Not enough substance. I decided not to finish it, but that’s also because this book fell flat in my opinion. I felt like I was reading about adults touching another human being for the first time?? Like….I don’t know.

Love love loved this book. I’m a huge F1 fan so I was so excited to read this book. Great writing and the Lizzy Dent did an amazing job truly capturing what F1 is about. I was surprised with the attention to detail and how accurate the racing aspect was. I loved watching the main characters grow throughout the story and seeing both of their perspectives through the book. I would definitely recommend this book to others!

okay so this was *cute.* like, really cute. definitely a little chaotic at times (in a good way), but it totally worked for what i was in the mood for. it’s got that sunshine/grumpy vibe but not in the usual way—he’s more quiet and reserved in that british “i wear knitwear and bury my emotions” kind of way, and she’s just an adorable hot mess. the setup is fun too, with the whole fake engagement while stuck together on a road trip, and i don’t even like road trips but this one had me hooked. the slow burn built up in such a satisfying way and when they finally gave in? yeah. butterflies. the banter was solid, the writing was funny without trying too hard, and the characters actually had depth. she’s messy but loveable, and he sees that and falls for her anyway, which is just... ugh. i love that dynamic. only knocked a star off because the ending felt a little too tidy and fast, like it skipped over the deeper emotional payoff i wanted, but still really satisfying overall.

Rev your engines-Drive Me Crazy is a fresh, fast-paced sports romance that brings the thrill of Formula 1 racing and the ache of unrequited love crashing together in the best way possible.

At the heart of the story is Chloe, a driven and determined trailblazer making waves as one of the first female team principals in F1. She's focused, fearless, and ready to prove she belongs in the pit lane. What she didn't expect? Her childhood crush and ex-racing rival, Matt Warner, walking back into her life as the newest driver on her struggling team.

Matt and Chloe's history adds an irresistible layer to their chemistry-from nostalgic nicknames like "Bug" and "Dials" to the simmering tension that's been years in the making. Their banter is gold, and the spark between them is undeniable. This is a classic childhood-friends-to-lovers trope with a twist of high-octane rivalry, and it absolutely works.

Lizzy Dent does a stellar job of making the world of F1 accessible-even if you know nothing about racing, it feels authentic. The behind-the-scenes details, the adrenaline of race day, and even the emotional headspace of a driver hurtling around a track at top speed are all written with conviction. Add in a colorful cast of side characters (shoutout to Barry, the eccentric team owner and his dogs), and the world feels as vivid as the races themselves.

Chloe is a standout FMC-complex, strong, and unapologetically ambitious. Her journey from racer to team principal is compelling, though I would've loved to see more of her past on the track and how the media reacted to her history with Matt. The romance is spicy and sometimes, public, how did no one notice?!? The physical moments were front and center while the more important emotional connection between Chloe and Matt sometimes took a backseat. I kept waiting for the special moments where they shared and had a heavy conversations.

The book balances romance, sports drama, and character growth beautifully-until the very end, which felt a little rushed. Just when it seemed like things were building to a bigger emotional payoff, it wrapped up too quickly. That said, the epilogue was just what we needed, offering a satisfying glimpse of where the characters land.

If you're a fan of sports romance, childhood crushes turned steamy soulmates, and leading ladies who take no prisoners, Drive Me Crazy deserves a spot on your TBR. It's fun, fierce, and full of heart-and even if you don't care about racing, you just might by the end.

Highly recommend picking it up for that perfect spring read!

This book was so much fun! I loved the racing vibes. It had your typical romance plot but I enjoyed it so much and did not want to put it down.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy to honestly review.

a cute wholesome story. i found the writing to be okay, though it could've been so much better at times. i liked both mcc and found the overall plot cute.

I liked this store a lot could see it being a happy read for me! No notes just a good time, I like the pics and flow of the writing!

I have to admit — I was a little scared when I received the galley of this book. I’m a die hard F1 fan and was so scared of inaccuracies pulling me out of the book and worried about the team principal/driver relationship being problematic. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. It is so clear that Dent did her research — like to the level that she could probably call race strategy for a weekend. And she really managed Chloe’s growth so well. I wish some things had been more flushed out — was Jack stalking Chloe? And the one year gap felt like a bit of a stretch for two people constantly on the verge of getting caught. But ultimately I loved this book and I think it’s a must read for race fans while being perfectly approachable and sweet for people who don’t spend their weekends thinking about tire strategy.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the ARC!! This was such a good read - especially for the F1 girlies. Or, girlies who want to start reading F1 romance! There was a good amount of explaining if you don’t know what’s going on in the technical aspects, but it also is accurate in all of the details. And I loved the forbidden romance elements of this story - there was plenty of build up to it and I loved that. Overall, I really enjoyed this story!!

