Thank you Netgalley and Hachette Audio | Grand Central Publishing for the free alc. My opinions are being left voluntarily. This unfortunately was a DNF for me at 53% I found it lacking in plot, I found myself drifting from focusing on the story and not having any clue what it's about. I was immediately sucked into the cover however need to do better and check synopsis and see if there are any reviews posted anywhere.

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Allison, an aspiring writer, moved to L.A., where she gets a job as a teacher at a community college, in hope to finally improve her life after living in her and her parents grief over the loss of her brother, and she gets a job as a teacher at a community college. Everything changes after a chance encounter with a famous radio DJ, Reid, who happens to be her father's idol. The two develop a relationship, but things turn complicated when Allison starts to fall for Reid’s daughter, Emma.

Reading this felt like sitting down with the one messy friend you really love for coffee and listening as they share all the latest drama you've missed on recently. I don't really know how else to explain it, but it was such a great time. It's so interesting, fun and messy in the best way. It's such a complex book, but presented in a way that makes it all seem so easy. It's about grief, loneliness, finding yourself, but with so much love and a tenderness that really surprised me.

All the characters feel like old friends you've known your whole life, and it's so easy to get lost in this book and forget you are reading. The writing is so clever, with such quick, wry humour, and it hooks you in so easily. I do think it could've probably worked better as a short story, as the pacing felt weird at times, but it didn't really impact my reading experience. The narration is also such an highlight; it really breathes life into the story and the characters, and it gives it such a personal feel.

“I’m the Monopoly man.”

FirstTimeLongTime by AmySilverberg
is book one in the PerksofBeingParanormal series, and is a 3 ⭐️ read.

The Audiobook is out on the 22nd July 2025

When aspiring writer Allison moved to L.A., she expected her life to finally take shape. After years of dwelling in grief over her brother's unexpected and untimely death and allowing her mercurial parents' feelings and desires to infect her own, she feels ready become the main character in her own story again.

Yet Allison continues to feel inextricably tied to both her parents, particularly her unpredictable father, and weighed down by her the loss of her brother.

In L.A., as with anywhere else, she feels lonely and adrift, unable to write and barely scraping by as an English teacher. 

—:—:—:—:—

Well damn! Where do I start… this book comes with some heavy subject matter which we will all relate to up to some degree.

There is broken family, loss of a sibling, the questioning of all the choices Alison has made in her life, and how they impacted her journey. It was emotional, and at some points funny too.

Favourite Quote: “I like teaching junior college, the students are far less annoying than at a big university.”

Note: Please read and review all trigger warnings before reading any recommended book. We love to read for our pleasure, so keep your mind, and emotions safe!

Audio Book Available
Publisher: HachetteAudio & GrandCentralPublishing
Narrator: AmySilverberg

Publication date: 22JULY2025

Wow, Amy Silverberg, you beautiful woman! That was phenomenal!

I’ll be honest, when the audiobook began, I hated it… but for some reason, I couldn’t stop going back and wanting to hear the story move forward. I’ve never been big on audiobooks; this was fabulous.
It feels intimate, interesting, and complex. Listening to this felt like a FaceTime with an old friend, hearing a story you’ve heard before but can’t help listening to again. It feels like girlhood and the plethora of bad decisions you make before settling down, all the big emotions before becoming a woman in your own world.

Amy Silverberg is a standout, and I will be keeping an eye out for anything else she does. She was meant for this genre!

Thank you to Amy Silverberg, Net Galley, and Grand Central Publishing for this ARC.

I’ll admit I went into this one without reading the blurb first, which, looking back, might’ve been part of the disconnect. I had no real expectations going in, and yet I still found myself adrift by the halfway point. I listened to the audiobook, and while the narration itself was fine, the pacing was completely thrown off by strange, overly long pauses. It made it hard to stay engaged, and honestly, I just couldn’t justify the time investment to finish.

The writing does have cleverness to it - little turns of phrase and observations that hint at something deeper, but the story felt aimless. The protagonist’s relationships, especially the shift in her romantic focus, didn’t feel fully earned. By 50%, I still wasn’t sure what the book was trying to be, and that left me detached.

I’m sure this will click for readers who enjoy introspective, character-driven literary fiction with loose structure and dry humor, but it wasn’t for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC. I appreciate the opportunity to give it a try, even if it didn’t work out.

I had to sit with this one for a bit before I could decide how to rate it. I leaned closer to a four but after sitting with it, I don’t know how many times I would suggest this book to someone, landing me closer to the three.
Amy did a fabulous job narrating the book, and my interpretation of it is that of the grief that Allison carries with her daily. You can know all about people on the surface and never be able to go deeper. Going deeper requires you to access more and that requires you to work through the grief - which people rarely do. We don’t want to hurt, so we protect ourselves with these walls.
By the end of the book, we knew so much about Allison and Reid and Maddie but we didn’t have a story. The timeline changed frequently, as though you were in Allison’s mind with her thoughts. It’s a different style of writing, and I don’t think it’s one that truly left me satisfied at the end.
Thank you NetGalley and Hatchette Audio for the opportunity to listen to and review this book in advance of it’s release.

