Overall, a solid 3 stars. Eva and Rylie Cooper gave us a good strangers to lovers to enemies to lovers.
Black cat/Golden retriever energy to the extreme.

I enjoyed the premise of Eva wanting more for her career, but feeling stuck and typecasted into a position where she eats hotdogs and interviews c list and b list celebrities, while also running her own blog on the side. Not the career hitting journalism she hoped for postgrad, but she takes what she can get. And after a night out with her bestie and coworker, she posts a video calling out a “YouTube” celebrity whom she dated in college.
Well, he didn’t take the callout standing down and sees this as an opportunity to show her he’s changed. Rylie Cooper is quirky with his cute little glasses and simps over Eva.

I didn’t love Eva’s character when she was with Rylie. I also felt she had little to no growth as he was very open and honest with her. She didn’t open up easily to him and was honestly mean. Beyond black cat energy. I didn’t feel that Eva was a good person, nor does she deserve the attention and admiration that Rylie dished out to her in droves.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

Thanks @netgalley @youhadmeathea @mazeyeddings for the chance to read Well, Actually. It releases on August 5th.

Have you ever wanted an entire book of the off-the-charts chemistry of Amelia and Andrew Garfield on Chicken Shop Date? Then, like me, you will stay up way too late devouring this book and be left with the best book hangover. Mazey balances high heat, deep emotions and hilarious moments so, so well. I laughed out loud so many times and a certain accidental text scene (😈🍆) made me snort. This book is a GD delight!

Eva is the sardonic host of Sausage Talk where she interviews c-listers while eating too many 🌭. But when she drunkenly calls out her ex Rylie (now a beloved podcast host on toxic masculinity) on social media, it goes viral, and they are forced to confront each other for the first time in six years—live on Sausage Talk. Rylie offers her a deal, give him six dates to prove he’s changed and they can debrief on his show. When these dates start to garner real feelings, Eva wonders if Rylie might just be the one she’s been looking for.

Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Tropes: hate to love, second chance, grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, workplace romance

Six years ago Eva, host of a show much like “Chicken Shop Date” and Rylie, a content creator known for trying to teach men how to be better partners in relationships, had a brief college fling. Cut to present day and Eva comes home drunk and mad one night and finds herself making an impromptu takedown video about Rylie. It goes viral so her bosses force her to make more content about him. But somewhere along the way Rylie and Eva develop true feelings for one another.

The chemistry in this book was electric. At times, maybe a little too electric – Eva and Rylie’s banter was at times a little too fast paced. But I bought the two of them as a couple and the reasons they both had for pulling away after their first encounter six years ago made perfect sense and didn’t feel contrived for the plot.

Eva’s bosses felt a little bit like cartoon supervillains so the parts with them didn’t feel believable to me, but I guess there had to be conflict somewhere. On the plus side, I loved the representation in this book. Not just gay, bi, and trans representation, but representation in Eva’s storyline about how she felt, for the entirety of her adult sex life, like it was up to her to please her partners so she never discovered what she liked in bed.

This book is super duper steamy, so be mindful if that’s not your jam. But readers who found themselves obsessing over Amelia Dimoldenberg and Andrew Garfield’s Chicken Shop Date episode last fall (or anyone who watches fan edits of Jonathan Bailey and his ‘slutty little glasses’) are sure to enjoy this book!

i honestly have mixed reviews on this book -while i enjoyed the characters and plot… it was pretty boring for me personally till the halfway point. i love mazey eddings writing and i enjoyed the other half of the book immensely the build up was just so BORING

Well, Actually is one of those books that I'm not completely sure how I feel about it. There were a lot of things I loved, but the things I didn't really dragged down my enjoyment. I absolutely loved the representation that was in this book and the language around it. Eddings does a great job breaking down toxic masculinity and having meaningful conversations about the LGBTQ+ community and the struggles they face. I also loved how down bad Riley was for Eva and how he was trying to atone for how he treated her while in college. As someone who has lost people close to myself, I really found myself relating to how he behaved (regardless of if it was right or justified). I also loved how things ended with Eva's company (you go girl).

The biggest thing that bothered me was how Eva treated her friends. They were constantly trying to be there for her and she was kind of rude to them. They wanted to be there for her and she was constantly shutting them out or saying mean things to them. I understand her character was supposed to be snarky/bitchy, but it just didn't really work for me. I thought how she stood up for herself was great, but in almost every other area of the story, I cringed at her snarkiness. There were also a few random interviews that happened with Eva that I wish the author would have explored more because I would have loved seeing Eva expand her friend group!

I think a lot of people will love this, especially romance lovers, but as someone who is picky with my romance, this one was just middle of the road for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and SMP for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Eva is not happy in her life, but that's part of her schtick, she thinks.

Her current career capitalizes on her sarcastic wit and irritable personality to engage with low-level celebrities about hot dogs. She's stewing about being able to pursue harder journalism and getting out of a rut. But as it is, she is stuck.

Then, thanks to a bottle of prosecco, she uses her irritable snark to sound off about one of her exes, who happens to be social media famous. Then all hell breaks loose. And the duo wind up forced together as part of a dating experiment for their jobs.

