perfect recall).

Sometimes, you can mix in the exposition with the entertainment – think the recaps of Luis in the Ant-Man movies – or even woven into the story as a narrative structure, a la Zombieland's rules. But other times you get the literal "Previously, on The West Wing" where a voiceover recaps everything relevant to ongoing storylines.

Much like this review, I implore you to slog through the information dump at the top of the book, because it eventually gets to where it's going. Admittedly, I initially did not know that this book is a shared universe – though I did read the first one – so maybe it's understandable. I want to advise not to judge too early.

A lot of the narrative of this book revolves around queer cinema, and as a card-carrying queer, I know firsthand the value of representation and feeling seen and validated in media. In the same way, Val's generalized anxiety feels like a breath of fresh air, even if it is incredibly difficult on a personal level to read through the insecurities and self-sabotaging.

Nobody's perfect in the real life or fiction, and Val and Maeve are no different. Val doesn't handle herself with the most grace and care, Maeve doesn't react perfectly ... but they're both people, and they're both trying. You know I'm a sucker for real characters having real emotions and real reactions.

A passing familiarity with musicals is probably pretty important if you don't want to zone out completely for the teaching scenes, but I thought the technical movie discussions were approachable while still intelligent.

This book gets a little dense at times, but honestly I like that too. Life isn't always quips and back-and-forth repartee, and it's nice to let thoughts and emotions breath a bit. All in all, it's a lovely time well-spent, and I look forward to meeting some of these characters again.

Dang I’m a sucker for that cover art.

I really wanted to love this book.

It has character from Sizzle Reel, Valeria as she debuts as a director and also moves into a teaching job. The professor she team teaches with is gorgeous and also probably hates Val… maybe not?

It started out good. I liked Val being messy and finding her footing as a teacher. But once the romance starts and she can’t talk to Maeve about anything and LIES. She lost me I was so annoyed with her for the rest of the book. I also wondered a few times if I would have liked the book better from Maeve’s POV or a dual POV.

Thanks to netgalley and Knopf for an eARC

The appeal of this book for me was seeing the world of Hollywood and academia through the main character's eye as she pivots from one to the other during a crucial time of her career. The premise really drew me in and the cover is really cute. There are plenty of sweet moments (and its Pride month so we love to see it)

Unfortunately this book wasn't a total hit for me. I can't speak on whether the depiction of the main character's anxiety is realistic or relatable but there was an element of self sabotage that I found some familiarity with. In part I wish this book was broken up into dual perspective because it would have been nice to see Val from Maeve's POV. It was exhausting being inside of Val's POV the entire time with little reprieve and perspective to how her actions effected her girlfriend could have helped me warm up to her in the end. Also it would have been nice if we could have stayed in the "enemies" part of the story more because they got together so quick (the description of the book even says they get together early but gosh it could have held off a bit). Once they were a couple, my interest in the story waned and I believe the outcome of the conflict could have been achieved even if they weren't a couple yet. Overall it was kind of boring and I'm struggling to remember much of the plot even though I only finished the book a few days ago. Not a bad book but the execution left me wanting more out of it.

A beautiful rom-com that’s funny and sexy but also shows how important it is to get help with your mental health professional. Also how important communication is between couples. I think was a great story.

This F/F romance is a follow up to Greenwald’s debut SIZZLE REEL, and I actually enjoyed this one more! It follows Valeria (one of the leads of SIZZLE REEL), a successful actress and burgeoning director, as she gets a guest-teaching gig at a college, and has to navigate her relationship with her brilliant and intimidating faculty co-teacher. You can probably guess what happens next.

I really liked Val’s character in SIZZLE REEL, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to read a book from her perspective; I liked the academic setting, and I felt like the romance was well done and kept me interested. The conflict was sometimes frustrating to read, but also felt very genuine (a lot of it stems from Val’s issues with anxiety in a way that was sometimes painfully relatable!) I’d say worth a read if you like the description, even if SIZZLE REEL was a miss for you; it was a very different book, to its benefit.

Thank you so much to Vintage Books and Netgalley for the ARC!

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Director’s Cut by Carlyn Greenwald is a first person-POV Jewish Sapphic contemporary romance between actor-turned director Valeria and cinema history PhD Maeve. When Valeria decides to pivot her career to be more behind the camera, she also chooses to put her education to use and be a visiting assistant professor at a university in LA, pairing her up with Maeve. As they spend more time together and share their love of film and experiences as Sapphic women, the two grow closer and develop a relationship that gives them both the security they need.