I thought this was a really fun book! It was my first in the formula 1 racing world, so I enjoyed getting to learn about that. Always love a female boss bitch, so while I did enjoy Chloe I did wish she was a little less timid and unsure of herself. The banter between her and Matt kept me entertained and I liked seeing how they navigated their new boss/employee relationship. Would recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lizzy Dent, and Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Drive Me Crazy is a really fun romance set in the world of F1 racing. I loved getting to see the ins and outs of a sport I know nothing about while also falling in love with these characters. Chloe and Matt are old friends who are reunited as Chloe is trying to prove to the world she can run a team while Matt is trying to make it back on top after a fall from grace. I loved seeing the character development of both Chloe and Matt as they grew into their confidence professionally and personally.

This book has a lot of excitement, emotional depth, and a little bit of spice. Overall, this is a great quick read!

I love a good sports romance and Drive Me Crazy hit it out of the park.

Chloe after years of fighting her way up the Formula One circuit, she get's chosen to be the new team principal for a small underdog racing group. Much to her surprise, she finds out that the team owner Barry has also brought under wondered/burnout Matt. The only problem with is is a past full of memories for both, a career alerting crash for Matt, and imposter syndrome for Chloe.... the team is failing to be successful. The story unfolds as Matt and Chloe start to face their biggest fears on and off tract, while the world around them starts to respect the racing team as a great team.

But most of all can Chloe risk it all to finally have what she always wanted... Matt.

As they learn how to be a team, and we get introduced to some great assemble characters: Barry (and we love his two dogs), Archie, Keyla, and more.

Drive Me Crazy is one of the best sports romance's that I have ever read to be honest. I love the fact that there is a good amount of romance but also a good amount of the actual sport in the book. The cast of characters make me smile and honestly just a good all around book.

3.25 stars.
A few things. I feel like I learned more about F1, which is great, because I have found over the past 1-2 years that I have really enjoyed books with this sport.
We have a childhood crush turned forbidden love story.
Chloe and Matt were a cute couple, and their relationship ran the gamut - crush/friends, then frenemies, and then lovers.
The supporting characters were the perfect addition to the plot.
The plot was well structured. The pace felt a bit rushed in some areas, and then in others, it felt as if too much time was spent on minor things, but again, I still liked the book.
Dual POV.
My complaint comes in with character development. I love Matt and Chloe, however, I needed more writing that involved developing their characters. This book becomes easily a 4-star book if I just had more about them and how they change in the book. Some of it is there, for example, Chloe and her struggle in a male-dominated workplace, but while she develops some... it sort of fell flat to me? Maybe it's just me. We only get that resolution in the epilogue - unless I just really missed it.
The banter between Matt and Chloe.. love it! Barry and his dogs?! - LOVE.
Please check Lizzy's triggers before reading, she does a great job outlining them in the book before you dive in.
Trope: childhood crush, friends to lovers, brokenness, PTSD - Matt, F1 Racing Sports Romance, challenging workplace, forced proximity, and workplace romance.
Overall, I did enjoy the book. I think with the character development improved, and maybe some of the public intimacy removed (it sort of becomes unrealistic), this is a 4-star book.
Thank you so much to Lizzy Dent and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
This was my first Lizzy Dent book and will not be my last!
Happy Reading!

while I like the idea of the fmc being the boss in the dynamic I thought she could have been a bit more confident in herself. She definitely worked her way up and deserved where she was as the principal but she had shaky confidence. The romance between the mmc and fmc was pretty good though.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the character development throughout for both of the main characters. All of the supporting characters were just so genuine too. The book is definitely on the spicier side in my opinion. My only reason for going down a star was the spicy scenes in mainly public places which just threw me off a bit. But overall I definitely recommend! Big thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the opportunity to read this book early!

Well, it was a solid read. I‘m not a fan of driver romance but this one was executed pretty well. I enjoyed the story despite enormous being a fan of childhood crush romance but this was well written and fascinating. Some of the characters‘ actions didn’t make much sense and that is my only complaint.

OK. I don’t say this lightly. 100 stars. This is God-tier level modern romance writing. This is up there with Emily Henry, Tessa Bailey. Possibly the best romance novel I’ve ever read.

The FMC character is cool, brilliant, confident, sexy, interesting upbringing, unique hobby without being like “look how cool and different she is“. The MMC character seems attractive, charming, funny, and an absolute flirtatious rascal which never seems to exist in actual romance novels for whatever reason. Male main characters in romance novels never realistically flirt-they never actually tease the girls are flirting with- they never gently push the boundaries while they’re flirting, probably because some keyboard warrior would call it violating- but in real life, that’s what close flirtatious friends do. Touch a leg, because she does like it even though she said they shouldn’t. Sneaky beach kiss, even though they agreed to keep distance, because they both DO want it. A tug of war. And Matt is a goddamn MENACE. I love him. I want to marry him myself.

On top of this, they made the F1 subplot SO AWESOME AND INTERESTING without overexplaining. Granted, I’m vaguely interested in cars and I’m not bored of racing, but I genuinely don’t know very much about F1 particularly as an American. They did a great job of explaining it without making it feel like I was reading an encyclopedia.

