Fun, adorable, and lots of slowburn romance in this! I loved how these characters felt so real. They had awkward moments, humor, and just trying to find their way through this blossoming relationship.

At time it was quite a bit slow but it still kept me generally entertained and wanting to see where their relationship was heading and watching them fall for eachother. There is also mistaken identity and I also love that trope bit and found it was used well here.

It was very fun and a unique point to see the communication through emails and I also loved the queer discussion and representation throughout the book. I also loved the podcast romcom set up!

In love online and enemies IRL is so true here and I was hooked from the excerpt, cover, and then followed up with the story and had a great time!

I will be keeping an eye out for this book to hit the shelves and I'll be recommending it!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC opportunity!

I really enjoyed this. Its a slow burn, with plenty of tension in the build up.I loved the characters, they had an awkwardness to them and it felt like people i actually know or friends of mine. I really enjoy when a book is more character focused within the romance, and not just focused on the romance.

My only fault with it is the 3rd party POV. I am not a big fan of this because it does create some disconnect when trying to connect with the characters.

This one was so fun - the love story is adorable, the characters are perfection. I had such a great time getting to know them, and their story.

This was such a sweet, slow-burn romance with characters that felt real and relatable. I loved the awkwardness, the tension, and the way their feelings unfolded—it all felt very grounded and authentic. The banter was sharp, and there were so many little moments that made me smile.

The reason it’s 4 stars instead of 5 is that some parts moved a bit slowly for me, and I found myself wanting just a little more payoff emotionally by the end. Still, the journey was totally worth it, and I loved how much heart was packed into the story.

If you enjoy thoughtful, character-driven romance with a healthy dose of slow-burn tension, this is definitely worth picking up.

'Isn't It Obvious" is something I found myself yelling at the characters--in my head--most of the way through this wonderful, enemies to lovers, mistaken identity romance. Yet, via a deftly woven plot, Rachel Runya Katz makes it entirely plausible that these two continually miss the fact that the MCs know each other online and in person, just under different names.

The story begins with a 'meet cute' that is both awful and funny, providing the perfect setup for the story that unfolds from it. Yael is a high school librarian, who moonlights as a podcaster named Elle, whereas Ravi is a new volunteer for her queer focused book group for teens at the same time he is the freelance editor/producer remotely working on her podcast. While loathing each other in person, they simultaneously fall for each other via email.

Threaded throughout are themes of identity, both sexual and racial, and how that affects a person's sense of self. That is a very simplistic summary of just how deep the exploration of identity goes in this book. Add in the frank representation of mental health challenges, and you have a book that I want to shove into the hands of so many people I care about.

Beautifully written and emotionally satisfying. Highly recommend.

I think this is one of my favorite romances I have ever read. I don’t remember the last time I gave one five stars but this one deserves it so much.

Our fmc, Yael, is a school librarian who runs a queer book club and runs a secret podcast. She hires an editor, Kevin, for the podcast so she can focus more on this book club where she also has a new volunteer, Ravi, but these two men happen to be the same person.

Yeah I was so giddy reading this book knowing everything but they didn’t. The tension was top tier. I loved how much communication we got between them and a lot of their communication was through emails and I just love that. I loved the discussions about their queer identities they are both bisexual but also the safe space that Yael has created with her students to join this club. The author mentioned many books throughout as well as had a list in the back of the book for recommendations and I thought they were great!

I’m obsessed and if you like romance I would 100% check this out!

I really struggled with this book being in third person and jumping between pov’s and locations within the same chapter. Dnf unfortunately

A modern take on You’ve Got Mail, complete with podcasting, remote freelance work, and volunteering at queer teen book clubs in place of the movie’s internet chat rooms & competing bookstores. And honestly, libraries beat out bookstores ANY day. Come for the banter, stay for the relatable characters & mental health representation.

Normally I don’t love the mistaken identity trope but it was truly well done in this story. The beginning took a while for me to get into the flow, but by about halfway through I was hanging onto every word. The story was honest and heartfelt, with deeply feeling characters who were managing realistic conflict outside of their relationship. Yael and Ravi felt like people I would meet in real life, and I was rooting for them both in their romance and their personal lives. (Plus, the spice was absolutely amazing).

Read if you like: Epistolary novels, mistaken identity, body positivity, and if you’ve ever struggled to make friends as an adult or fallen too hard before having an IRL meeting

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

First off, thank you to St. Martin's Press for making this ARC available to me! I enjoyed the process of reading this book, and it makes me excited to know there are recommendations I can give friends at a later date.

