Elle was maddening. thought I could just ignore it and push through the audiobook, but I couldn't. bc she's the MC and the book is using 1st person POV. I understand for wanting to be independent but her hatred towards gift and grand gesture and wealth was WAY too far, it ended up looking like she's having a massive pick me,
"I'm not like the other girls" behavior. It's also not helping that Parker is just a typical, generic rich dude with no personality depth or anything.

there’s this repeating dynamic between Elle & Parker where Parker did a grand gesture and Elle was not having it and I was started losing it, and then I looked at people’s reviews and they mentioned chapter 30 (88% in) so I looked it up to decide whether I’d dnf or not and that exact dynamic happened again and I finally lost it. No growth at all between 50% and 88% for both of them. goodbye.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for an ARC ebook!

Summer in the City follows Elle, a screenwriter spending the summer in New York in an attempt to overcome her writer's block. She lives next door to our MMC, Parker, who is a billionaire. They met in a club two years ago, and shared a steamy make-out session, and while he's been on her mind, he doesn't even recognize her. After seeing him, her writer's block is lifted and she realizes he might be just what she needs to get her next movie written. Luckily, he needs a pretend girlfriend for the summer to distract from rumors of his big business merger...

I'm a HUGE fan of fake dating, so this was right up my alley. I greatly enjoyed the book. The sweet scenes are sweet, the spicy scenes are spicy, and Elle working through her trauma is real and emotional. It was an awesome book, but I found myself feeling like it was unfinished at the end. After taking some time to sit with it, I realized the thing that bothered me was that Elle never really pursues/sacrifices/puts effort into the relationship. The whole thing is Parker being devoted to her but there's never any reciprocity to be equal partners. Some minor tweaks would have moved this to five stars, but as it is, I didn't love it.

One other note, the comments Elle makes about being a screenwriter/author are hilarious as Alex Aster is assumedly working on the screenwriting for Lightlark. I GREALY enjoyed the meta commentary.

This was such a fun romcom!! I loved this right away including all the fun special edition covers and the map!

This was a love letter to classic romcoms and was just perfect! I enjoyed getting to know the characters and travel around New York!

Alex needs to keep writing romcoms because it was such a refreshing read!

A great summer romance ! This book was a quick and fun read that had an easy pace that made the book fly by. I loved the plot of the book with the almost sight seeing aspect. It did feel like the perfect sort of romcom vibes, but instead of being comedy focused I felt there were a lot of wholesome moments between the characters.

I was head over heels for Parker's character. He came off as such a sweet cinnamon roll and seemed so caring and patient. The way Elle and his dynamic grew and changed was really sweet. While I didn't like what they had to go through I was very happy with where the two of them ended up. This is perfect for anyone who wants to take a short trip to New York in their heads and see what the city might be like through a locals eyes.

5 stars!
This book was romance and chaos in the best way. The New York summer vibes were immaculate, the romance had me grinning and blushing, and the characters felt so real. Alex Aster nailed the feeling of falling in love while figuring out your life. I couldn’t put it down!

I was really hoping to enjoy Love Sick, but it just didn’t click for me. Grace was hard to figure out—her emotions and choices didn’t feel natural, and I had a tough time connecting with her. I think the author tried to show why she was closed off, but it didn’t fully come through in the writing.

Also, I went into this expecting a fake dating/millionaire romance, but it didn’t really deliver on that. Julian didn’t come across the way I thought he would, and their dynamic felt more surface-level than swoony. I liked the hospital setting and the idea behind the story, but overall, it fell a bit flat.

I love the fake dating troupe and this one doesn’t disappoint. Elle is writing a screenplay while staying at a high rise in NYC for the summer. Her neighbor…of course is a billionaire bachelor who asks her to be his girlfriend for the summer. Think of Pretty Woman style- he wants a girlfriend that he can trust and won’t sell stories to the tabloids about him. It’s very enemies to friends to…. I don’t want to spoil it. I haven’t read Alex Aster’s other books because I don’t read a lot of fantasy but this one certainly makes me want to devour more novels by her. I hope she writes more books like this!!