Mazey Eddings creates a lead character in Eva who uses her wit and her charm as a shield. She paints her red lips on as a defense and struggles to keep people from getting too close.

By forcing her to confront a messy past with said social media celebrity Eva is forced to examine the role that past and her childhood played in teaching her to put the shields up and to see what it could be like to remove them.

Eddings writes a funny, poignant and emotional tale about second chances and trusting yourself.

This was definitely a miss for me. I was really excited to read something that would capture the chemistry between Amelia and Andrew Garfield, considering that the author posted a lot comparing this book to them, but sadly, this has absolutely none of the charm.

The main thing that annoyed me was the contempt the protagonist had for her job, which, instead of chicken, it’s hot dogs, but it’s more or less the same concept as the real Chicken Shop Date: a humorous interview of sorts with someone famous, deadpan comebacks and witty remarks. At the beginning I thought maybe the character would change the way she thought about the show, but no, as the book went on, she kept reminding us how demeaning that job is for her, how much she thinks it’s not “real journalism”, and how she wants to do actual, serious stuff. This was a huge red flag for me, and I kept being disappointed every time she mentioned it or the story made sure we knew HOW BAD that program is.

The characters were painfully one dimensional, the main protagonist is insufferable at times, and the main guy is just… perfect, apparently. The humor, while not all bad and even made me laugh out loud a couple of times, is too chronically online and relies too much on hoping everyone who reads this spends several hours a day on TikTok, even mentioning things here and there just because (there is an actual quote in which they say “Pedro Pascal’s Internet” just to mention him, no rhyme or reason).

Such a pity, truly.

Well, Actually is a single POV enemies-to-lovers, second chance romance. Eva is struggling to put her journalism degree to good use, stuck in a job interviewing B-list and C-list celebrities. One night, she posts a drunken rant about a college fling, Rylie, who was a walking red flag when she knew him, but has gone on to make a name for himself deconstructing toxic masculinity. Eva's boss wants to capitalize on the viral moment and arranges for Rylie and Eva to reconnect in a series of dates, podcast interviews, and other publicity stunts. Eva is determined to see this through without softening towards Rylie in order to earn a promotion she desperately wants, but Rylie is equally as determined to show her that he really has changed!

I cannot express how much I loved this book. The banter and teasing between Eva and Rylie was so good. The way it addressed and captured sexism, misogyny, and double standards between how men and women are treated in public spaces (online and in the workforce) was so accurate it made me angry on the characters' behalf. I rarely pre-order books, but I am placing a pre-order for this one because I *know* that I am going to want to read it again!

Read dates: 06/30/2025- 07/02/2025
Goodreads review: 07/02/2025
Instagram review: 07/02/2025
Blog review: 08/05/2025

I actually really enjoyed this book. There was a lot of different and comical parts to this book that I just really enjoyed. The enemies to lovers/ second chance romance was done so perfectly.

This was such a fun read! I loved the main characters! I found myself thinking about them when I wasn't reading. They were so cute! Eva's sarcasm and sass was absolutely hilarious. There is a lot of spice in this story, so be aware if that bothers you.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of the book was so very interesting, and had. HOWEVER, that was about the only thing I liked in the whole book, unfortunately.

The FMC has every right to be angry at the MMC at the beginning of the story, but as he starts to show her he’s changed and become a better person, she just gets more and more irritating. No, you don’t get to be mean and blame it on your “personality”. You’re just insufferable. I’m sad that this is the second time I’ve found a character by Mazey so unlikeable. Especially cause I love the main characters from her first 3 books.

The romance was ok, but it was very hard to root for Eva. Riley was fine, maybe a bit (at the risk of sounding very conservative, disclaimer: I’m not) “”” too woke ”””, to the point it felt forced at times. But hey, maybe in an ideal world, men are like that, I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend this book, much as it pains me to say, cause I like Mazey. Maybe it just didn’t work for me.

Also, “good girl” as a micro trope has been SO overdone by romance authors, and it doesn’t do absolutely anything for me.

This thoroughly engaging romance has a cinnamon roll hero (Rylie) who has evolved from a frat bro buying in (or pretending to buy in) to the inherent misogyny of the breed, who has caused heartbreak in the past to the female main character, Eva, a brave, defiantly herself yet oddly lacking in self-confidence young social media reporter. She has just suffered a setback in her media career, and after her scathing post about Rylie, now a successful influencer, goes viral, she must agree to a truce with him to save it, by way of dating him for a series of six dates to be conducted in the full light of social media. He's determined to change her mind about him, and she is equally determined not to let him.
While some serious themes are dealt with in the novel, it never becomes too heavy to be considered a rom-com, with the requisite goofy humor, larger than life secondary characters (aka the best friends) and villainous antagonists (the heroine Eva's boss and her weaselly son).
The two main characters manage to continue their truce in the face of many setbacks, and naturally they fall in love during the set-up dates that Eva's bosses require her to go through with. I got a bit impatient with Eva during the first part of the novel, as she takes quite a while to recognize Rylie's sincerity in spite of numerous proofs of it, and there are times when her bitchiness seems unnecessary. However, the pace of the novel is great, and the payoff when Eva realizes both her own true worth and Rylie's is worth the wait. Readers will cheer the pair on as they expose the villains of the story. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll definitely read more from this author!