Overall, I loved the premise of this book. I'm both a big podcast girlie and a fan of an interesting setting (for lack of a better term) in a romance, and this satisfied both of those desires. I also found it interesting to see the differences in how the leads interacted with each other within the different roles of the story. The hidden-identity layer of the relationship provided a lot of insight into the leads' pasts and personalities. Both Yael and Ravi felt fleshed out and realistic, and although they don't communicate with each other well at various points (really, the whole mistaken-identity situation is built off of a series of assumptions), I can understand why they responded the ways that they did. The supporting and side characters are also engaging; Ravi's family and Yael's students introduce a lot of fun to the story without ever feeling like a distraction from the main plotline. The cast of characters is diverse, and it is clear that the author put a lot of intention and thought into how these characters interact with others and the world around them. I do feel like the way everything came together in the end felt unrealistic and a bit convenient, but I still enjoyed the story nonetheless.

Although it took me a long time to read this since it was wedged between book club and library reads, I am glad I got to it, and I think I'll look into more of Rachel Runya Katz's books in the future!

Rachel Runya Katz writes deeply emotional and moving stories that should be on everyone’s radar, and this latest addition is further proof of that.

To say Yael and Ravi’s first meeting was a messy moment would be a bit of an understatement. To say it impacted their interactions when Ravi answers an ad to volunteer with her after school queer book club would be more than fair. And yet. There was an undeniable *something* between them. That something slowly built into an attraction and yearning for each other that couldn’t be contained.

In the meantime, Yael hires a new editor named Kevin for her growing podcast, which she records under the name Elle. Elle and Kevin connect over email and open up to each other in ways they struggle to with others in person. If only Elle knew Kevin was Ravi, and Ravi knew Elle was Yael. Every possible plot hole that could reveal their alternate identities is filled and accounted for in a way that makes it entirely realistic that they wouldn’t figure it out until the moment they each actually do.

Between book club afternoons with Yael and Ravi and emails between Elle and Kevin, there were so many topical and timely conversations had and so many deep emotional dives into family and partnerships and mental health and queerness, and it was such important discourse about all of it. Rachel Runya Katz writes in such a way that you can just feel how deeply embedded these stories being told are for her and how intensely invested she is in being someone who tells them.

The romance genre is a better place for having Rachel Runya Katz sharing words with it. Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin via NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and Netgalley for an advanced reader's copy of Isn't It Obvious, by Rachel Runya Katz! This was stunning. This has a You've-Got-Mail premise, with both main characters connected in real life and via email under other professional names/aliases. I loved the push-and-pull as the two develop a deep emotional connection and physical connection simultaneously, and appreciate how well-built their sense of trust and mutual respect is in both dynamics, so that when they ultimately (finally) discover their true identities, the resulting relationship feels earned.

There are so many elements in this I really loved: the depiction of a mood disorder (Bipolar II) and its literal highs and lows (and how a character navigates it with the support of therapy, medication and a network of loved ones), the bi-for-bi representation (with significant time spent discussing identity, mentoring queer teens and dealing with strained family dynamics after coming out), and the intersecting racial and ethnic identities for both main characters. These characters feel so authentically lived-in, and it is so easy to root for each of them.

I'm also delighted by how the author navigated sexual intimacy, sexual health conversations and sex language! Oral sex is sex! I feel so grumpy when characters act like they haven't had sex if they haven't yet had penetrative sex (especially when this happens in queer romances, don't we know better?!) and the way both characters call this out on page is so naturally done and so affirming. Love seeing characters discussing prior partners and STI testing on page, too.

Not done yet with my laundry list of things I loved, because the friendships in this, particularly for Yael, are SO GOOD. One of my biggest pet peeves in romance is terrible, toxic friends we're supposed to just laugh off OR one-dimensional friendships that don't add anything to the story other than comic relief. These friendships help build out so much of Yael's personal growth (her friendship becoming REAL REAL with Gina was so beautifully done) and feel essential to the story (and I was living for Sanaa live reacting through the third act, truly).

And ultimately, this story still manages to be greater than the sum of its parts, and I am so grateful to have spent this time with Yael and Ravi.

I really loved the idea of Isn't It Obvious, but this went a little too heavy on the miscommunication trope, which really killed it for me.

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

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.