What a weird and enjoyable book! I gave this 4 stars because I was weirdly drawn to Allison and the way she moves through life. A truly authentic portrayal of what it's like navigating life as a late twenty something. What a whole bunch of emotion that Silverberg was able to pack into this short book. She also did a great job narrating which was pleasantly surprising based on past experiences with authors as narrators.

It will take a specific type of person to like this but the end was such an interesting surprise that I was stoked on.

"First Time, Long Time" follows Allison, an aspiring writer who moves to L.A. hoping to rebuild her life after years of quietly drowning in the grief of losing her brother. She’s stuck in both her career and her relationships until a chance encounter with Reid, a once famous radio DJ (and her dad’s longtime idol), shakes things up. What starts as an unexpected bond quickly spirals into something even more complicated when Allison finds herself drawn not to Reid, but to his daughter, Emma.

This book felt like catching up with your old college roommate the one who always knew how to make you laugh while also dropping some soul-crushing wisdom over takeout. I loved how raw and honest Allison’s inner monologues were, and the way the story captures that weird, painful, beautiful mix of emotions that come with grief, love, and trying to figure yourself out. It's tender, messy, funny, and unexpectedly moving.

A truly impressive debut I’d absolutely recommend it.

I received this book from NetGalley for a review. I thought this was a memoir for most of the book. It feels like a memoir. While it’s not true weird girl lit fic, Allison is pretty normal as far as these things go, it feels like weird girl lit fic, which I liked. The MC is dealing with the grief of a loved one, which I like right now, as I’m also coming to terms with a couple of deaths.

Allison is struggling to find her way as a writer in LA. She ekes out a living as a college English teacher and book club facilitator for wealthy older women. At a bar after a tiring day, Allison meets a famous radio personality, Reid Steinman, her father is a huge fan of. He takes an interest in her and Allison is drawn into his world. Soon after they begin seeing each other, Allison meets Reid’s daughter, who is intriguing, beautiful, and sexy, and begins a relationship with her. As Allison becomes more deeply involved with father and daughter, she’s forced to reflect on her relationships with her own family and the loss of her brother.

This was an enjoyable read. It’s very reflective, which I enjoyed, especially her reflections on grief and relationships past. While nothing amazing or life changing happens, Allison’s relationships with father and daughter are humorous and entertaining. Just the thought of that scenario makes me chuckle. This book comes out in a couple of weeks!

A lovely, unique literary fiction novel. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I enjoyed the characters a lot. The weaving of tales of the main character’s father with her entanglement with the radio host was excellent.

I enjoyed that the author narrated her own audiobook, as well - the performance was nice. I think it fell a bit flat for me in some of the emotional beats, though.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3 ⭐️

I’m gonna tell you all something. I read the synopsis, I requested this ARC, but I made it through 40% of it, fully believing that this was a memoir. It is written and narrated very much like a memoir. That being said, it felt disjointed in its pacing and I never really felt like I could feel the flow with the story.

BUT… this story was pretty cool. I enjoyed the idea of self exploration in your late 20s, as that is something I very much related to. After almost a decade of doing everything society expects you to do (post graduation), you finally hit a point where you think to yourself “what the fuck?” Honestly, knowing that other people went through this phase makes me very interested in the topic. I wanna hear some late 20s antics from other people.

Also the idea of going through this phase while coming out of the shadow of grief was another gut punch. Especially grief for someone so close and so young.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It’s very conversational. I would recommend it to some people, maybe those who are on the precipice of that time in their lives and feel like they are going crazy believing they’ve wasted years doing what everyone else expected. Or maybe those who feel like they were alone in that time. This book didn’t deliver the message in a pretty package, but that’s sometimes how life can be.

Thank you so much to Amy Silverberg and her publisher for the advanced copy! 🫶🏼

I enjoyed this one so much. The writing style was impeccable along with such a messy plot- I couldn't stop reading this one.

Allison is a junior college professor in LA that lives in a crappy apartment and does many side hustles to stay afloat. That is until one night she meets Reid- her dad's absolute idol. Reid is a very famous radio show host and after flirting they hit it off. As their relationship grows she meets his daughter Emma, and we'll lets just say they have insane chemistry. Allison is stuck between a rock and a hard place when making a decision between the two of them.

Allison is 28, steeped in the grief of losing her older brother and has just gotten into a relationship with a celebrity who is more than 30 years her senior. As the story progresses though, she falls in love with someone else.

