This was a really sweet coming of age romance. Allegra is a true superstar, confident, kind, true to herself, and an overall super fun character to be in the POV of. Jonah is the sweetest under his initial grumpy veneer, and the perfect “I’d do anything just to see her smile” kind of boyfriend, which was so endearing and adorable. Outside of the romance, the focus of the book lies on what fame can do to young lives and how unwelcoming society as a whole can be to neurodivergent minds.

The book did leave me wanting a little, however. The strange tension between Allegra’s dad and Jonah didn’t feel fully explained. It had the potential to be an exciting plot point, but the reveal felt pretty underwhelming and didn’t do George any favors. I also found myself wanting more buildup to Allegra and Jonah’s reconnection, and while I know she was sick during it, it felt a little too hazy and non-intentional, and intention is something I would have loved to see from her at that point in the book.

Two things: First, the nighttime bookshop scene had me omg-ing in the margins. And second, Jasper Montgomery has my heart. She’s the perfect big sister character who acts as a much-needed guide throughout the latter half of the book. I also just discovered she has her own story, in Some Like It Cold, and reading more Jasper sounds like such a treat!

Review 9/10🦋 This book was so cute! I absolutely loved it.

I’ve read a handful of books by Elle McNicoll and while I love the middle grade reads I couldn’t get into the YA book I previously tried so I was a bit hesitant about this one. However the plot seemed like more my kind of story and I ending up loving the characters a lot more!

This story follows a famous young woman named Allegra as she decides to spends her summer helping her dad’s bookshop with their upcoming book festival. She needs a break from celebrity/working and hopes to find it in the small town her dad lives. But what she finds instead is a cute and grumpy bookseller who seems to be the only one not star struck by her. Obviously some (slow burn) romance ensues💗

I absolutely LOVED the double autistic representation in this one, both MCs were autistic and it was so well done. I adored Allegra and Jonah. The book is YA (I would technically say new adult) but I found the characters to be very mature and often kept being surprised they weren’t in their mid 20s.

The town this book takes place in is the same one from the first YA by this author I read (Some Like it Cold) so there were some crossover characters which was fun! I overall enjoyed the town and people in it a lot more in this book. I like when authors write book in the same setting. It’s enjoyable to see the world fill out as you get to know everyone various areas more deeply.

Overall this was a joy to read, highly recommend to romance readers🥹🥰

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for a copy of this book!

P.S. I can’t believe I caught this picture with the most beautiful butterfly during my visit to the butterfly garden this weekend😍🦋

P.S.S. This song is made for Allegra and Jonah🥹 I’ve always liked it but I recently heard it on my shuffle while I was reading this book and it fit so perfectly! You must listen and if you love it read this book! Or if you love the book check out the song☺️

Wish You Were Her was such a great read! It follows Allegra, an 18 year old actress who is taking a summer off of fame and acting to live in a small town and work at her father's bookstore. Allegra meets some friends and co-workers at the bookstore and has to navigate social relationships while being incredibly famous.

The autism representation in Wish You Were Her was so well done!! I so appreciated how it was part of everything Allegra did (because it is!!) - that mask sliding into place and the toll it can take not just mentally but physically as well. As a reader I could feel her visceral discomfort in certain situations. It's truly different from a neurotypical experience.

Jonah is a quiet, broody character and has a soft side that comes out only when he is comfortable. I loved his character and how much more we got to see of him as the storyline progressed. The quiet observations he made of Allegra were everything. I love him.

A truly tender and heartwarming read. Thank you Wednesday Books and Elle McNicol for the advanced review copy.

This is how you do representation! I absolutely loved this book with nods to Notting Hill and You've Got Mail, while making its own mark with likeable, flawed characters who felt like just the right amount of young & adult. I absolutely loved this one that showed so many parts of being autistic along with a beautiful love story, plus lots of books!

2.5 rounded ded up
Started off well, but rapidly became too hard to read. It git so boring that I started skimming. Almost a dnf but I hoped for improvement. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

This was a new author to me and I enjoyed this fun, sweet read! I enjoyed the dynamic of them and how they matched each other perfectly. All in all a amazing read! Enjoyed and would read more from this author.

