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I did not enjoy this one nearly as much as I've enjoyed several of Meryl Wilsner's other books. There is lots of sex here with very little real romance. I'm no prude, but I prefer much more romance along with the sex. I did appreciate the personal growth of each of the main characters in the end. The writing itself is good, so even though this particular book wasn't right for me it will definitely appeal to some.

I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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This book was a fun read, but ultimately left a lot to be desired. It's marketed as a friends-to-lovers romance, but it just feels like friends with benefits without substance. The sex scenes were great, but they were the entire basis of the romance. It reads well, as do all of Meryl Wilsner's books, but it just didn't hit the mark for me. The affirmation for gender identities and body types is absolutely great, as a plus.

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Thank you, Netgalley, the author, MacMillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for the gifted e-book and audiobook! ❤️ #gifted. My review is comprised of my honest thoughts.

Read this book if you like: F/NB romance, friends to lovers, spicy 🔥

I liked this. I wanted a bit more substance. There was so much sex that it lacked the relationship building I was hoping for. It pretty much just banked on how built their friendship was. I enjoyed it.

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

This book was like a breath of fresh air, honestly. It was a typical romance book that at its core is an ode to young, messy, queer love. I really enjoyed being inside the heads of Ginny and Elsie. They have the besties to lovers story that people dream of!
I really enjoyed the character redemption for just about everyone in the book, too. This is truly a book with all happy endings.
I will say, about 30% of this book is just sex, and there are scenes that aren’t for everyone, but it was still very enjoyable. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a fun and quick sapphic romance.

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This romance did not work for me I kept thinking the whole time Ginny you deserve better. I’m this short fast paced romance we follow Elsie a woman who kind of fell into being engaged is surprised by her fiancé just planning the wedding for them. Elsie breaks things off and goes on the honeymoon trip with her best friends. Things get steamy fast and fiancé is soon forgotten when these two finally give it a shot. The premise of this was good but the execution fell short for me. After Elsie breaks off the engagement she literally forgets about the ex fiancé. I get that they were more friends going through the motions but it felt like there should have been some grief there. The third act conflict felt blown out of proportion and Elsie was the most annoying character ever. With that said I loved Ginny and her following her trying to figure out what she wanted in life. I would have rather followed her and the side character Sue who was amazing! While I enjoyed Mistakes were made a lot more this was still a fun read, I just could not root for the romance. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

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Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this Arc!

Denial is a river in Egypt and so was the majority of this book. It was almost so frequent that at times I had a hard time enjoying the story fully. I felt like the characters would make such leaps and bounds to have only gone backwards to where they would deny or pretend things were fine or and that they were only “friends”. I really appreciated when we did get to the part where the characters realized that they needed to grow on their own but I did wish that it was a more prominent part of the book if not even a little longer to see that journey? I say this because this was a very dependent relationship that lasted YEARS with very strong co-dependency. Luckily, they do find themselves and are able to come back together as individuals. It was still an enjoyable book and the ending left me happy, I overall found myself wanting more character development.

Now, the smut? Was kinda wild not gonna lie. Wilsner always does a solid job with their smut and stepped up on the kinky in this book. Cause damn it was spicy and I read Mistakes Were Made! I mean it was only a week so it makes sense! But dayumn!

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I loved all of Meryl Wilsner's past books, but I will say that I was somewhat disappointed by this one. The premise and setting was super fun, but I felt the characters' relationship lacked depth and the conflict wasn't very believable. Still a fun vacation read and great representation though!

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I really liked everything i read by Meryl Wilsner so far, this one was really fun and incredibly smut heavy.
I liked Ginny and Elsie as characters and seeing their friendship turning into something more, the pining was incredible and truly my favorite part of the whole novel.
Seeing fat non-binary lesbian rep is so incredible to me as one myself.
I loved the backstory of their friendship & the pining during the trip but the conflict felt incredibly flat for me.
It was drawn out and although realistic, it felt like a 3rd act break up in the worst way.