I loved that the author didn’t go down the usual “grumpy CEO” route that so many billionaire romances rely on. If anything, Elle was the grumpy one in the relationship. Parker was just completely devoted to her—buying her dream house, purchasing an entire coffee shop chain just because she loves it… he was so whipped for her, and honestly, it was adorable. so yeah, if you’re looking for a billionaire romance where the guy absolutely spoils his girl rotten, Parker alone makes this book worth reading.

this was a fun romance from Aster, I'm excited to see her branching out of genre's! The reason for my rating is because I absolutely couldn't stand the FMC, otherwise I think I would've loved it a lot more.

Tropes:
💌Fake dating
⚔️Enemies to lovers
🎭Rom-com
💢Jealousy


Thank you to NetGalley for giving this ARC, and this doesn’t influence my review. Honestly I’m surprised I got the ARC for Alex Aster’s book!!!
This book was fast-paced compared to books I usually read, but it wasn’t too fast. I love how it was set in New York, since I’m from there! The rom-com delivered well, and I was smiling a lot or laughing most of the read. I had to put myself on a self-imposed ban on reading this book in public cause I was getting looks cause I was laughing/smiling/snickering at my phone. The writing style was amazing and I love how naturally funny the FMC is. Low key this book motivated me to get active again and stop bed rotting.

Fav quote: “I’m the type of person who gets happy when someone cancels plans with me. More time with my bed!”

What I didn’t like: the intimacy in the start. I DNFed the book at 68%

This book was cute. This book was exactly what i expected it would be— a cute romcom between a billionaire man with stars in his eyes over the girl unimpressed with his money and the girl who wants to live the city she resides in and “not” fall in love with the man she obviously has feelings for.

I gave this story a 5 star review! I absolutely loveddd Alex Asters Characters. For someone who has not ever been in NYC i truly felt i traveled there through this book. The character development and the description was everything I was looking for right when spring was starting in the city if chicago!

I really love Alex Aster and her fun personality which shows in the book (which I loved.) However, I did feel this title was really forced into trying to be an "enemies to lovers." Plus, it felt like the book constantly relied on the characters constantly misinterpreting each other when a normal conversation could've corrected the issue.

3 stars⭐️

I thought that this book was a pretty entertaining and fun read. Without giving away spoilers, I think that some sections felt dragged and like the conflict in the moment should've just been concluded there, and, especially at those times, the main characters were a bit annoying. I also don't like how they introduced a few characters like they should have been important to the story, but they were there for like half of it serving no purpose then disappeared.

I loved the detail about Elle loving coffee and writing in coffee shops. Overall, I also loved the overall aesthetic of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an e-book ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this! I was SHOCKED when I was approved! I never got an email so I saw this way late!

It was so good though! Parker and Elle were adorable! Perfect grumpy/ sunshine read to get you out of a book slump!
Also please Alex if you see this Grim is endgame. I beg of you. 😭

I’ve been a sucker for Billionaire romance since Pretty Woman and this one was so cute and the FMC is so funny I loved her even though she also frustrated me at times but I get the reasoning why she did the things she did.

I loved the New York setting, it was such a big part of the story and that was really cool. This was such a fun read!

I did read an ARC for this books so there were some parts that weren’t written that polished and maybe that got fixed in the published version.

🍕💖🍎💵

An enemies-to-lovers rom-com set in New York City, Summer in the City is the perfect blend of sharp banter, undeniable chemistry, and big NYC vibes, and as a local, I live for that. Elle and Parker are total opposites with sizzling history—and when they’re forced into close quarters, the result is pure magic. Witty, heartfelt, and impossible to put down, this is the kind of book you’ll want to devour in one sitting... preferably with a skyline view and a slice of pizza! Though I enjoyed it, I think I prefer the Lightlark series better.

While I love the cover, that's about all I like about this book. I just couldn't get into it. It was too cheesy and trope-y for me. I'm sorry!

(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC exchange for my honest review.)

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was an engaging read! I enjoyed the plot and would read it again.

Interesting. I didn't love it. Actually found it weird how fixated she was on him after one encounter years previously and still hated him years later. Enough to call him her enemy