rachel runya katz has become an autobuy author over the past couple of years and I am so excited for the future of her books because of that.

i will eat up a "you've got mail"-type plot so I was so sat. the characters were somewhat frustrating but also so are humans so I can not fault them on that. absolute fire book read it!!

Did not finish. The writing style kinda confused me and I just wasn’t interested in the story as much as I thought I would

Fan of First Time Caller? Then I highly recommend picking up this novel. Hidden identities, where the pair are “enemies” in the real world, but flirt together over email? Yes please! This book was everything I needed, and I devoured it in 24 hours during a power outage and couldn’t work. Best way to spend my day.

Ravi and Yael were so cute together. I loved watching them go from their awkward first meeting, to becoming friends at book club, to something more. The real life and online life was balanced well, and despite that meeting, there was sparks, which transitioned into their “secondary romance” as Elle and Kevin. The secondary characters were amazing, and I even loved the high-school kids we see from book club. 

The third act dragged after the reveal, which was kind of bummer with how amazing the first two acts were. But, it came back around in the end. 

Thank you to Lavender Public Relations and NetGalley for an E-ARC of this novel.

5/5

I needed a book that was proudly pro library in these trying times and Isn't It Obvious answered the call, while asking the question, what if we romanced each other over email while hating each other at queer book club? Yael, a librarian with a secret podcast critiquing the high school reading list, with witty titles such as “A Lack of Reading Comprehension Is a Prerequisite for Serving in Congress,” grates against her new library volunteer. Ravi, a freelance editor precariously balancing a new life, is more than a tad desperate to convince the roommate of his latest hookup that he isn't an asshole, even continuing to volunteer at her queer book club. With hidden identities and exquisite tension in the library, Isn’t it Obvious puts romance on the books and every single page sings with hate to love goodness. Rachel Runya Katz was a relatively new to me author as of this year, but she has quickly become an unrivaled talent and one of my favorite romance authors in the contemporary romance scene. Isn't It Obvious, her third novel, is undoubtedly the best romance of this year. Not just the library representation we deserve, but a reminder of the power in these spaces especially for the queer youth of today, and how much we stand to gain from reaching for love in spite of our supposed shortcomings.

This is the kind of romance that feels lived-in, where every beat of connection means something. Smart, sweet, funny, and full of heart. I loved it completely.

had a good time with this one once it was grooving! very cute, i loved both characters as individuals and together, and the flow and switching of pov's was seamless and never confusing. miscommunication trope towards the 70% mark annoyed me a bit but the ending was very sweet (no proposal epilogue we cheered!!) they're definitely more stubborn annoyances than enemies to lovers (the reason is kinda lame too LOL and i wish they had charlie and ravi talk at all about it but oh well) but it's a good little modern take on a classic romance trope with a lot of queerness and diversity and well written spice so <3

beyond excited to see this books hit my inbox- this is one of my most anticipated books of 2025 and i will be sure to post my review on all retailers!! 💞

Oh, how I love a "hidden identity, falling digitally, oops we're actually enemies IRL" romance. This one gives the reader EVERYTHING: Tenderness, chemistry, swoons, giant love interest green flags, wholesome family and friends, and amazingly written characters. I found myself trying to space out my reading because I didn't want this one to end!

This really spoke to me at first––this is definitely the best podcast romcom setup I've ever come across! My issue largely lies with the execution of the third-act conflict. It just didn't quite work for me! I think it leans too much into the miscommunication trope, and I just wasn't convinced by the stakes of each character's "wound." Which is such a shame, because it was truly a five-star read until that final act!!! The characters are both so charming!!! I also don't *love* how the author writes children, but your mileage may vary.

Yael is a librarian at the high school she attended, and has started filling her time and life’s purpose by leading a queer book club at the school and talking about classic high school texts in a podcast. Her roommate’s jerk of a hookup ends up volunteering for the book club - and they are constantly at each other’s throats.

Meanwhile, Yael’s podcast grows and she hires an editor and ends up developing a connection neither of them expected. Little do they know, they’re also running a book club together…

I love a double identity story, and I love the way Rachel Runya-Katz did it. Though I love the tension, the blowup often is such a big betrayal that it twists my gut. Without spoilers, Runya-Katz twisted this up a bit and I am so grateful for it (and if you’re a bit of an anxious kid like me, you’ll be grateful for it too!)

The humor, however, wasn’t to my taste. I could tell what was supposed to be laugh out loud funny, but all I did was crack a smile. And the characters’ relationship didn’t feel super deep to me like the way they experienced it. Objectively, all these things were there, but my subjective experience didn’t include those. It could very well be a different experience for someone else!

**Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC!

A cute plot! I can see many readers falling in love with Yael’s and Ravi’s story. For me, I didn’t quite buy their email exchanges / immediate divulging of personal info and did not connect to the characters.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

I appreciated the diversity in this book but , unfortunately, it didn’t quite connect with me. I found it to be very slow and took awhile to read as I was not invested in the characters.

I'm always here for a bi4bi romance as well as a secret correspondence situation so obviously I ended up liking this one. I did find the slow pacing to be problematic particularly in terms of the identity reveal taking so long - it strained credulity even for me, a lover of this trope.

This was a fun little Romance book. The story was cute and easy to read. I highly recommend this book.📚

This was a very fun enemies to lovers (or more like annoyance to lovers) rom com. I think I forever and always will struggle with how the couple initially met. However, once the heat of the story actually laid itself out, I really enjoyed it and liked it.

Both Yael and Ravi were amazing characters that I adored the whole time and just wanted to see more of. I really enjoyed the book overall.

thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I loved the slow burn and how diverse the characters were! it was definitely a read you just wanted to gobble up! the ending was resolved a little too fast for my liking but overall i enjoyed the story!

In a twist on the classic You've Got Mail trope, Yael, the school librarian, is a secret podcaster who criticizes famous classics. At least she's finally found a volunteer to help her run the school's queer book club! Oh, wait... that volunteer is Ravi, the guy she had just caught sneaking out of HER bedroom window while trying to escape her roommate after a one-night stand. Oh, and he's the new editor for her on-the-rise podcast, except both of them are unaware of each other's true identity.
I devoured this book in one sitting. Fast-paced and utterly captivating, I fell fast for Yael and Ravi (and Mia). I love a good enemies-to-lovers trope, especially when the tension is so thick you're on the edge of your seat, waiting for hate to turn into love. Whenever Ravi insists on helping Yael shelve books that are too high for her? AHHHH! In love. I love how the students root for them too.
I was rooting for Yael and Ravi individually as well. Ravi co-parents with his brother as his brother is a single dad with the most adorable child, but Ravi upended his life and moved coasts for Suresh and Mia. They sometimes clash, but as siblings do, they always come back to each other.
This book also switches POVs throughout each chapter, but it's obvious when the switch occurs, which I thought was a unique way of doing it. It took me a little bit to get used to it at first, but I really appreciated seeing both sides. Overall, I was so in love with all of the characters and the romance. So perfect.

As a fan of diverse authors AND You've Got Mail, I was really excited for this book, but it felt just a little disappointing. It's hard to say exactly what I struggled with, but I felt a little hard to connect to the characters and like there was a lot going on that there didn't seem like enough time for all the subplots to work. The friends-to-enemies part felt a little contrived for me. I wanted to like this one, but it was only okay for me.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC, this review is wholly my own

Rating: 4.5/5 stars
It can be extremely difficult for me to get sucked into a book that's written from 3rd person POV, especially when I am in a reading slump. So when I first started Isn't It Obvious?, I was extremely nervous that my personal style preference combined with the aforementioned reading slump would make me enjoy the book a whole lot less. However, once I got about 3 chapters in, I think I read the rest of the book in one sitting. The characters and story were just SO good, that I suddenly didn't even notice the POV style anymore.

I absolutely loved the representation seen in this book. Both main characters are bisexual. The MMC, Ravi, is from Trinidad and the FMC, Yael, is Black and Jewish, and she has bipolar disorder and her father is married to a man. Yael is a high school librarian where she runs a queer book club and she also hosts a secret podcast that critiques high school required readings. The book club is one of the best things I've ever read about and it made my heart so so happy and the podcast was 10/10 amazing, especially the episode titles.

Not only was there intentional inclusion of varying identities (racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender) in this book, but the author includes some very important discussion between the characters about these identities and how they affect themselves and how they live/view their lives.

TLDR: I laughed, I cried, it was excellent.

A romance that I had high hopes for but that just didn't work for me. I think on paper the premise of this book appeals to me, but in terms of execution I just couldn't buy into it. The fact that the main characters were sharing these super personal emails with each other when one of them was the other's client was just not believable to me. I couldn't buy into the fact that someone would be sharing that much personal information with some they essentially have a professional relationship with, and then the "enemies" part of the plotline wasn't believable to me either. The You've Got Mail storyline is very hard to pull of, and I just don't think it was done very effectively here.