I picked this arc because I am a big Wordle fan and a romance sparked by my fave NY Times puzzle seemed like a lot of fun. It’s a cute rom com, and I suspect that fellow Anne of Green Gables fans will enjoy the handful of Anne references scattered throughout the book. at times, I struggled a bit with Emily's blindness to her own desires and ambitions. Maybe it was the way she speaks to the reader directly, breaking through the 4th wall in a "fleabag" style narrative structure, that makes it feel like exaggerated naïveté. Overall, it was an easy read with a satisfying ending and a charming tribute to small town life.

The FMC, Emily, is struggling to understand her purpose in life. While she maintains a list of possible career choices, she is stuck between “real jobs” and while house sitting in a small town in Canada and working various, totally unrelated jobs and her Wordle hobby is really the only thing keeping her going.

At 300+ days of a Wordle streak, she learns that a generally quiet and sort of grumpy mechanic at the car shop she works also plays. Although the writer makes suggestive hints that this is going to end in romance, I find this relationship a little boring and difficult to believe. It takes about half the book for the relationship to really develop and honestly. Emily isn’t in and of herself very interesting.

I do think that what works here is Emily’s struggle to find herself in work. She has a lot of aspirations, specifically to work in “the arts,” but she doesn’t have a clue what she wants to do. She maintains a list of possible career choices and romanticizes a lot of things unrealistically, however as the story progresses, its clear that just being given an opportunity is enough to give Emily purpose. 100 pages in and she has a full time receptionist job at the mechanic, a volunteer job with a local museum AND she is being paid to assist three of the local elderly folks who are attempting to live independently.

I find the relationship between Emily and the elderly she works with to be the best metaphor for Emily’s possible future. She is helping these “very interesting” folks continue to live on their own, while helping them with the things they struggle with the most. This happens to be small things like grocery shopping and ensuring medication is taken properly. Her connection to these people directly reflect the future that she aims for – to be interesting by having lived a full life.

I find the author’s writing to be very accessible and straightforward, which is nice. I also find the secondary and tertiary characters to be interesting enough to help balance Emily’s relative boringness. I find Emily’s conundrum to be relatable just not very endearing.

While the story seems to be a romance, I think this book better addresses common issues for a 20-something such as friendship, purpose, and the pursuit of dreams—elements that elevate the narrative more than the romance.

This book is a grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract romance. The FMC is outgoing and wants more than her small town life, and the MMC, is perfectly content with his life working in an auto shop. They've worked together for a while, but don't really connect until the MMC sees the FMC playing Wordle. That's really all they have in common.

There's not really any chemistry between the characters, the progression of the romance was poor, and John fell completely flat. He was completely one-dimensional so extremely boring. He doesn't have ANY personality and Emily was very immature and her internal dialogue was so annoying.

I also understand that FMC's love for Wordle was the main plot of this book. She reeeeaaally wanted to keep her streak, but this came up at the worst times throughout the book.

And don't get me started on Emily leaving the life she always wanted, to come back to the small town she wanted for this man, who would not have done the same for her... I understand that she ended up changing her mind, and realizing that she now wanted something different, but it was just a bit more disappointing than any thing.

Thank you to Amy James, Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for the eARC of this book. This is my honest review.

dnf 11% I'm not going to lie, the book started with "Just between you and me" and I groaned. I hate confessional "let me tell you" style books. The only one that has ever worked is The Hating Game, everything else in this style just sounds condescending. I like the game Wordle and I was willing to give a debut author a chance, but this book was just painful to read. In addition not the confessional style it was first person present POV and the internal monologues of the FMC were just painful. Also what the hell is a degree in science? Science in general is not a major, there are majors within the field of science, but just general science is not a thing I've ever heard of. The book so far has just been the lead whining and I don't know or like her enough to listen to here complain about how she should have picked a major in the arts instead of "science." You have a degree, find a job in the arts, you don't have to major in it to get a job in the field. On top of this I could tell from what I read who the MMC would be but it's a bad sign in a romance when the couple has had one interaction across maybe three pages and from looking at other reviews, he apparently does not become a fully fleshed out character. I decided to cut my losses and stop before I grew more annoyed by the book. I do think the Wordle concept is cute and I liked how here daily solving of the puzzle was integrated into the story, but that's about all I have to say that's positive.

