This was the slowest of slow burns. Like I found myself dozing off while waiting for something to happen. This book was at least 100 pages too long.

But with that said, the book was sweet. I liked the supporting characters, and the book theme (both library and book store). I liked Macon more than Ingrid, but Edmond may have been my favourite.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I'm not sure I would classify this as a romance. Do that's my first issue, maybe the biggest issue. It's more like women's lit. When the book of more about a woman finding herself than a relationship with the MMC, I just can't say it's a true romance. I also don't like reading details of her hookups with someone other than the MMC. Lots of angst to get through, but at least the writing was good.

Ingrid and her boyfriend, Cory decide to take a month long break to see other people. They have been dating for 11 years. They met the first day of college and neither one had ever dated anyone before. Ingrid decides to kiss her coworker Macon. They work at a library. She has chemistry with him. He rejects her immediately and she spins out and tries to find someone else that very night. Ingrid and Cory soon find out that a month isn’t nearly long enough so they extend it. They do the same thing the following month and before the third month Cory tells her he has met someone else. Ingrid was going to break up with him anyway. She realized he wasn’t the one. She decides she is going to take a break from dating. She also decides to leave the library and open her own bookstore.

This is a slow, slow burn, grumpy vs sunshine romance that takes place in both a library and bookstore. All of my favorite things. I really enjoyed the settings.i liked how heartwarming it was. I loved how all of her friends came together to make owning a bookstore really possible. My only complaint is that it was a tad bit long. I mean it really was a slow burn. But I would still recommend this cozy romance.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins for providing me this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review..

Oooohhhhhhhh…this book. Such a lovely, surprisingly deep, introspective, and heartwarming story of grief and expectation and love. It was so easy to envision the shy curmudgeon and the sweet soul who loved him before she knew she did. I have such bad a perfect picture of the house and the town and the library and the bookshop. The setting was such a huge part of this experience and I just loved loved loved it. Macon and Ingrid are dear to me now. 💜💜📚

I enjoyed Stephanie Perkins's YA titles and was pleased to see her giving adult rom-com a shot. Honing her skills with YA "coming of age" stories does indeed transition well to an FMC in her late 20s who is still figuring out her life after stalling out a bit in her career and love life. Ingrid's slow-burn romance with Macon is sweet and just frustrating enough, and the cast of supporting characters is full of funny and supportive friends.

Nothing not to like in this book. Librarians, a small town, a bookstore, good food, romance and interfering friends. Great set up and a great story about confronting your fears and moving right through them to the other side.

Very slow burn romance that then went super fast. Cozy, would maybe be a better winter read! Some references and winks to the real world took me out of the coziness.

This one just wasn't for me. I don't mind the slow burn, but it was pretty heavy on issues and topics that I just don't look for in my romances. Thanks for letting me try.

I throughly enjoyed this book and would love to read more from this author. Thanks to Betgalley and the publisher for this ARC

this was so cute! I am obsessed with this cover and the story. I had to have a physical. I love this book so much

100% Perfection. Stephanie Perkins is the OG romance writer for me. I read her books 14-15 years ago when I first got into reading and they were cute young adult reads. I am so excited that she wrote this book and even more excited that it lived up to my reasonably high expectations. Everything about the storyline was perfect. The characters were perfect. The drama was perfect. The ending was perfect. Even the title and cover are perfect. I got an advanced reader copy through NetGalley… Comes out in October!

Overdue is about Ingrid, a librarian in a small town in North Carolina. When the book starts, Ingrid as at her first day back at work after she and her boyfriend of eleven years decided that they need time apart to date other people before they can get married. Ingrid has had a long-time crush on one of her coworkers, Macon, so she is excited about the opportunity to ask him out.

I was initially hesitant of the premise, as I didn’t like the idea of her jumping straight into a relationship with Macon, but I thought it was handled very well. I appreciated that Ingrid was allowed to experiment and grow on her own instead of the plot being solely focused on Macon. Their relationship was very sweet and I loved how we got to see them get closer over the course of the book. The ending felt a little rushed but overall wrapped up the story well. I also enjoyed the cozy small town vibes and the NC references.

Thanks so much for the review copy. I loved this book so much. I lived vicariously through Ingrid being a librarians and a book store owner. I’m so glad she got her happy ending.

This is a suuuuuper slow burn book. I did enjoy it overall! I really enjoyed the format and the timeline of telling this story month by month over the course of a year and the events feeling natural. The beginning of the book was a bit slow for me and was prose heavy. I like dialogue and find myself enjoying books with a lot of conversation between characters. The first half of this book is more descriptions and inner thoughts. While Ingrid is an interesting character, I wanted more interactions. The second half was very fun though. The relationship went from 0 too 100 in about 2 pages, but I loved it.

Thank you SMP/ Saturday for this arc.

Thank you NetGalley, Stephanie Perkins, and Macmillan Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
I absolutely adored this story. I loved the characters, I was entranced by the library/bookstore vibes and setting, and I truly cared what happened to them. I was all in for the entire time I read this book.. my only real critique though, and cause for being a 4 star instead of a 5 star read, was that I felt the end was rushed… and a bit abrupt. I wanted some real closure and maybe an epilogue of life afterwards… where is Macon’s mom, how does life look after they finally figure it all out etc…

The good: I LIVE for a slow burn. I was so glad the FMC figured out her mess before starting a new relationship.

The bad: the woke, broke millennial trope was over done. We get it, you’re super liberal, can’t afford a house, semi-hate the USA, and are scarred from the pandemic. I am some of those things too, but this felt annoying instead of relatable. Also, I don’t know if this was a wannabe body positivity reclaiming of the word “fat“, but it gave me major ick to see the FMC describe her good friend this way. I don’t care who you are, but the only person who should be describing their body as fat is the person themselves.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very slow burn romance read. This is about new beginnings and finding true happiness!This book is expected to be published on October 7, 2025!

This was super cute!

Great first adult novel. I have enjoyer Stephanie's YA book and was excited to see that she wrote an adult one.

I read this courtesy St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley. In this charming slow-burn romance, Ingrid, a woman who’s only been in one relationship for over a decade, finds herself on a break, with carte blanche to explore other romance options—for a month. So she tries to make an overture to Macon, her coworker, someone she’s had a crush on for years. Who promptly turns her down, making it clear that they are coworkers and that’s it, and even friends. But as that month ends and the deal gets extended, she has to find herself—and Macon helps her, as her friend. And slowly but surely, they become more. Except for a single scene during which our heroine acts like a child, I loved this book.
#Overdue #SaturdayBooks #NetGalley

3 stars (2 the first half and 4 the second) This was a story about a young woman who is teetering on the edge of fully growing up vs staying in a sort of stasis in between adulthood and childhood. It's sort of two books in one as the first half is more of a coming of age story and the second half is a romance. The first half was not a good fit for me at all. I am of a slightly older demographic. As such there might be bit of a generational divide. I am from Gen X and we grew up faster. Having kids the age of the protagonist I think they'll relate more than I did to Ingrid (the main character). I am fatigued with the struggles of our kids in the transition to adulthood so didn't want to read someone else's. Having expected a romance going in I was disappointed in the first half of the book which is often watching Ingrid floundering. It is well written but maybe more realism than I had bargained for.

Had I not received this from Netgalley I would have stopped reading before I got to the half that I enjoyed. The second half redeemed the book for me as it was the anticipated romance that I had expected going in. I flipped the pages as I watched the burgeoning romance. It was cute and Ingrid finally found her footing for who she wanted to be and how she wanted to grow going forward.