I do recommend checking it out when it comes out on April 29th.

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Elsie and Ginny have been best friends since childhood and are practically inseparable. Neither can imagine a life without the other in it. While Elsie prepares for a safe and comfortable life with her fiancé and working at the family business, Ginny adores their more lackadaisical lifestyle and harbors a wild crush on Elsie that they know they can never admit. When Elsie’s wedding is called off, she takes Ginny on the honeymoon, and sparks fly between the two longtime friends. Is this an island fling spurred by life changes or do Elsie and Ginny have a chance to create something real and meaningful together for their future?

This had a slower start to it but I’m glad I stuck with it because overall I found it really enjoyable. The spicy bits were fantastic, the connection these two had was fabulous, and the emotion behind their big fight was believable and tugged my heartstrings. The one thing I found a little humorous was that it seemed pretty obvious to everyone except Elsie that Ginny and her would be a fabulous couple. There was a lot to relate to with this story- particularly about finding yourself apart from your best friend and discovering who you are. How you fit into your family, your job, finding a community you feel comfortable in. It was a solid read for me.

Thank you to Meryl Wilsner and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book for review.

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I read and loved Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute last year. So when I saw they were releasing a childhood friends-to-lovers (my favorite trope!) with a nonbinary main character, I was so excited! At the beginning of the book, I LOVED it! Ginny and Elsie have been best friends since elementary school, but Elsie doesn’t know that Ginny has been in love with her the whole time. Ginny’s experience of longing for Elsie in high school was so well written, it made my stomach hurt!

Elsie is about to be married, after a proposal that she did not want and her fiancé planning a wedding that she VERY MUCH did not want. Elsie will stand up for everyone but herself, she won’t ask for what SHE wants. Elsie finally takes the first step to getting a life that she actually wants, and she breaks off the engagement. The honeymoon is non-refundable, so it makes sense that Elsie asks Ginny to go with her instead.

The book up to this point was great! But then I felt like it skipped ahead without actually skipping ahead. I wanted all of the in-between from friends to lovers. At the resort, Elsie and Ginny didn’t waste much time before hooking up the first time (and this book is SPICY!). I wanted build up, subtle flirting to see how the other reacts, discussion about feelings, and worry about losing their friendship if it doesn’t work out. Their friendship felt too important to risk it like that without talking about it. Overall, I liked the book but it left me wanting more.

Thank you to Meryl Wilsner, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the gifted e-ARC; all opinions are my own.

Read if you like:
💕 F/NB romance
💕 Childhood friends to lovers
💕 Vacation romance
💕 Lots of spice

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Perhaps I’m the wrong reader for this book, and I will likely be an outlier in saying that this was not the book for me. The book read VERY young, and perhaps it should have been marketed more as a New Adult rather than a “women’s fiction” novel. The entire meat of the book is basically spice, to the point of boredom. We never really get much depth into the characters, especially in relation to their friendship - we are TOLD they are best friends and spend time together, but we get very little on page interactions before they are hooking up. Then the conflict creates a rather immature break in plot - and the characters did not spend any time together, building any type of relationship. I just couldn’t root for anyone and just did not enjoy a moment of the book. I have enjoyed Wilsner’s books in the past, but this one definitely was not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to provide my honest review.

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Thank you for the opportunity to read this. Unfortunately this was a DNF for me; I found the plot and characters too complex to follow.

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It took me a while to get into this one because I'm not always the biggest fan of third person present for romances but once I got used to that I really loved this book! It's sweet, it's spicy, and I loved both the characters and their relationship!

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Loved this one so much, Meryl Wilsner can always be counted on a great steamy romance and this one didn’t disappoint. A fun ”only one bed/friends to lovers” romance where an engagement is called off and the two friends take the already paid for honeymoon together.