Absolutely recommending this book to every single one of my friends.
I have not ever experienced a book that had me laughing out loud one minute and crying the next, and this one had me bawling in the middle of a Starbucks in my hometown due to how much I related to the FMC. Eva and Cooper had the best banter and sass, while still making me fall in love with both of their characters. I am extremely thankful to have gotten this book so early so that I can rave about it when it comes out but it also was so hard not to text my friends to talk about what was happening every time I found myself squealing and kicking my feet.
Another five star read that I could not put down from Mazey Eddings.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Mazey Eddings for the ARC of this delightful book.

Well, Actually was such a fun book to read!! One of my favorite things in books is good banter and the banter in this over delivered. I was kicking my feet and thinking “Hell yeah” every time Eva made a snarky remark to Rylie. This book was easily a 5 star read for me and I will be recommending it to friends and on my Instagram platform!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin for the ARC! This was my first book by Mazey Eddings and she has quickly become one of my favorites. I loved the story development of how Eva and Riley met in college and diving deeper into their characters. Their banter and chemistry were delightful and I found myself laughing out loud! Cannot wait to read more from this author!

I have read every book Mazey Eddings has released, and had the pleasure of having her most recent releases given to me as advanced digital copies. When I tell you I would read her grocery lists, I wholeheartedly mean it. I think Eva has been the character I see the most of myself in, and I see my fiancé in Rylie. Eddings does a fantastic job of writing relatable and lovable characters, even if they’re not the main characters. I cannot sing her praises enough. It is 2:30 AM as I write this, and I am up way too late, having spent my night giggling and crying. I cannot recommend this, and her other novels enough. I absolutely loved this book, and I am foaming at the mouth for the next one. Also, loved seeing Lizzie in this one!

Eva Kitt is the host of Sausage Talk, a social media interview show where she talks with celebrities over hot dogs, but this is far from what she pictured her journalism career going. After Eva's unplanned social media call out of her college ex, and beloved social media personality, Rylie Cooper. She's forced to confront their shared past when this is seen as an opportunity to capitalize on the virality of the incident by going on dates and discussing them on his talk show. Of course Eva is not on board, but she will use this to her advantage: career growth. As the dates go by, Eva starts to feel like the boy who once broke her heart just might be the one to heal it.

I really loved the premise and plot development of the story. I think it had it all: a badass woman determined to climb the corporate ladder so she could get what she wanted out of her career who is also a little bit guarded when it comes to relationships; and a man who was so down bad and determined to show Eva he wasn't the same messed up guy from college. Their banter also added so much to their dynamic of Rylie wanting their dates to go well and Eva being so reluctant and closed off.

While I loved all of this, I felt like Rylie's love for Eva was too forced or felt like it was happening out of nowhere. These two people don't know each other anymore, and while that was a focus in the book, I feel like it was too glossed over. The overt pop-culture references throughout the book pulled me out of the story, and felt like too much.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
This second‑chance romance hit the right notes early on with sharp banter, sizzling chemistry, and that hilarious moment when Rylie and Eva reunite after their viral blow‑up debut. The premise—six dates to make up for college‑era ghosting? So original—and their sassy, messy journey had me hooked.
But midway, the pace lost its spark. Those laugh‑out‑loud exchanges that had me giggling felt a bit too stretched, and the emotional depth momentarily flat‑lined .
Pick this up if you crave modern romance with heart and humour—even if it doesn’t sprint all the way to the ending.

*Thank you to You Had Me at HEA and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Mazey Eddings remains a "break in case of emergency" author for me. While this book features a main character that many would deem 'unlikeable', I freaking loved Eva. As a fellow prickly (but secretly super soft) gal, she really made me feel seen. And ohhhhh my lord, Rylie Cooper. He's down bad from the start and willing to put in the WORK for Eva. Every time he calls her Kitten, I swear my heart melts. I'm not sure how much of this was inspired by Chicken Shop Date, but give me an Amelia Dimoldenburg and Andrew Garfieldesque couple any day. The banter, the growth, just EVERYTHING.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for this e-ARC of Well, Actually in exchange for an honest review. I love Mazey Eddings. I have loved her since A Brush with Love, and this book is a little different as you can tell how much she has truly grown as an author and also all the same because this book still has her signature humor. Eva is our hot dog eating heroine (bet you've never really heard that one before) who talks about her ex, Rylie, and that goes viral so now they're both forced to reconnect. What could go wrong? I love the name Rylie for a boy (spelled that way specifically), and I tried really hard to root for Eva and Rylie but I think they ultimately frustrated me more than I wanted them to work it out. It was like one step forward, three steps back. While that's realistic, it just frustrated me when it kept happening. I liked the book overall and would recommend, but also I just wanted to shake the characters. Constantly.