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The story of two “enemies” being forced to write a romance novel together and all the drama that it entails! I love that there was cultural representation, a grumpy MMC, and of course it was fun to see how these two authors navigated writing their novel together.

I absolutely inhaled this, and read it in one day. It was corny in all the right ways.

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f Beach Read and The Hating Game had a baby, you would get Not in My Book. At times these similarities almost felt too similar. But at the end of the day, these are some of my comfort books and I really enjoyed it.

The concept was fun ... two authors (one romance, one lit fic) had to write together in order to stay in their class. As they write over the google doc ... there are some VERY good moments. One scene in particular is living rent free in my head right now. It was that good.

I read this book in one sitting and truly enjoyed every piece of it. Got all the feels. What a great debut for Katie Holt!
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This book was adorable! Aiden and Rosie are enemies turned into lovers and who doesn’t love that kind of friction and build up! A perfect winter read to warm you up. I enjoyed the banter between the two characters. I felt the end was a tad over the top which knocked down my rating but all in all a nice romance read.

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Rivals to lovers only work when it's written well and this was written SO WELL! and it's academic rivals to lovers??? Absolutely obsessed. And it's a book within a book? META. This idea was so good and executed so well.

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This is the story about a girl and a guy who are in a creative writing class and despise each other for heinous reasons, but really they are secretly in love with each other and the only way to show it is by acting like a couple of assholes in class. Their professor gets tired of their antics and forces them to write a romance together bc this bish knows they totes need to bone. And nothing makes two enemies give into their urges like writing a romance book together. The two hatebirds go on to write their own enemies to lovers book which is completely autobiographical, but they both are too daft to realize that the other is just writing from their own point of view. Oy!! But alas, life imitates art and art imitates life and then the characters and the authors are all screwing each other and everyone is winning.

If you liked The Hating Game, then you will like this one, because it has many features of that book (tall brooding hero, short spunky heroine, everyone outwardly despises each other, while secretly pining for the other). Like in the Hating Game, I found the heroine to be a tad immature and whiny and the hero could be a cocksucker at times, but overall, this was an entertaining romance. It certainly isn’t going to make any “best of” lists, but it doesn’t need to be the best. Sometimes you just want to escape into another couple’s journey from hatred to HEA…and mission accomplished with this one.

Smut- 2.23 stars
Romance- 4.25 stars
Story- 4.11 stars
Tiny heroines, Tall heros- neg 1.59 stars (I’m tired of height discrepancies. Give me a 5’9 heroine for once).

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We love a rivals to lovers moment. I really enjoyed the chemistry throughout the book between Rosie and Aiden. They both felt believable and real. I loved the twist of them having to write a book together and have that forced proximity.
Just calling out moly spoilers here. Initially, with the third act break up, I thought it would be very hard for Aiden to redeem himself. For both what he did with the grant and with what he continued to say about romance. He did a pretty nice job of bringing himself back, however.
Overall, I really enjoyed this read and loved their chemistry.

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A Cute bookish rom com about two rival MFA majors who can't stand each other. Forced to write a novel together for a grade what could possibly go wrong. I'm a sucker for an enemies to lovers romance. I loved the banter between these two.

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Thank you to NetGalley, and the publisher, and author for a copy of this book!

All opinions are my own and freely given.

I really loved Rosie and the way her character was written. I think so many of us who read fall in love with books the way she falls in love with writing romance novels, all at once.

Aiden was a book boyfriend, that’s for sure. I really enjoyed his character until the third act breakup. To me, Rosie deserved more of an explanation and he once again dissed her whole career. It just didn’t sit right with me.

She has traditions, he has none. She loves her family, he hates his dad. She loves love, he does not. They were so opposite and enemies that the love scenes felt more real.

I also cannot stop laughing at how unserious the brick, Ronny Jr was and also … how unsafe it was to have that! But this is fiction!

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Loved this meta take on romance books! I thought writing their own love story through the characters in the romance book they are writing together was such a fun way to get their feelings. Frankie Corzo is such a great narrator. He ability to embody both male and female characters is amazing. I also love that she brought life to the Peruvian accents for Rosie and her family. I love a good enemies to lovers and at one point I was worried that some of their sharp words were going to be hard to come back from, but I think the redemption arc was well done.

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Cute. A book within a book. The “sex scene” chapter was 🥵🥵🥵. This was a fun rom-com and I would definitely read more from this author.

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OMG I did not expect this book to be this fun at all!!
I already knew when I requested in on netgalley (thank you, thank you, thank you for this arc) that it had all of my favorite tropes: academic rivals to lovers, forced proximity, only one bed (and a little bit of spice)... and a bookish girl as a MC!!! (I love you Rosie, and you too, Aiden, no worries), but I didn't expect to love it this much.
It was such a fun romcom, adorable, perfect for any book girlie <3 I'll surely buy a phisical copy now because I want to have my book trophy on my shelves.

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Wanted a cute, rivals-to-lovers story but instead was disappointed. I thought this was a YA book because it definitely felt like that.

I had high hopes, but none of the payoff.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Alcove Press for sending me this book to review.

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Really wanted to love this book as the premise was very promising but it just didnt work out for me. It was really slow and and I couldn't force myself to love the characters. DMF @18%

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5 out of 5 Stars

WOW. I really, really enjoyed this one. The two main characters have such good tension and banter in the beginning and all throughout the book. I think that the enemies to lovers plot developed really well. It was a believable progression of the relationship. I did enjoy the way the love story unfolded. The story within a story aspect of the novel was extremely appealing to me. I enjoyed the side characters that were woven throughout as well. I thought that backstories were interwoven well and the way the two characters got to know each other was very clever and made sense for the story. I found myself getting caught up in the story and didn't want to stop reading. I thought this was a great debut novel and look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Closed door modifications: 17, 24, 26

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very enjoyable book, do not have many notes on it. I have not read for this author before but I like the representation and the storyline. the banter and character relationship was fun!

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A well paced, adorable, heartwarming book that was so fun to read during the holiday season. I did have a slight complaint with the smut scenes, but I overall had a really good time with this one.

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I had a lot of expectations for this book but it disappointed me. I enjoyed the beginning. I absolutely loved the concept of using the quotes/snippets from the book the main characters wrote at the end of each chapter. It helped to know more about the relationship between the main character and was a very unique concept.

What I disliked was that I felt the main characters had zero chemistry. The fight at the end seemed unnecessary.

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Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this book. Following Leigh’s experience at an MFA program and growth as a poet, this book toed the line of sometimes even too bookish for me. Although i skimmed some of the poetry, i ultimately enjoyed the antics and friendships of Leigh and her cohort of fellow students and writers.

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I love the plot so much. These characters are so funky in a way, like enemies to lover, forced proximity, secret crush it has everything. I have enjoyed it very much.

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Thank you Alcove Press and RB Media for my gifted copies. All opinions are my own.

This was an absolute delight of a book. I alternated between the audiobook and ebook because I didn’t want to put it down! Frankie Corzo was a perfect choice for the narration!

Rosie and Aidan are in the same writing class as they work on their MFAs. They are constantly in battle during class and their professor gives them an ultimatum to drop the class or write a book together. Rosie and Aidan can’t help spending more time together as they work on their book.

I loved seeing the parts of their book and how their characters developed as their relationship did. I loved the parts where they wrote the book together especially as they developed a style together. They had such great banter and amazing chemistry.

I really hope we get more books from Katie Holt soon!

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