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First book I'm going to actually DNF at 66%. There is no plot to this book. The premise is a non binary MC in love with their best friend who then ends up going on the honeymoon with the best friend after she breaks up with her fiancé. There is no depth to their relationship, and it is very surface level hooking up. There is a conversation scene that is supposed to be so pivotal, but what happens right before is so despicable I have to DNF. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC, but this wasn't for me.

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This is my first Meryl Wilsner book, and it definitely won't be my last! I thoroughly enjoyed it! The spice was SPICING, the queer rep was REPPING, and it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to put down! I read it in less than 12 hours! This should be at the TOP of your TBR on pub day April 29th!

I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is honest, unbiased, and completely my own.

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While I have really enjoyed the two previous book’s of Meryl’s, this one fell flat for me. I just didn’t find myself rooting for Ginny and Elsie. For best friends, there was a lack of communication that felt unrealistic. The two were co-dependent and did not have senses of identity or what they wanted. Even after the conflict, it felt that they didn’t work much out just magically were okay. This book did offer up some hot af spicy scenes during the honeymoon. Unfortunately this one just left me wanting more out of the story.

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Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for the ARC!

This is my first Meryl Wilsner and I don't think it will be my last. The premise is that Elsie wakes up one day to realize that her fiance planned the entire wedding and while they had been engaged for a year, she didn't really want to be married, let alone to him. Ginny is her best friend and they are Derrick's sounding board for this clearly bad idea. Elsie through this moment and through the honeymoon they end up taking with Ginny because it is already paid for and Derrick is too sad to go realizes she doesn't do anything for herself. So it becomes the week of putting what Elsie wants first and it turns out she really wants to kiss her best friend (and more). They spend the week getting hot and heavy (they go from 0 to 100 real quick!) but when it comes to defining the relationship and everyone being honest about what is going on in their life... well there's some tension and they need to take some time apart. This was necessary for character development for sure as these protagonists are both young (23 or so) and it was evident. There are flashbacks to Elsie in elementary school and her friendship with Ginny as things changed in high school which are necessary for understanding why Elsie is such a people-pleaser and has the anxieties around relationships she does. Only losing a star from me because the pacing felt a bit off at times. While I get that this was not insta-love because they both had been pining for the other throughout the years, the pacing of everything on the trip made it seem that way. Overall, a great queer romance and I definitely will dive into Meryl Wilsner's backlist ASAP!

Keywords/Tropes: Best friends to lovers, nonbinary MC, pansexual heroine, midwestern charm, queer found family, family dynamics.

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This one was a struggle. I enjoyed it until the third act breakup which was just so frustrating. I never loved any of the characters.

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I’m a big fan of Meryl Wilsner and love their unique writing style, especially how they explore gender identity within their romances. This newest addition to their oeuvre fits well alongside their other works, this time pairing two best friends, Elsie and Ginny, who have each been pining for the other for years. They finally get the chance to redefine what their relationship could be—if they’re willing to face their fears and be completely honest about their feelings.

The premise was fun! Elsie has just broken off her engagement and takes Ginny with her on what would have been her honeymoon. Their friendship quickly turns physical—and it was HOT. Wilsner really turns up the heat in this one. In fact, it was almost jarring how quickly they moved from friendship to physical intimacy, with little lead-up or discussion of feelings. As a reader, you can immediately sense the potential pitfalls. The main conflict, which is clearly foreshadowed early on, ends up being exactly what drives them apart, and I found myself frustrated by the lack of communication between two characters who have supposedly been best friends their entire lives. How could they not be honest about their feelings? How could this one event be what drove them apart?

And the way Elsie ultimately treats Ginny felt nearly unforgivable to me. Ginny was so deeply in love, and my heart broke for her—especially after she was finally brave enough to risk it all.

Ultimately, this is my least favorite Wilsner novel, which honestly pains me to say. It has excellent queer representation and strong spice, but the friends-to-lovers arc just didn’t come together in a believable way for me.

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