This book had me in the start. It was witty, descriptive and something of a comfort read. A book to read by the fire under a cozy blanket as you contemplated the good and the bad similarities that you keep finding between yourself and this nothing out of the ordinary main character. It explored a variety of character types and relationship dynamics that certainly kept your attention but did not necessarily elevate it into a deeply personal experience; rather keeping it all simply relatable. Read like a memoir, the story is more character driven than its plot. If that's your thing, you should definitely check this one out. For me though, for a story that had such little plot points and so much exposition, I would've appreciated it more if it was more of a novella than a 300 page book.

I really do want to reiterate about the quantity of exposition present in this book. Allison is often going back and forth in her thoughts, exploring her past memories of her brother, her best friend, her mother's sensitive line of work and sometimes these deep explorations are done at the expense of the readers' (in my case, the listener's) awareness of the plot continuity. Sometimes when she came back to the present, I couldn't really remember where we were before she had wandered off.

While the book had multiple moments when my attention teetered off, one of the most memorable charms of FTLT were the witty quotables peppered throughout the narration. A few exhibits I personally bookmarked included:

"Closeness allowed for anger; meanness. My mother and I knew the contours of each other's grievances. I had never been meaner to anyone than my mother, especially after my brother was gone."

"Was there a person in the world who did not feel injured by their childhood? I felt maimed in some elemental way. But I knew this from teaching and reading books and so did everybody."

"It was not good to spend too much time thinking about your own life. Your own life became a wormy writhing thing under that kind of attention. No life looked good in such harsh, unforgiving light. No choice seemed right."

A 100 pages less, and this would've easily been a 4 star read(listen).


Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Audio for providing me with the ALC of FTLT in exchange for an unbiased review!

I went in to this book knowing very little about it -- I saw that the author was on one of my favorite podcasts so I decided to check it out. It was a slow burn for me but once I got invested I had to know what was going to happen. Although parts of it made me cringe, I did grow to really care for Allison and wanted to the best for her.

I love reading books about LA, and enjoyed the parts about stand-up comedy.

I listened to this one and Amy Silverberg narrates it -- she did a great job with the audio and I love hearing an author read their own work. I will definitely check out more by her in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

28-year-old Allison cobbles a medley of jobs in LA to support her pursuit of a career as a writer. When we meet her, she teaches courses on fiction and the sort at a junior college and facilitates book clubs for wealthy women. The hours she devotes to writing don’t offer any financial stability or a source of income, for that matter. Yet readers will implicitly learn in time that Allison’s most desired occupational goal is to write. Conversely, what’s explicitly revealed is her biological family’s dynamics. Her parents separate when Allison is 17, and she and her mom continually refer to her dad as The Problem, a moniker that captures his fluctuating, manic personality. Readers get the sense that he suffers from past trauma, which expresses itself as a bipolar disorder; if it’s not a full-blown mental health condition, his adult life evidences problematic signs that indicate issues left unresolved. Even having moved away from her hometown outside of Reno, NV, The Problem’s voice continually rings in Allison’s adult mind. The echoes of his dominating and demanding character tether Allison, and she fixates on what her capricious dad thinks or would respond to situations.

Ironically, the voice inside The Problem’s consciousness is Reid Steinman, a man the dad worships. Reid is 6 years younger than Allison’s dad, and when Allison randomly meets Reid in LA, the two begin dating. Publicly, Reid works in showbiz as a controversial radio DJ, popularly known as a crass womanizer. However, in person, Allison learns that her dad’s idol puts on a persona on air; in real life, he is an orderly person who sticks to his schedule and loves his wandering daughter, Emma. As Allison and Reid’s romantic relationship develops, Allison becomes close to Emma. At first, the two similar-in-age women connect because Emma wants to make it as a stand-up comedian; this was Allison’s older brother’s dream, too. 11 years Allison’s senior, Jack leaves home at 15 and, from an unforeseen tragedy, dies in a train accident as his career started taking off. His absence left Allison to navigate caring for her difficult dad by herself, first indefinitely; later, for good. Emma fills this thick-as-thieves-sibling gap, and before long, Allison begins a romantic relationship with Emma while she is with Reid. The novel ends with Allison’s wedding to an unknown person.

