Rating: 2.25/5

Thank you Josie Juniper and Forever for an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

The premise of this book was promising but unfortunately fell flat for me. 

Overall, I found the pacing to be too fast. The progression of Phae and Cos' relationship felt disjointed and their transitions from hate to attraction to love felt sudden and underdeveloped. By the time they confessed their feelings for each other, I simply didn't believe them. The emotional depth was lacking and I really felt its absence.

And along those lines, the bulk of the relationships suffered the same fate. I felt like I knew the facts of the MCs' relationships with the people in their lives but it felt like an empty shell without substance. I hate to mention it but Phae's friendship with Natalie left me esp disappointed. I adore strong friendships and LOVE good female ones but theirs felt... superficial. The way they treated each other felt so undermining and I hated that. Did they even care about each other? I... don't know? Maybe? I mean, by the end, yes but it felt almost forced.

As for our MCs, Cos was fine but didn't inspire any strong feelings one way or the other. Now Phae, I really wanted to love Phae. I love a strong FMC who puts the patriarchy in its place, and in STEM no less! But... I didn't love how she spoke about some of the women she encountered. It felt unnecessarily mean and condescending. And that kind of felt like her general attitude for the majority of the book. And I wanted to understand her. Why was she like this? Why did she put up this wall? But her chapters didn't give me enough to empathize with her.

All that said, I will acknowledge that towards the end, there was some character growth and a handful of heartfelt moments, moments that had a level of depth I wish we had gotten more of earlier. But bc so little before then endeared me to either of our MCs, these moments just didn't have the emotional punch they could have had.

CN: open-door romance, illness and death of MC's family member, nondetailed mentions of past childhood abuse

This was beyond terrible bad. Truly the writing is awful with characters who suck. And not suck in the way of potential growth, they flat out suck. The plot makes no sense and needs so much work to it, the characters are a disaster with pacing that was a mess. Don’t recommend at all

As a fairly new Formula 1 fan, I was excited to read an F1 romance! Double Apex was such a fun and emotional read, and honestly just made me more excited to watch motorsports. This story follows Phaedra a race engineer for her family's F1 team, and the team's hotshot driver Cosmin. These two have a flirty relationship both on and off the track, but Phaedra knows she needs to keep things professional because it's likely she'll be the team owner one day. But of course their flirting and banter eventually leads to a steamy and passionate secret romance, that they both try to deny is happening.

This book was so good and very spicy. 🥵 But it also dealt with some pretty heavy topics throughout the story as well, and I feel like they were handled with a lot of empathy and compassion.

If you're into F1, I definitely pick up this book when it comes out later this year. I'm already looking forward to the next one in the series!

Thank you Forever and NetGalley for the ARC!

REVIEW✨
Double Apex
By Josie Juniper
••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••
I loved this book! So I know nothing about F1 expect that it involves racing cars and I learnt so much from this book and never felt lost at all. It starts off with a bang, and it doesn’t really stop. I love a woman in a male dominated field, and Phaedra is just that. She’s one of the best race engineers in Formula 1 and she’s also not afraid to speak her mind. Cosmin is the F1 bad boy, and of course Phaedra needs to work with him. Need I say more…

🏁 He falls first and harder
🏁 Woman in STEM
🏁 Sexy & Angsty
🏁 Greek Getaway
🏁 High-stakes

Romance: ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Plot points: 💥💥💥💥
Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you @readforever and @Netgalley for an ARC in exchange of a honest review.

Please check TW
TW (Family member with Cancer)

Out everywhere October 8th, 2024

<b> Personal Compatibility: 3.5 ⭐️
For it's written purpose: 4 ⭐️ </b>

I think the thing I enjoyed most about this book is how it made me do some internal reflection early on when I wasn't vibing with the FMC.

I thought she was too brash and quick to anger, overly cruel for the sake of being a Girl Boss, but what it really turned out to be was the author doing an incredible job of creating a flawed, realistic human being.
Phaedra was homeschooled, is a genius, and essentially grew up with no actual socialization from her peers in her age group. This shapes and molds her character and you can see it shine through in every interaction (and in her character growth!) It was so freaking cool to have that balance of realness, and the entire plot felt highly realistic too.

Things happen, good and bad, and you do what you can to get through them even if you make shitty decisions.

<b> Now on to what felt lacking: </b>

Phaedra's one friend was a massive letdown. No spoilers, but I don't think she was a well written character (but that may change as we hear her story in book 2) and her contribution to this book was lame.

Cosmin was a bit underwhelming. He felt repetitive after a while, and his pov felt juvenile at times. He had a rich backstory and it felt like the maturing that he did during his difficult childhood doesn’t always shine through in the way he is written in the present

Phaedra's inner monologue felt very wannabe gen z, which felt really weird since she's a grown, mature adult.
I felt that for as much of a genius prodigy that she's supposed to be, her internal thoughts would sound more intelligent.

I also did not vibe with the way the spice was written. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it was included, but I found myself cringing at some of the dirty talk and the way that the scenes were written.

<b> Overall </b>

I did have a good time with this book and found myself tearing up multiple times, rooting for their relationship, feeling the pain of a family that doesn't entirely understand you, and the sinking letdown of rocky friendships.

I would have loved to get more “screen time” of Phaedra being an engineering mastermind rather than just her role in supporting the driver

I'll definitely be reading more books in this series and getting my hands on any and all racing romances!

