Thank you to the publisher and netgalley! This was a hopeful story of finding yourself after grief. Lenny is grieving after the loss of her former Lou. When she takes a short term nanny position she has no idea how much it will change her life.

This book was literal perfection. I’ve always been a friends to lovers enthusiast, and this book is proof of why. It also deals with grief in such a beautiful way.

More than anything in this book, I loved Lenny. She’s fun, loyal, and understanding. She is definitely eccentric, but in the best way possible. You don’t know how many times I burst out laughing because of something she said or did 😂. And despite her fun personality being displayed so well, the grief of losing her best friend is so obvious in Lenny’s behavior. Seeing her grow and learn to work through the grief had me completely rooting for her.

Miles was also such a lovable character. He’s introverted and awkward, so when he meets the fun, outgoing Lenny, we get to see a lot of his personality. Miles is also someone who’s experienced grief, and I love how he and Lenny showed that people deal with loss differently. And I absolutely adored his relationship with Lenny. They were constantly there for one another and knew each other so, so well. They were the definition of “to be loved is to be known.”

The side characters were also lovable. Ainsley was the cutest, and I loved Reese’s growth. Lenny’s relationship with her parents was so sweet 🥹. Jericho, Rica, and Jeffy were such fun and loving friends to both Lenny and Miles.

I cried while reading this. You would think I cried in a very, very emotional scene, likely with Lenny and Miles. Wrong. Very wrong. It wasn’t even a SCENE that made me cry. It was literally just a moment where I realized how Lenny was feeling and who she would want to talk to about it. Yes, there was a scene involving the other person afterwards, but the actual scene didn’t make me cry 😭. I can’t say more without spoilers, but 70% of the way into the book, I put the book down and cried. If I am emotionally invested enough in a book to cry, then that’s a great book.

Overall, this was such a well-written and beautiful book. I loved it so much and will definitely be reading Cara Bastone’s other works.

PROMISE ME SUNSHINE by Cara Bastone ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ @prhaudio and @netgalley review! Wading through grief, friendships, and moving on.
Phew! This was lovely, albeit a few unbelievable parts. I think going into this knowing it's less of a romance and more about a girl figuring out how to love after she loses her best friend to cancer. Bring tissues, especially if you plan on doing the audiobook! The narrator really plays into the emotion in her voice.

Lenny is a bit of a mess, she's avoiding her apartment, her parents, and anything that will remind her of her best friend Lou. Lenny's life is turned upside down when she meets a grumpy stranger who swears he can help her live again.

Perfect for you if you love...

•books that make you cry
•exploring grief
•NYC bucket list

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️🌶️ slow burn
Mood: 🍫

#bookstagram #bookreview #audiobook #ro

I gave this book 3.5 stars! The main character, Lenny, annoyed me so much. I’m sorry to say! She was suppose to be quirky but just felt like she was obnoxious most of the time. I liked Miles, but didn’t believe that he really fell for her that fast and wanted to help her out of her grief, despite him having his own troubles. I loved the relationship between Lenny and Ainsley. I loved the friends, Jeff’s, Jericho and Richa. Wish we had more of them. I would recommend this book and will read more from her.

This book has firmly established Cara Bastone as an automatic-buy author for me. I knew this one was going to hurt—and it did, but in the best way possible.

After losing her soulmate and best friend, Lenny is struggling to piece her life back together, with no clear idea of how to start. Consumed by grief, she’s overwhelmed and uncertain of how to move forward, questioning whether she’s capable of living without Lou.

While taking on odd babysitting jobs to pass the time, Lenny meets Miles, the uncle of one of her nannying clients. Like Lenny, Miles has also experienced profound grief. Further along in his own journey, he sets out to help Lenny process her loss while gently guiding her toward the possibility of living again. Miles helps Lenny face her emotions head-on by sharing his own experiences and, more importantly, by showing up—every single time. Though I’m not typically a fan of slow-burn romances, the care and respect Miles demonstrates in pursuing a relationship only when it’s right for Lenny is simply heartwarming.

This book is beautifully crafted. The way it captures Lenny’s alternating moments of joy and overwhelming grief, guilt, and sadness is written with such sincerity and depth. It challenged my perceptions of what it means to "move on." How does someone survive in a world without their person? How do you explain the love of your life to people who never met them? How can you navigate a city full of people having their best days while you’re enduring your worst? How do you keep going when you feel like you shouldn’t even be here? And how do you do it day after day with no reprieve?