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a fun concept for a book! The title and cover originally drew me in and I’m so glad and thankful I got the opportunity to read this! The chemistry is there with the characters from the start and the premise and plot for the book are interesting as well. It felt like a mix of self discovery and romance mixed into one. I’m a Wordle fan and love small town romance so I think that could definitely appeal to readers as well. Thank you so much for the privilege and opportunity!

This book was fun!
I laughed about loud a lot, it's not the best written book ever, and the FMC was annoying at times, but I loved her and I was entertained the whole time

4.5 stars

This was so fun and sweet. I loved how their friendship and relationship blossomed from a little word game. Sometimes we just need one little thing to find a way to connect with others before being able to really show your full self. I enjoyed how calm and quiet the love was which felt very realistic but also made the 3rd conflict make sense for how the FMC saw her life from the beginning. Overall I really enjoyed this and how wordle was I portant but wasn’t the WHOLE story. The storyline of the FMC finding her passion and learning how she wants her life was easy to connect to for me as well.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Solid 3.5 stars.

I'm struggling with this review. The book was adorable, but it felt more like a self-discovery book and not a romance book. It felt very romance light for me. It also read log a blog, not a book? I adored all of the side characters and thought they all had a lot of depth but I was missing the depth from John, the MMC. I wish we'd have had a chapter or two from his POV, just to get inside his head a little bit.

All that said, I couldn't put the book down. I started it after work and finished it before going to bed, so it has a definite unputdownable quality. I just wanted more swoon worthy romance.

3.5 stars

There were several things I liked about A Five-Letter Word for Love by Amy James, and also a few issues that kept me from rating it higher.

But let’s start with the good:
I love me a journey of self-discovery, and tbh I would say this is mostly that and the romance is secondary (we’ll get to that). But Emily’s desire to make her mark and do something big is relatable af—and though I found a lot of her idealism naive, I also understood her as a character. It felt good to see her make new friends, let go of the old ones, and figure out what she wanted.

Also, I was at first unsure how Wordle would play into things, but I liked how she chose words based on her life and feelings—even if I personally find that method of strategy chaotic as he’ll.

What didn’t work so well for me:
A small nit I have is that I don’t like when first-person POV sounds like they’re telling the story to a person. When they refer to the reader as “you” (and it doesn’t make sense in the story, like they are telling the story to someone else), I just cringe. That’s just a me thing, I know. And also I just don’t like it 🤷🏻‍♀️

But the bigger issue is that we don’t see enough of Emily and John together in a real way for me to root for them. We are told they are spending nights together and we are told they are probably in love, but because we don’t get more sweet scenes with them to build up tensions and raise the stakes, I was not left super invested in them as a couple. The book still works as a self-discovery narrative, but the title then feels a bit misleading.

Anyway. Worth reading, but don’t expect a strong focus on the romance.

(Also I received an ARC of this book and chose to leave a review.)

A Five Letter Word for Love by Amy James
⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶

This was a cute story. A well written and sweet romance. I liked it's quirkiness and found it to be a very quick read.

I liked this book. It was really good. It was an easy read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would totally buy this book for my trophy shelf and even for a friend.

the concept was really interesting but unfortunately the execution did fall a bit flat for me. the plot was quite dull and repetitive, the characters didn't seem to have much development, and the romance was disappointing.

Though I was excited to read this because I am fan of Wordle and thought the premise of the book would be cute and quirky, I ended up being bored and rating this low. The book took too long explaining Wordle, which I think people who pick this up would already know about the game, and the rest of the writing was cliche. I do think the premise of the book could of been funny.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
3.5 for me!
This was a quick, cute, quirky, and fun read. I loved the community aspect of the novel and the side characters/found family involved. I liked the Wordle premise and how our MCs grew closer through their love of the game. I could have used a little more romance between our MCs, but I still enjoyed watching their relationship grow.

