I've only just now started getting into the friends to lovers trope, and this book seemed like the perfect fit to branch out; unfortunately the love interests just gave me major bestie vibes. And that's usually my biggest bone to pick with this trope: the romantic feelings feel like they come out of nowhere.

But I gotta give my boy Theo his flowers. What a darling, bless his heart. We love a teacher who engages and cares deeply about his students.

Ooof. DNF @ 20%

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC audiobook, but man I just cannot continue on.

I wanted to DNF around 6% but also knew I needed to at least give this a true try.

But the political agenda this book was serving up in a silver platter — no thank you. Why can’t we just write book for everyone to enjoy without shoving your opinions on politics down the readers throat?

I cannot go on. There are too many good books out there to read, that I will not waste my time with this one. Tried to try a new author and will be scratching this one off my list for good.

The author's passion shines through in this book. I absolutely loved that the MMC was a teacher and used Survivor to help engage his students. I also loved that the FMC had a chronic illness and helped show life with her condition. It was well written and explored many intriguing themes like the ones previously mentioned. I encourage others to try it out! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

This was easy listening with strong voicey writing. Very inclusive with smartly observed social issues woven throughout. I felt one of the two narrators was doing a bit much, a little too melodramatic for my taste.

“Friends With Benefits” is a romcom that offers a familiar, feel-good storyline of lifelong friends falling in love. Evie and Theo, both carrying their own emotional baggage from past trauma, have been secretly in love with each other since their preteen years. Their close friendship has always been the foundation of their lives, and it’s clear that the bond between them is special. When Evie finds herself in financial and medical distress, she and Theo come up with a practical solution: they marry so she can benefit from his insurance.

As with most romcoms, we know where this story is headed, and that’s part of the charm. It’s the journey to the happily-ever-after that keeps readers engaged. Unfortunately, I found that this journey felt a little more tedious than I’d hoped.

The long-time friends-to-lovers trope is always tricky, and I think the author does a solid job explaining why these two haven’t acted on their feelings sooner. Their past is filled with miscommunication and emotional immaturity, making it plausible that they didn’t confess their feelings when they were teens. As adults, their reluctance to risk their friendship for the unknown of romance is also believable and relatable.

However, once Evie and Theo finally acknowledge their feelings and insist that they can have a “casual” sexual relationship, the story lost me. The obstacles they face after this turning point felt a bit forced and repetitive. Rather than communicating openly, both characters seem to throw up emotional roadblocks that stem from their inability to have a straightforward conversation—something that feels out of place for two people who share such a deep connection. This repetition started to weigh the story down and pulled me out of the experience.

Overall, while *Friends With Benefits* certainly has its moments of warmth, it didn’t quite delivery for me. The foundation of a great story was there, but the pacing and some of the character choices made it harder for me to stay fully invested. That said, fans of lighthearted romcoms may enjoy Evie and Theo’s story.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Overall, 4 stars, this book gave me Abby Jimenez vibes. It was really close to 4.5 stars BUT I strongly dislike third person POV books (personal option). I love the friends to lovers trope and the story between Theo and Evie was so sweet. The friendship between Theo and Evie grew so organically and I loved their mutual respect and care for each other. What I really enjoyed about the book were the character development, the side characters, Theo and Evie's backstories, the humor (especially Theo's students <3), and how caring and observant Theo was.

If you liked Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez, you will probably like this one. It gave me similar vibes.

Format: audiobook

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this advanced audiobook!

*Dual POV - third person
*Friends to lovers
*Childhood trauma
*Marriage of convenience
*Chronic illness

These characters, especially the FMC, were extremely unlikable. While that is not necessarily a requirement, in this case, this certainly affected my overall enjoyment of the book.

I think I may have discovered that I’m not a huge fan of the friends-to-lovers trope. Evie and Theo are best friends, and have a serious attraction to each other that has gone on for over a decade, and yet they don’t seem to realize they’re supposed to be together!? It just seems absolutely ridiculous.
Theo seemed unrealistically patient and Evie was just a little cuckoo. 😝

I listened to the audio of this, and I do think it was relatively well done. I like the dual perspectives, and some of the side characters were very cute, especially the grandparents. I also like the inside look at both Theo and Evie‘s different careers.

Overall, this book was not for me, but I do think some readers will enjoy.

Friends with Benefits by Marisa Kanter surprised me and left me with a slight book hangover. This was my first experience with her writing, and it was absolutely delightful. The narrative was both emotional and uplifting, offering many layers to the friends-to-lovers and marriage-of-convenience romance. Evie and Theo, lifelong friends and former ballroom dance partners, are now adults—Theo as a teacher and Evie as an emerging Foley artist. Together, they have navigated various life challenges. Evie faces a chronic illness and requires better health insurance, while Theo needs a wife for practical reasons (i.e, rent in LA), leading to their unexpected marriage, something Evie never envisioned for herself. As someone living with a chronic illness in America, I resonated deeply with Evie's struggles regarding insurance and the associated medical trauma. I also felt a mix of frustration and affection for her stubbornness (in the most loving "let him love you" way!). Theo was a wonderful and empathetic main male character. I truly enjoyed their long-term story, enriched with glimpses of their past woven throughout the contemporary narrative, and I was rooting for their happy ending. The narrators did an excellent job bringing the story to life, and I wholeheartedly recommend either listening to or reading this book!

Evie has been offered a fellowship but it looks like she’ll have to pass because rent and healthcare isn’t cheap. Then her best friend Theo comes up with an idea. He has great insurance and if they get married they can stay in his apartment together. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Marriage. But marrying your best friend who you’ve had a crush on for years is anything but simple.