A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A YA contemporary mashup of Notting Hill and You've Got Mail with autistic rep? Sold!
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I gave this 3.5 stars rounded up.
It took me a little bit to get into it, but once it got going, this book was so good and engaging. I loved the small town setting and the characters Allegra met were all so varied and interesting. The enemies-to-lovers arc was fun to watch. I found the writing to be so compelling, lots of cool quotes that I want to highlight once I get my hands on a physical copy.
Allegra and Jonah were both compelling leads and passionate in their own ways, and it was great to see them develop throughout the story.
I was kinda disappointed that we didn't get as much development from Allegra's dad and we didn't really get to see him try to grow the bond with Allegra or get a well-developed explanation for his treatment of Jonah. His character felt kinda flat, and I wanted more interactions with him and some more explanations for some of the decisions he makes throughout the story.
From about the 25%-75% mark, I was eating this up and was so curious to find out what happened next. But it felt like the last quarter of the book dragged on a little bit, I think because some of the tension dropped. And some of the plot points of the story felt kinda forced instead of natural, but hopefully that will all be polished by the time the physical book comes out. (***Spoilers***Especially the part where the photographer sneaks pictures of them; I felt like Allegra would've been more aware of things and more careful, so it felt forced for plot reasons. And the drawn out "no, he doesn't actually like me, we're just friends" got a little old after a while and I wish she had realized things sooner.***End Spoilers***)
This is technically the second book in a series, but I had no problem jumping directly into it; it stands well on its own.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend.

This is what I expect from a YA novel and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. With the exception of the great autism/adhd rep, this book was somewhat of a letdown for me. The comparison of the movie "You've Got Mail" in any book description gets me every time because it's one I love and this one does have elements of the movie. I love a good email exchange/epistolary type of novel and I enjoyed that part of this book but I didn't really feel myself loving any of the characters. While I felt for Allegra, I didn't always understand her actions or motivations. Overall this book didn't really make me feel much of anything. I know many readers will adore this one but sadly I'm in the "it was just ok" category with this one.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 rounded up. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. the romance was really cute, and I loved the aspect of a celebrity being dropped into a small town. I thought the first half of the novel was engaging and expected to rate it really high. However, there were a few aspects that just didn't work for me. First and foremost, I hate You've Got Mail, and I naturally hated it happening in the book. I also didn’t like the lack of detail surrounding Simon being a jerk because she didn’t know how to feel about him in person, but I felt we never really saw how bad it was since it was only in a handful of moments and barely at that. I also didn't like that Allegra uses her fame to help her friends, but there's one specific post that genuinely upset me because there was a reason the girl didn't get what she wanted. Anyway, I enjoyed the romance aspect of the novel so much that I can overlook most of the things I didn't really enjoy.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

I wanted to love this but had trouble connecting with the story! Wished the characters were a bit more developed.

There was a lot that I loved about this one - the autism representation, the nods to Notting Hill and You've Got Mail were fun, and the story was overall cute. However, I felt like the characters should have been older. Even 21 would have made more sense. A few too many side characters, and the story was going either too slow or too fast, where it felt like I missed something. Overall, a cute concept and GREAT representation but I just needed a little something else to the story.
Thank you Netgalley and the author and publisher for this eARC.

Welcome back to Lake Pristine! Wish You Were Her is another 5 star read by Elle McNicoll. This is a beautifully written love story with very real and relatable characters! Must read.

This book was neutral for me. I had a good time at the beginning, but it fizzled out when it got closer to the middle. It wasn't exciting, and I didn't feel connected to any of the characters. There were random details revealed about them that we never saw ourselves.

Overall, this book was okay for me. I would have liked more detailed characters and more of a twist on the "You've Got Mail" plot.

Reeling from a harsh interview and at loose ends when an acting gig is abruptly cancelled, superstar eighteen-year-old actress Allegra Brooks decides that it's the right time to finally go to Lake Pristine to spend the summer with her father at his bookshop, Brooks Books. Her enthusiasm for the trip grows when, after sending an email to her father to ask for more details about the upcoming book festival in Lake Pristine, she instead receives a charming response from one of his employees and they strike up a flirtatious correspondence that both equally enjoy. Upon her arrival, one of his employees, Jonah, is surly and unwelcoming and flatly refuses to apologize for saying something horrible about her within her hearing. By contrast, his counterpart Simon is charming and clearly pleased that Allegra is there and helping with the festival. When she sees him at the bookstore's computer shortly after she receives yet another email from her pen pal, she's pleased to realize that he must be her unknown correspondent. And yet, as she gets to know Simon better, she's finding it hard to reconcile his snobbish and immature behavior with the self-deprecating and vulnerable pen pal she's been getting to know.