I want to put together a longer review for this book on Goodreads and I’ll come back on this as well. But I just am beyond addicted to this story. I actually am already preparing to read again this fall.
The plot, characters, STEM rep, strong female that didn’t apologize for swearing or being herself…this was a true gift to read. Sure I’m gushing, and I’m not really a fucking gushing kind of reviewer.
Phae had so many qualities that I also have and reading this helped me internally talk to myself and reflect and learn.
Cosmin has entered top 10 boyfriend for me now. He was written so carefully and I loved every second there would be more insight in to his head. I loved his passion and resilience.
Can’t wait to read so much more from Josie.

I gave this a go even though I have never read an F1 romance before! I do love sports romances, so this was a good one to try just a little out of my comfort zone.

I almost wish I waited and read this via audiobook because I would have loved to hear the mmc's romanian accent. I think this would have elevated the story even more for me.

My main qualm that stopped me from rating it higher was that I just did not find either main character very likable. in fact, I found her behavior to be incredibly problematic.

3.5 stars

I have been looking forward to a F1 book and this one was a great way to jump into the new F1 genre! I liked the dynamic of a driver and a team member forbidden romance. I also liked how she was extremely intelligent. The little twists were super cute. The FMC was a little frustrating by thinking everyone was against her, but other than that I did enjoy the book.

Thanks to Netgalley & Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for access to this E-ARC! So good! Loved the characters & the F1 vibes. Great debut! Will definitely read more from this author.

this took the backseat for awhile, as life picked up, so it probably altered my review a bit.

I was not the biggest fan of this book, but it's perfect for those who love F1 racing, and romance! For someone who had very little knowledge, I was confused for a only small portion of it regarding racing,(didn't know about racing engineers but they must be geniuses!).

I would've had some more criticisms regarding the main characters, but these were explained away, and they eventually grew past these over the course of the book.

I must now hear a romanian accent so I can stop hearing Cosmin as dracula in my head!

thank you to Forever Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

I am such a big F1 girlie so to see more F1 romances is a dream! Double Apex was a wonderful debut from new author Josie Juniper. Full of action, adventure, and a double layer of love! Highly recommend to fans of Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series!

Spicy romance set in the world of Formula 1. I’ve never had any interest in the racing world, but I definitely got pulled in!

This was a new to me author so I wasn’t sure how much I’d like this read, but I flew through this book like I was trying to win a Grand Prix of my own. It’s super cute and surprisingly emotional for a book about F1. I ended up crying like a BABY!

Phaedra hates Cosmin. He’s their top racer, and is a deadly combo of cocky and flirty. She works behind the scenes and it’s already difficult enough being a girl in a male dominated workplace, but Cosmin is determined to drive her insane. Her coworkers claim she’s being overly emotional, but she’s tired of his behavior towards her. She wants to be taken seriously at work, but he’s making her life hard.

Phaedra is a bit of a genius which makes her come across as cold and somewhat abrasive. Yet Cosmin can’t get enough of it. I was eating up the tension between these two. Despite the animosity, there’s a spark there. But you know what they say, there’s a fine line between love and hate. I loved watching these two figure out where they lie on that spectrum.

This was such a fun book. Of course it comes with a guaranteed HEA, but it was an enjoyable ride seeing how it would get to that point. The little snippets of Cosmin culture and language were such a nice touch. He’s constantly saying little quips that Phaedra doesn’t understand, but I was melting with each translation.

I couldn’t believe how fast I finished this book. I’m so thankful to Forever publishing and NetGalley for providing this eARC as a read now. I’ve been looking forward to it since it was announced and boy did it deliver. If you love F1 and enemies to lovers, you’ll enjoy this book!

I liked the cover of this book and description but the female main character is just very unlikeable. It ends up ruining the book.

A fun, quick read. I was really interested in this book because it was based on formula 1 racing. I like the concept of her being a woman in a very male-dominated industry and how that affected the way she originally saw Cosmin. I loved Cosmin's use of Romanian in the book and how Phaedra learned the language from him. That made their arguments and flirting so much better in my opinion. The beginning was great, started off solid, but as the book went on, it felt like it was dragging and becoming repetitive. I also feel like Phaedra should’ve done some more groveling. That’s just me though. Overall, it was still a good read.

A sizzling F1 romance for fans of Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series. Romanian driver Cosmin and American F1 heiress and engineer Phaedra have chemistry that jumps off the page and will make you want to learn Romanian. A delightful read for the peak of F1 season.

I liked the F1 aspect of this book and the plot it was really unique and I’ve never read anything like it. Struggled to finish though because the main character was so unlikeable and I couldn’t connect at all so it really took away from the book. Might just not be my cup of tea though and would still recommend to people who are fans of F1 and racing.

This book gave me the ick. I absolutely had high hopes for it and it let me down hard. I DNF this at 21%. The FMC is very rude and mean and downright horrible and life is too short to read a book you can’t get past your absolute dislike for one of the characters.

Grabbed this on Read Now. As I thought, it's not really my type of romance, nor my style as I'm not interested in car racing at all. First time for everything, but this didn't work out for me

This one annoyed me because Phaedra's entire personality was her either being Really Smart (TM) or just really really mean to those around her. Like the way she treats both her alleged best friend and Cosmin were terrible and I really couldn't stomach it.