One of the things I really liked was how Carlyn Greenwald centered issues in the Queer community that do get discussed, but could use more discussion. The novel opens with Valeria going to an interview and she’s prodded to out someone, which is a huge no-no in our community. It felt triumphant when Valeria not only refused to name names of her former partners, but to also call the behavior out. However, iit also showcases how some people in modern society may not see it as a big deal. After all, Queer people are on TV, right? Plenty of people are out, it’s not a big deal anymore, right? While the novel doesn’t go into how dangerous that line of thinking is, to assume all Queer people are safe, it does take a stand that we need to respect those who choose to stay in the closet for whatever reasons they have.

Another issue the novel explores is domestic abuse in the Queer community. Maeve is Bisexual and when a former partner learned Maeve had previously had sex with a man, the partner reacted with disgust. Maeve also felt isolated from others while in a relationship and that something was wrong with her sexuality until she finally left that relationship, but she dated men for the most part afterwards due to that experience of not being respected for expressing her sexuality. Valeria’s previous long-time partner often belittled her and made Valeria feel as if she was less than, until finally leaving Valeria in a cruel way.

Both of these issues are so incredibly important for our community to openly discuss. Bi/Pan-phobia still exists, Queerness does not exclude someone from being abusive, and no matter how Queer-friendly the world may seem now compared to five, ten, fifteen years ago, some of us are not in a position to be out. Pairing that with brief depictions of harassment and inappropriate behavior towards celebrities, Greenwald delivers not only a beautiful love story between two Jewish Queer women that celebrates finding love after abuse, but a sharp social commentary.

A really fun aspect is that Valeria’s class is on musical movies, which allows the text to explore the musical genre, a genre that has played a large part in the Queer community over the years. Those are some critiques of fan favorites and both Valeria and Maeve are very opinionated and I think that’s part of the fun. We get to see them disagree on different films and come to a truce on others. I also learned some things, such as the off-Broadway version of Little Shop of Horrors has a very different ending and is a critique of capitalism.

I wish this book had existed back when I was in college and figuring things out, but I am so thankful that so many young Queer people are going to have it now. I’m thankful that elder Queers who are exploring their identity get to have it.

Content warning for mentions of domestic abuse, Bi/Pan-phobia, and harassment.

I would recommend this to readers who love movie and musical history, fans of Sapphic romance looking for a contemporary that includes societal critique, and those who are asking questions about their own sexuality.

"Director’s Cut" serves up a steamy romance with a side of career crossroads. Oscar-winner Valeria Sullivan ditches Hollywood for academia, only to find herself locked in a battle of wits (and maybe hearts?) with her brilliant co-professor Maeve Arko. Valeria's journey from celebrated actress to respected academic is engaging, but some of her choices left me wanting to shake her. The novel expertly balances second chances, intellectual sparring, and sizzling sapphic romance. While Valeria's Hollywood past threatens to steal the spotlight, the core relationship remains captivating and heartwarming. Overall, "Director’s Cut" is a 4 out of 5 star read, perfect for those who enjoy a bit of heat with their happily ever after.

I so badly wanted to love this book. The premise pulled me right in. An actor/director co-teaching at USC with a professor. A little dislike to lovers? Sapphic love? Count me in.

Unfortunately I did not like this book. I was so bored basically the entire time, and found myself wandering off as I was reading. I probably should’ve DNF’d this one, but I was so hopeful that I would have connected with the characters at all at some point.

I did love the premise of this book, but it just didn’t quite hit the way I wanted it to.

Val is an openly out lesbian actress who gets frustrated that all anyone care about is the fact she is a lesbian and gets a lot of stereotypical roles after publicly coming out. With her career in a down turn she decides to do an adjunct professor job. Maeve is a professor that is immediately frustrated with Val because she feels Val is materialistic and doesn’t necessarily deserve this position.

There was a lot to enjoy in this book. The mental health rep and the struggling with medication was something I could relate to and really enjoyed. It was a major plot and came up a lot and I feel like that makes sense since Anxiety is something that is always present for a lot of people and can be all consuming, and personally I feel like this book did a great job of highlighting that. I also loved the underlying theme of critiquing Hollywood and how much of a challenge things can be for actors that are not straight cis and white.

Unfortunately the pacing was a major issue in this book. I found myself putting the book down quite a bit out of boredom and putting off picking it back up and I think the pacing was a large part of this. There are a lot of scenes of lectures and they just were filler. I was a theater kid growing up so I did enjoy this at first, but it got to be a little too much. Another thing that bothered me was how much of this plot was just miscommunication. If the characters would have communicated this book wouldn’t exist. I understand anxiety can play a large role in miscommunication, but I really just wanted these characters to talk. And why this book did have a happy ending, I have a hard time believing this relationship is going to last. So for me personally it felt like a “happy for now” ending because I feel like this couple won’t last and I just personally don’t like walking away from a romance book feeling that way.

Overall this book was good, but there were also many things I would have liked better if it was different. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but that’s how I feel walking away from this book.