Meanwhile, the reader knows that Jonah is her pen pal and that his horrible attitude towards her is largely because of his tremendous embarrassment over how they met. He also finds his underlying attraction to her highly disconcerting. The reader knows that both Jonah and Allegra are autistic and that the two could understand each other so well if they would only get past how they met. After all, they both have neurotypical friends and family who don't really understand the way that they see and experience the world and could be each other's understanding friend that they have each so often needed.

People have been comparing this book to You've Got Mail and, since You've Got Mail is based upon The Shop Around the Corner, they're right. Since I love both movies but prefer The Shop Around the Corner, this book was right up my alley. I'm always encouraging people to watch the 1940 classic. The dynamic between Allegra and Jonah is so similar to Kralik and Ms. Novak. I loved that the author named a printing press after Mr. Matuschek.

<spoiler>I still don't really understand what was up with George and Jonah. That one sentence response George gave near the end of the book didn't really make sense. From the moment we realized that he and Jonah used to have a close relationship, I thought it was going to be like in The Shop Around the Corner where Vadas had poisoned Mr. Matuschek against Mr. Kralik. That would have made the low-level animosity make sense. It didn't seem like it was just George trying to make Jonah less inclined to stay, which is what he told Jonah it was.</spoiler>

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The book was well-edited for the most part. I found only two typos, which seems to be rare these days. There were a couple of spots where it seemed like a line was attributed to the wrong character, most notably during the first meeting at the bookstore of the festival committee. In context, something clearly had to have been said by George, but it is attributed to Jonah. It was a little jarring when, near the end of the book, the story abruptly switches to the point of view of two pretty minor characters when the rest of the book is only from Allegra and Jonah's points of view. Still, I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves The Shop Around the Corner, You've Got Mail, and books about books.

Thank you to St Martin's and Netgally for the chance to eARC "Wish You Were Her.."

"Wish You Were Her" is such a cute love story between Allegra and Jonah. It had elements of enemies to lovers, grumpy x sunshine that almost a time felt more grumpy x grumpier, and coworkers to lovers. I adored the story centering around a small town. It gave it an almost Nicholas Sparks feel that so was comforting for me as a huge fan of his books.

Allegra was very easy to fall in love with. She is this beautiful and kind girl who loves books and keeps this mask in place that made my heart ache for her. She is a great representation of most of my dear friends who are autistic. It made her feel so real for me.

Jonah was also the love interest I wanted for her from jump. The emails, the understanding of who she was, their almost instant connection (good or bad). One of his lines made me flutter as a reader. He is such a hopeless romantic without even realizing it.

I did throughly enjoy this book and will be recommending it to friends. I debated hard on 3 or 4 stars. For now, I'm going to do a happy 3.5 on Goodreads and Storygraph, but i will be rounding to a 4 on Netgally!

Wish You Were Here is a captivating YA romance that explores the price of fame, the literary industry and the experience of being an autistic teenage both in and out of the spotlight.

I really loved the character of Allegra. I related to her a lot and I immensely enjoyed reading about her experience as an autistic actress who isn’t public about her autism.

Jonah was very interesting too and I enjoyed seeing the development of his character especially regarding his views on books.

The side character all were pretty fleshed out as well and I really enjoyed the town setting. It reminded me of a lake side Stars Hollow.

All in all, Wish You Were here was a great YA book with relatable characters, an intriguing setting and a great message. Elle McNicoll has hit it out of the park again and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this book since I don’t tend to read YA, but I was really intrigued by the synopsis. Overall it was a 4 star read for me and pretty enjoyable. I love a good You’ve got mail parallel.

The story seems to be another romance of Frenemies becoming romantic but it's because they don't know they are emailing each other while in the story they don't like each other. Lighthearted romance that makes you want to tell the characters what is going on. Allegra has made it big as a movie star but wants some quiet so visits her dad in a small town during their book festival where she finds 2 young men, one wants to be with her and the other seems at odds. Allegra is autistic and we discover later that so is Jonah. Positive story about neurodivergents.

A love story you can’t help but root for!
Absolutely wonderfully written with some of the most beautiful characters

I loved this book - beautifully written, wonderful characters, a love story you can’t help but root for. Highly recommending this to everyone - an important story to read!