The parallels between characters abound, placed side-by-side for easy comparison and contrast. Reid remains stable, almost rigid—readers keep wondering when his relationship with Allison will end. Allison voices her concern, too: “I keep waiting for you to change your mind about me.” To our surprise, Reid seems committed to her. On the other hand, Allison’s dad travels like a vagabond, gets overwhelmed easily, and can’t confirm his Thanksgiving plans. Allison mediates and diffuses situations for her dad; according to Reid’s manager, Reid becomes more enjoyable to work with since seeing Allison. Emma parallels her father in their assertive certainty; both father and daughter exemplify rotating personas in showbiz.

I kept trying to figure out the author’s emphasis in the parallels; it seems to me that the point is to highlight the convoluted ways we are nurtured by the people who raise us. Contrary to reviews that suggest a woman turning 30 should behave more maturely, I understood the author’s emphasis in showing how generational trauma passes and compounds, particularly when the events don’t receive the acute attention required to process them. Plus, it’s not as though Allison isn’t still working or pursuing her goals (albeit slowly), and the book club subplot meaningfully emphasizes Allison’s meandering.

The bubbling plot and uncertain pressure that brims the story effectively keep me engaged. Silverberg shows her strength in how she matches ideas, even theoretical ones related to writing. The derisive yet curious tone satisfied. Told entirely from Allison’s perspective, our main character’s acerbic voice—neither overly satirical nor sarcastic—holds the questionable life choices that unfold, the results for which she both is and isn’t responsible.

In sum, First Time, Long Time feels uneventfully eventful, and Silverberg’s debut novel (3.5 stars) deserves rounding up. I look forward to this author’s future publications. My thanks to Hachette Audio, Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC. I shared this review on GoodReads on July 12, 2025 (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7690205525).

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and author for this ARC in exchange for an HONEST review.

RATING : 2.75 stars

If you enjoy plot driven books, this is not for you as there is little to no storyline or arc. This book feels like 299 pages of exposition and 5 pages of a conclusion. Personally, I felt like there was way too much backstory, especially in the beginning, this took me out of the narrative constantly and made me forget what was actually going on between the couple. In my opinion, a lot of the backstory could have been left out and it wouldn’t have made too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

The pacing of the story as mentioned was not great, it was extremely slow in the beginning, slightly ramped up in the middle and then ended abruptly. Either the synopsis needs to be fixed because it gave away too much away or the novel should have expanded on the premise of the synopsis instead of using 300 pages to say the same thing as the 2 para synopsis.

The characters themselves were also one dimensional and were basically caricatures : Allision - the unfulfilled girl with daddy issues, Reid - the snobby and slightly narcissistic radio star and Emma - a nepotism baby who has no idea how to adult. If I can describe all the characters in a few phrases, it’s clear that they didn’t have much depth.

Read this book if you have a lot of spare time and want to read some occasional one line zingers

I appreciate the opportunity to give this book a try, it ticked a lot of boxes for me in terms of what i’m looking for in a novel, however I found it to be a very difficult book to finish. The pacing felt strange; it was incredibly slow for the first 60-70% of the book and then there were almost too much movement happening all at once. The pacing of the audiobook also felt disjointed and it made it difficult to really relax into the story, which is a shame because I really think the premise of this book had so much potential.

I almost DNFd this and I kind of wish I had. It was very underwhelming. I was waiting for something exciting to happen and it never did. Just felt like a lack of true resolution.

I liked this book but probably wouldn’t recommend it to everyone. There are some elements to Alison’s story that might be triggering to some and I’m finding it difficult to figure out what I want to say about it.

The way the author told the story gripped me right away. It read like a lot of memoirs with the shorter chapters and quick scene changes. Alison reminded me of a lot of women I know in their 20’s to early 30’s who have complicated relationships with the their parents, their career path and their sexuality. We spend a lot of time with her as she’s processing the death of her brother and how she’s carrying that grief and responsibility as the only surviving child.

The story takes a turn when she meets one of her dad’s heroes- a Howard Stern copycat radio host named Reid. I think she’s surprised at how this larger than life celebrity is taking the time to not only speak with her but is showing romantic interest. The way it’s written makes it seem like she’s along for the ride and attracted to the possibilities of excitement rather than the man himself. We see that when his daughter enters the mix and she’s can’t stop thinking about her.