Friends with benefits is a good mix of fun banter, heat and emotional conversations. Theo lost his mother to cancer, Evies parents aren’t the best and on top of that she is battling a chronic illness.

I personally enjoyed the survivor convos, it’s the one reality show I still follow. It adds a fun touch but won’t confuse those who don’t watch it. The ending could’ve been more fleshed out, it felt a bit cut short as is.

The narrators are great, I love that there are two of them to make the dual pov stand out more. All in all I enjoyed it. Can’t go wrong with a sweet and spicy romcom.

Read this if you like
💜Friends to lovers
✨Forced proximity
😭Emotional reads
💍Marriage of convenience

Confirmed: Hot girls have tummy issues. Love the chronic disability rep. Totally related to FMC having to break (literally) before medical community would take her pain seriously and diagnose/treat her autoimmune disease. Doing all the tests and hearing “everything is normal” is unbelievably frustrating, these people have clearly never shit their pants and it shows. With Theo’s mom dealing the similar issue, well it’s no wonder he goes above and beyond to care for Evie. The commentary of our dystopic health care system here in ‘merica was spot on.

Now for the love story…if you like imperfect characters, piss poor timing, and even worse emotional intelligence, this book will fit the mark. These two knuckleheads will make you want to reach in and shake them, but also give them big ole hugs.

Thank you Net Galley and Macmillan audio for the ARC.

This book is hard to rate because the writing was good, the premise fun but the characters and their constant back and forth, their aversion to having even the most simple of conversations, their complete obliviousness, they were just f*cking unbearable. Also, the whole purpose of them getting married was to keep this apartment, then magically he moves and and she just stays there alone. It pissed me off that we were 95% in and they were still being idiots.

The premise of the book was unique and had a lot of potential. I really enjoyed the characters at the beginning and their unique dilemma. I found it difficult to really buy into the story though. While I liked the characters enough, I never found myself loving them or really rooting for them. Their story just fell a little flat for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for the opportunity to listen to Friends with Benefits in advance. This was a very cute story. Childhood friends know each other better than anyone and a marriage of convenience. Evie and Theo were very likable characters. Evie and her invisible illness, Chrohn's, and Theo who will do anything for his friend, including marrying her so she can keep her insurance benefits she desperately needs. At first I wasn't sure how this would play out since their relationship was platonic for so long. As you got further into the story you could see little things that indicated that they both felt maybe there was something more but afraid to act on it and ruin the friendship. I really enjoyed the narration of this audiobook as well.

So this is the first time I have ever used this term about a book and in fact, I had to search to find a descriptor. Over-inclusion. I get what the author was trying to do here and I respect characters having underlying health difficulties as a main characteristic, but this book was trying too hard to represent multiple issues and there were so many pop culture references. It was a lot to manage as a reader. Maybe this would appeal to younger readers better.

The main character of Evie is not that likable and she's quite immature for the age she is stated to be at 28. I found her frustrating. I tried to go with the flow and not judge the "romance" which didn't feel all that romantic to me. It felt forced, like maybe these two had enough of trying with others and went for the familiarity out of codependency and convenience. I wasn't feeling it.

I had the audiobook version and I must give kudos to GM Hakim as he was the better narrator. Gail Shalon's narration was just ok. But I did enjoy the multiple cast narration, it helped with the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC!

Trope it like it hooootttt. Best friends to secret love to fake love to friends to lovers. Trope lovers unite over this wholesome rom com tale. Two best friends take the leap before deciding to REALLY take the leap at the risk of their friendship. A super fun lighthearted listen that I was excited to work through. Rounding up to 4 from 3.5.

First of all, WE LOVE TO SEE CHRONIC ILLNESS REPPED, especially "invisible" ones. Her story has been my story and i appreciated the thoughtful representation here. I also appreciated the author not being afraid for the characters to have a political stance and conversations around those stances, in this case it was around the US healthcare system.

For the romance, I'm never really a fan of second chance or friends to lovers because I feel like they usually just use miscommunication as the main plot device and not much else. Although that was used here a little bit, there was more realism and nuance to how it happened. Everything about this felt real and believable and i fell in love with these characters.

The only thing that I didn't like was the freaking grandparents selling the house out from under their chronically ill financially struggling grandchild when they seemed to have no financial motivation to do so, it honestly just pissed me off and also didnt feel like it made sense for the characters.

Fun, quick and cute! This was a quick read with heaviness through parental death and chronic illness. Weirdly negative ratings on Goodreads. Great narrator and loved the dual narrators!

Friends to lovers tope.. Usually I love a friends to lovers book but this one was super cringy and a little hard to follow at times. All parents of the main characters were referred to by their first names that at one point in the beginning I had no idea that it was a parent being talked about. I get they had a disconnect with them but it was just strange. Some of the character relationships were hard to follow at times because they didn't fit in or it was whiplash with how fast they came and went. Some parts felt like they were added in later and I just couldn't figure out what the point of it was ex. Evie's grandma delivering a box of "fun" to her after her grandma was MIA for most of the story. A lot of details were just very out of place. 2.5 stars for me.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! I appreciate how the narrator changed her voice for the different perspectives to maker it easier to remember who’s perspective you’re in. I also really enjoyed the story. It focused on two best friends who are just navigating their relationship, in between just wanting to be friends, but also wanting more but being scared to reach for it. Definitely recommend!

This was cute. The characters were a mess in a mostly believable way, but I felt the “romance” was pushed a little too hard. I didn’t FEEL it.

There is something about books that have too many pop culture references. This one had so many that I didn’t care for or like at all, so I felt like this wasn’t for me.

The narration is well done by both narrators.