This book was gut-wrenching, yet also incredibly funny. Lenny’s internal monologue and her banter with Miles were hilarious and provided moments of much-needed relief.

BRB, going to tell my best friend soulmate how much she means to me.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced copy of this book!

I was on the brink of tears multiple times throughout the book. A great book on grief and finding a way to live after losing someone you loved. I loved everything about this book.

Thank you Penguin Random House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Ready or Not was the first book of Cara Bastone I've read, and it was an easy 5 stars for me, so I was super excited to read this. This book covers the heavy theme of grief (loss of best friend, off page but heavily focused on) but, it's handled so well. Lenny is struggling with the loss of her best friend from cancer. She takes a short term nanny gig and meets Miles. He is standoffish and rude, but she can't quite figure him out. He ends up offering to help her with her "live again" list if she can help him connect with his niece, Ainsley. Slowly, Miles and Lenny develop a friendship as they both begin to work through their grief.
This is my favorite friends to lovers I have EVER read. Lenny is a quirky, but real, FMC and Miles has a grumpy exterior but underneath- a heart of gold. This book is heavy, so I recommend going into it when you are in a good place, but it is absolutely fantastic.

Cara Bastone is officially an autobuy author for me. I bought a trophy copy!

"Every time I fall in love with you, there's lightening"

I don't think this book was for me. I'm just not a fan of the author's writing style, I think. It very much read like "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and here's our texts." I didn't feel any chemistry between the FMC and MMC either. There was just something about the premise that wasn't believable to me. I ended up not finishing it.

I don't know how it was possible, but this book was a joy to read even though the central theme was grief. Cara Bastone has the incredible gift of creating a strong female lead who is honest, hilarious, and complex. Paired with Alex Finke's vocal talent, the audiobook is perfection. This book took me on an emotional roller coaster paired with humor and I loved it. Switching back and forth between the audio and digital versions was a treat, and I highly recommend any version of this story!

Quick recap without spoilers:
Living in NYC and making money as a babysitter, Lenny floats from one job to the next, trying her hardest to avoid returning to her apartment. When her best friend and solemate, Lou, died of cancer, Lenny couldn’t bear returning. After accepting a job with an adorable first grader living with her single mom, Lenny meets Miles, the almost-live-in grumpy uncle. Sadly understanding Lenny’s grief, Miles suggests he become her grief counselor and sidekick. The rest is romance history.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advance copy. I will place my review on my Instagram page and Goodreads.

Oh Cara Bastone, never stop writing PLEASE. I absolutely adored this book. Lenny's exploration of grief was so well written and I loved the way Miles was supporting her through it. I have found that some romance books tend to lean a lot into women's fiction because they do not balance the romance into the book as well as I would like. I was so happy that this romance perfectly balanced Lenny's journey and the romance between her and Miles. His way of understanding her was truly beautiful. I also related heavily to his bluntness and the way that he shows that he cares. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I fell in love with every character in this book! Cara Bastone has beautifully written an emotional and sweet story. The moments of grief shared between the characters were so tender and I felt myself tearing up on numerous occasions. And Miles, the man that you are!! This book was equal parts heartbreaking and hilarious and I loved every second! Favorite romance book so far this year! 5⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the E-Arc in exchange for an honest review!

People will pick this up and think it's a cute romcom...which yes it is, but honestly it's mainly a book about grief and it's BEAUTIFUL! Cara Bastone has hit another homerun with book! If you like your romance books with a dose of heavier topics this is perfect...because of that I think this would be a good book for someone who wants to try the romance genre out for the first time! Shout out to netgalley for the ARC!

5⭐️ or maybe even 6 😂
I started this book over a month ago and had to hit pause because, honestly, some of this is really heavy. This book deals with grief like no book I have ever read. It’s raw and incredibly real. If you have grieved a loved one, this one is going to hit you hard, no doubt about it. But it is SUCH a beautiful story of healing and learning to live again after loss. I cried, and I laughed, and sometimes I laughed while I was sobbing. I just can’t express how much I loved this book and its characters. Lenny and Miles are just my favorite 🥹

This is the second book by Cara that I received as an arc, and I have absolutely loved everything by her. She’s hilarious, and she writes with her whole heart. Can’t wait to read more in the future.