My one complaint about this story was how much we were building up to the choice of Alison choosing between father and daughter and we find out that after she chooses the relationship fizzles in an unsatisfying way. There was no payoff for that struggle.

It was almost as if the story was a snapshot of this difficult time for Alison and then the story is quickly wrapped up in a way that I didn’t really care about anymore. We find out she gets married and seems settled in almost an epilogue type chapter but I found myself zoning out and I’m not sure of the details.

’m glad I read this book via audiobook. The author was also the narrator. I liked this because the story seemed very honest and unpolished and the author reading over a voice actor was the perfect choice for this type of story. I started to think of Alison as a woman I could see myself being friends with.

This is an instance where I wish I had read the book and not listened to it. I do see this was author narrated and I am unsure (but hope) if there is a plan to have it recorded with a different narrator. It read/listened more like an autobiography than a novel and not in a good way.
It felt messy, disjointed, slow, and incredibly underwhelming. I found myself simply not caring when THAT happened.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the ARC and I hope this one finds its intended audience.

I'm always willing to read a book about a messy bisexual in her late twenties/early thirties so this seemed liked something I would enjoy. Overall, I thought it was okay but a little too meandering for my personal taste. I did like the author's narration.

I really did not like this. Between the scattered storyline and the narrator's loud and defensive neutral voice, it was just a difficult listen. I wish this were less of a daddy issue and more of an unhinged woman's story. I don't believe the author should continue doing narration.

This one almost had me. The humor is sharp and the FMC is delightfully messy. All the bones of a great story are there.

I found myself wanting to love this, but was ready for it to wrap up. It felt like it would have worked better as a short story. The plot did not have enough momentum for the length. Still, it had charm and wonderful character-driven chaos. 3.5-stars

Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the chance to listen to this book in exchange for my opinion.

This is the story of Allison, who falls for a radio host with a standard slimy persona, in the style of Howard Stern. Allison is struggling with a sort of aloof grief when it comes to the loss of her brother, and her parents, who seem sort of loopy and narcissistic. The story is so approachable and absorbing, especially when it comes to noticing how Allison feels about her proximity to fame, as well as the age and power gap - and what about her goals for herself? Her ambitions? Interestingly, the radio host is softer and sweeter (although kind of dorky/lame in a predictable way) than we first expect. And Allison is more complicated than we first expect.

I loved this protagonist's voice, and I would recommend the audiobook in particular! It was wonderfully read and very immersive.

It's a heartfelt, witty exploration of what it means to feel lost in your late twenties. It beautifully captures the emotional messiness of navigating grief, identity, mental health, and complicated relationships—especially when bisexuality puts the protagonist in a situation that’s not easy to untangle. The book felt like a mix of humor and heartache, often making me laugh while also nudging me to reflect. I loved how it handled the in-between stages of life—the not-quite-knowing, the longing, the growing pains. There’s something deeply relatable about feeling like you’re trying to figure it all out while the world keeps spinning.

While the story was entertaining and thoughtful, it left me wanting a bit more at the end. But Amy Silverberg’s narration truly made the experience—so warm, funny, and emotionally sharp.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the ALC in exchange of my honest review.

1.5 ⭐️
The audiobook would be more enjoyable if it was not read by the author. The narrator/author was extremely monotone at times and it made it hard to enjoy the story. I could tell that she was trying to add more energy into at times, but most of the time, it sounded bland. I needed a narrator who told the story different. With more energy, changes in expression. I would not recommend the audiobook version of this novel.

As for the story itself, it felt like a very long. I was looking forward for it to get better, for her to hopefully leave that old man behind and heal. The radio host was described at the most unappealing man. I couldn’t believe that she pursued him when he had little redeeming qualities. It was a very honest story. Life can be very mundane, depressing, and it’s hard to escape certain things. I wish I wasn’t reading about it though. I kept searching for the positive moments, to feel like I could get lost in the story. At the very least, I hoped for the negative moments to be dramatic & entertaining. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of dread for 80% of the book. It got exciting towards the end, I was finally starting to enjoy it and then it just fell apart. In the last chapter we were brought up, brought back down and got a fast forward into life now. That left me really disappointed.

It was quite a difficult book to finish. I completed this book to give it a proper honest review. I think there is a lot of potential here. I think it could be executed in a more entertaining way and with better narration. Thank you to Hachette Audio, Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley and Amy Silverberg for this ALC in exchange for an honest review!