I am absolutely adding this author to my instant read list and probably going to go buy this book when it gets published despite having already read it.

My only concern is the horrendous proofreading that needs to be done before publishing. Spelling errors abound- including a major racing brand. I’m sure Haas would not appreciate being spelled Hass at one point.

2⭐️ // ultimately left me feeling underwhelmed

Chloe has finally, after years of hard work, achieved her dream of becoming the principal for a F1 team. There’s only one problem—the team she’s now leading is the laughingstock of F1. But hey, turning this team around is the perfect way to show this male-dominated sport she’s the best, right? Only, on the same day she’s hired, the team owner blindsides her by announcing that Matt Warner is joining the team as their main driver. The same Matt Warner Chloe grew up with. The same Matt Warner she had more than a childhood crush on. The same Matt Warner who was F1’s rising star until a crash that nearly killed his best friend and stole his confidence. Oh, and the funds for this team are running low. If Chloe can’t turn things around this season, they’ll all be out of jobs during the next. No pressure, right?

First, thanks to NetGalley and Putnam Books for the chance to be an ARC reader for this book. I’ll admit, it’s a hard one to rate, but I’ve ultimately decided to give it a 2⭐️ rating as I enjoyed parts of it, but it overall fell flat.

Ultimately, I found this story hard to engage with. I kept with it because I liked the premise and I figured my struggle to connect might be because I know very little about F1 racing. But I eventually realized my lack of F1 knowledge shouldn’t have displaced me so much with the story because it’s ultimately a childhood friends-to-lovers romance about a woman in a male dominated field. I shouldn’t have to be an expert in the main character’s professional field to connect to that premise.

The reason I struggled to connect execution of the premise. It’s like Lizzy Dent knew where she started and where she wanted to go with the plot, but wasn’t sure how she wanted to get there so she wrote in several different ways that should have moved us in the direction of the ending before deciding on one without ever giving these other potential pathways a conclusion. Unfortunately, all this did was create a bunch of red herrings that distracted from the character development—which a story like this one relies heavily on.

For example, Chloe is our main female character. Her biggest struggle is that she’s a female in a male-dominated field. Which means her biggest plot points should have been centered around the men around her undermining her and her development should have been centered around demanding the respect she deserves. Now, she struggles with imposter syndrome, which is realistic for a woman in her situation. But she didn’t ultimately deal with the disrespect of the men around her, the men in her life who loved her did. That makes her a damsel figure, which completely undermines her character arch.

In fact, in one of the first conversations readers witness between Chloe and Matt, Matt points out if she doesn’t demand respect from the team, and especially this unnamed strategist who is nonchalantly ignoring her expertise, then she’s always going to have problems. And yet, she never deals with this unnamed strategist head-on. She just works around him by hiring Archie and Jasper. Which would be realistic in fixing this problem, if it weren’t for the fact this unnamed strategist is never brought up again. He’s supposedly still part of the team, but we never see his reaction to her hires or her decisions. So we get an unresolved plot point that aids in undermining Chloe’s character development.

Then there’s Matt. The plot points surrounding his development don’t undermine his growth so much as they just don’t provide growth. He claims repeatedly that guilt over causing the crash that almost killed his best friend is what’s keeping him from giving his all to the sport, but his journey of overcoming this guilt isn’t compelling and feels underwhelming, adding to the overall story’s struggle to keep readers engaged in the plot.

The dialogue and inner monologues of these characters is also at some points repetitive, which makes the pace feel like it’s dragging on.

While I don’t mind spice, I’m not a reader who reads for spice, so all I can tell you about the spice in this novel is that it’s there. I sometimes felt Matt was motivated more out of lust for Chloe and love for her, though.

There were some fun parts of this story. Barry was a fun side character. Matt’s jealously of Jack was interesting.

I wish I could have enjoyed this more than I did.

Ce livre ne sort qu'en janvier mais j'ai eu l'opportunité de le découvrir! J'ai foncé sur ce livre car on est dans l'univers de la Formule 1 et on va suivre une cheffe (oui oui) d'écurie qui doit tenter de sauver son équipe avec un pilote proche du burn out! J'ai trouvé l'idée de base très originale : mettre une femme en tant que cheffe d'équipe dans un milieu qui reste tout de même très masculin cela fait du bien et puis un pilote qui est torturé par certaines de ces actions qui veut tout lâcher mais qui va tout faire pour aider sa patronne! J'ai passé un très bon moment avec ce livre même si j'ai trouvé que la fin était un peu précipitée! J'ai vraiment apprécié le développement des personnages et de leur relation ! J'espère qu'on aura un autre tome sur Noah car il le mérite !

En bref, si vous êtes fan de F1, foncez sur ce livre

Chloe & Matt are a perfect friends to enemies to lovers! I loved the banter as well as the sweet fluff. The back and forth and hiding their feelings/attraction was well done. Cute glimpses of their coworkers and families and Jack was a real prat. Enjoyed the F1 world and Arden racing!