Thank you to Dial Press and Netgalley for sending me an arc of this beautiful story.

I have no idea how to move on from this book. Seriously. It completely wrecked me in the best way possible.

At its core, this book is a beautifully raw exploration of love, loss, and trying to find your way through both when you feel totally unequipped. Bastone captures grief and healing so honestly that I couldn't help but feel every ounce of heartache/confusion/guilt right along with the characters. Grief is a great unifier in that way - maybe you won't relate exactly to this sort of loss, but to be human, is to know loss in some way.

Of course, among the heavy, there was light! Lenny and Miles...from strangers to the briefest of enemies(?) to friends to best friends to "oh my god when will they put me out of my misery" lovers; it's a real slow burn treat! Their story is one that sneaks up on you, one that makes you hold your breath, and would probably have even the most stoic of readers kicking their feet in anticipation.

This book is tender, messy(not a mess, IYKYK), and full of so much heart. It’s the kind of story that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page, leaving you staring at the ceiling, wondering how to function. I was an oscillating fan of laughter and tears from one chapter(sometimes line) to the next. There are a few threads I would've loved to tug on a bit more, but that's likely the greed speaking - 400+ pages went by way too fast, and I'd read 400+ more if I could.

All this to say: if you’re in the mood for something that will break you and put you back together, Promise Me Sunshine is a must-read.

*Thank you to NetGalley and RandomHouse for the E-Arc!*

This book was a journey of grief and self discovery. It showed how important platonic love and romantic love is. I am amazed at how Cara Bastone was able to write this realistic characters who feel like real life people. Absolutely ♾️ 🌟. A must read, especially for anyone going through the grieving process. Thank you Cara Bastone, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC! My review was posted to GoodReads on 3/10/2025.

Amazing story, loved the friends to lover tropes, had me having a lot of emotions. I just loved it.

Friendship, grief and love are on a date with this book.

I was so pumped to read this bc I loved Ready or Not soooo much. This one felt so different from that one. I don’t feel like this could be considered romance. At its core, Promise Me Sunshine really a story of navigating and learning to live with grief, with a little love story baked in.

It wasn’t a very happy book. It was sad and there are definitely a lot of rough spots which you should be aware of if death/grief triggers you. There were some logistical things that did not make sense to me. Everyone definitely grieves differently and I think this book solidified that for me because the way Lenny handled her grief was very different from how I think I would handle it. So unfortunately, I couldn’t really connect with that. Other than that, I also felt like Lenny was pretty immature and the things she said and did mostly annoyed me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a bad book! I just don’t think it was for me. Still a very big fan of Cara Bastone and excited to read her next book, The Naked Eye, after reading the teaser!

One of my new favorite books???

I was absolutely blown away by this love story. It's the ultimate friends to lovers.

Cara has a way of writing that feels as if you're listening to someone telling a story.

Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for the early copy.

∞⭐️

This book is just perfect, I loved every page! I laughed, I cried, I swooned, this story is a beautiful story of grief, friendship and love.

Lenny is in the depths of grief after losing her best friend. Miles is the uncle to the little girl Lenny is a nanny for. He recognizes the grief in Lenny, and offers to help guide her through it in exchange for help relating to his niece.

I saw so much of my younger self in Lenny. I have lived that kind of grief and know what it’s like to struggle to put one foot in front of the other. Lenny was so funny, and caring. I would be laughing about something she said or did on one page and then crying on the next when her grief struck. I want to be friends with Lenny.

Cara Bastone can write a book boyfriend and Miles has made it to the top of my list. The way he takes care of Lenny is so sweet, he makes sure she eats, that she’s warm, that she has a safe place to sleep. He wanted to relate to his niece and it was so sweet to see him succeed with the help of Lenny.

The progression from strangers to friends to lovers was such a slow burn and again I loved it so much. I honestly could’ve read another 100 pages of this book.

Thus was such a heartbreaking yet heartwarming story of grief, loss and love after. Cara’s writing is super quirky, relatable and fub. Definitely a slow slow burn but I love that personally.