What are some five letter words I can use to describe this book?
PRESH (as in previous);
SILLY (as in our girl Emily is a silly silly girl, for better and for worse);
WORDY (as in talks a lot about words, given the Wordle nature of it);
SMALL (as in the town of Walden, where Emily and John live and work);
OLDIE (as in the music Emily plays for her elderly clients/pals)
DREAM (as in all the dreams they chase, new dreams and old dreams alike…and maybe a Wordle word in the book!)

This was super adorable, slightly cringe (but that’s okay), and very wholesome! My only complaint is the number of times Emily tried to guess four letter words +s as her Wordle guesses when those are in the rules of not being used!!!


Thank you so much to Amy James and NetGalley for a chance to read this in exchange for an honest review!

I was expecting cheesy when I started this, but the tone and voice of the main character made this honestly unreadable for me. The pure amount of Wordle in this book came at the cost of other story elements (nuance of character, chemistry, complex plot). The story put all of its effort into incorporating more Wordle into the story which again could have been fine, but I just couldn't get into it and honestly actively hated Emily from the first page, and she didn't give me a reason to change. Maybe it's the author's sense of humor, but Emily talk about Wordle in a way that made me feel insulted for liking it, but also not cool if I didn't (also like 2000 era hipsters). Just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for this advanced copy. You can pick up A Five-Letter Word for Love on December 3, 2024.

While I was wildly curious about the way Amy James would weave Wordle into a romance novel, I have to say that this didn't impress me much. I wanted to love it and get sucked in, but I could barely make it past the first chapter. The main character just didn't appeal to me, and I wasn't a fan of the author's writing choices. While others might enjoy the sarcastic tone, it felt a bit cheesey to me. Plus, as someone who regularly plays the NYT games, I couldn't decide if the explanations of the games were too much or not enough to get dumped on you right in the first chapter.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5

Release Date: December 3rd

Thanks to Avon, Harper Voyager and Netgalley for gifting me an ARC of her book in exchange for an honest review!

I didn’t expect a lot from this book going in; knowing it was a Wordle-themed romance, I had low expectations. Unfortunately, I knew by about 15% in that I wasn’t going to like this book. Out of a lack of ability to DNF a book, I powered through.

I found a few points of this book to be nice or to have a nice sentiment, such as Emily’s relationship with 96-year old Jim, but mostly this book was lackluster and cringey.

Listen, I KNOW it is a book that revolves around World, BUT Emily talks about it SO MUCH. And is shocked that John (which can we talk about how his name is John Smith???) knows about it. It is a very popular internet game that has been in popular culture for years.

I did not care for the way that their relationship progressed: moving from hostile coworkers to sleeping over every night felt disjointed, and their first date was like 80% silence because he didn’t see the need to talk to or learn about each other? The third-act breakup felt very selfish and stifling on John’s part, and the way that Emily’s career aspirations and dreams played out felt icky and conservative to me?

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book to readers, and this is one of the ARCs I’ve read where I won’t be posting on my book account.

When Emily's huge Wordle streak looks like it might possibly end, she asks work colleague John for assistance, as a last resort. Not really expecting him to help out, she's shocked to find that he does Wordle too. This starts an unexpected friendship between the two which ultimately becomes more.

As a Wordle and Scrabble fan, I was thrilled to find a romcom based on word games! I can't even tell you how much I enjoyed reading this book. Our two main characters were genuine and easy to relate to and they gelled together perfectly, in the opposites attract kind of way. This was a solid debut by Amy James and I'm excited to read what she writes next.

This had such a fun premise, and as someone who does love her morning wordle (and strands and mini crossword and connections), I was curious to see where the author would take the concept with this he falls first workplace romance and really excited to root for John and Emily.

Instead we had a book that lacked cohesion, chemistry, and depth. The characters had no personality, the subplots were added in in such a choppy way, and there were so many things that felt unresolved in the end.

I cannot for the life of me DNF a book so I kept reading in hopes that I would start to fall for the story or the setting or even one of the story lines but in the end, this just wasn't a story for me.


Thank you Netgalley, and Avon, and Harper Voyager for the ARC in exchange for my review!