BOOK REVIEW

Thank you @hachetteaudio & @netgalley for this ARC 💜

If you love when a book feels like someone’s telling you a secret over coffee, this one’s for you.

Allison’s journey—navigating loss, complicated family dynamics, and a surprising romance with an older man—is honest and deeply human. And just when you think it’s all about him, in walks Maddie (his daughter), shaking things up with an unexpected connection.

The audiobook? Chef's kiss. 🤌🏼 Amy Silverberg doesn’t just write this story—she breathes it into life with her narration. Her voice carries the perfect blend of wit, warmth, and ache, making Allison’s grief, messiness, and unexpected love feel raw and real. It’s sharp, funny, messy, and so full of heart.

I really liked that the author was able to narrate her book. It made me feel closer to her and her experiences. As a young woman navigating life after the loss of her brother, she finds herself involved with an older man and then his daughter. These relationships are both stepping stones on her journey to become the woman she aspires to be.

*Thank you Netgalley and Hachette Audio for this audiobook*

This book genuinely surprised me. Now i don’t normally read this genre but the premise did catch my attention.
The first half of the book i wasn’t the most interested in. I found the main character annoying at times but i get why she was acting that way.
But the second half of the book was my favorite. Even though it went in a plot that could be seen as taboo, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was always waiting for the book to reveal it self but it never did. The story was not interesting to me and it only picked up a bit when it got messy at the end. In the beginning the book felt similar to "Margot’s Got Money Troubles" by Rufi Thorpe, but in this book the main character never really developed problems nor did she overcome any of her previous ones, while always being very self aware about them. Felt a bit pretentious at times because of all the self awareness.
Overall not an unpleasant read but nothing to write home about.

I enjoyed listening to First Time, Long Time by Amy Silverberg. The author is also the narrator. She does a good job of both. The writing is really good. I will read this author again. I didn't love the story. It wasn't very interesting to me but I am still glad I listened to it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the audio ARC.

Funny and smart in places, with a solid dose of wit, but the premise just didn’t fully land for me. The whole father-daughter love triangle mixed with cozy family dinners was… a lot, and I had a hard time buying into it. While I enjoyed the writing style and the humor kept things moving, the emotional whiplash made it tough to connect. First Time, Long Time definitely isn’t afraid to go bold with the drama—but for me, it was a little too far-fetched to fully enjoy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars
Rated R for language, sexual content, and very messy relationship dynamics.

Young woman struggling and making horrible decisions while she tries to figure out her life - I will never get tired of this incredibly relatable premise. This one stands out as one of the funniest I've read in the genre.

This is one of those rare cases where the story and the narration didn’t match for me. The writing was strong and the concept had great potential, but the audiobook adaptation unfortunately fell flat.

The narration didn’t do the tone or the characters any favours, and it made it difficult to stay immersed in the story. Had I read this in print, I’m almost certain it would’ve been a four-star experience. I’d still recommend the book itself, but with a gentle nudge toward the physical or ebook version instead.

Allison moves to LA, hoping that her life will finally improve after living in her grief of her brother’s suicide and taking on the weight of her parents’ grief. She gets a job teaching English at a community college and struggles to connect with her students, but then has a chance encounter with a famous radio DJ, Reid. Reid is an idol of Allison’s father, known for his “tell it like it is” abrasive personality. Allison develops a relationship with Reid, despite Reid being her father’s age, but things take an unexpected turn when Allison starts to fall for Reid’s daughter. It’s a tangled mess of a love triangle, requiring her to unravel her own past.

Overall, I liked the general vibe of the book. It’s got a wry sense of humor, and hearing the author narrate it herself only brought life to that humor. It was a fun concept for a novel, and even though romance is at the heart of the story, I wouldn’t exactly qualify it as a romance novel. It’s far more introspective, with identity at its core, and works out well with it being a triangle with the father and the daughter. That said, I think I struggled to connect with any of the characters, even with Allison as a sort of an antihero, and the pacing felt off. I agree that it’s witty and funny, but for me it wasn’t enough to counteract the listlessness. I’ll still keep an eye out for future projects from this author; I’m positive I’m going to like her future work.

Reviewed as part of #ARC from NetGalley. Many thanks to Hachette Audio / Grand Central Pub for the opportunity to read and review.

Read this book if you like:
😏 sardonic wit
🔺 Love triangles, maybe even age gap romances
🫣 Messy characters in tragicomedies

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This review will be posted to Instagram @AutobiographiCole on or around the release date!

Thank you to NetGalley, Amy Silverberg, and Grand Central Publishing for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was very middle of the road for me. I ultimately found Allison a bit annoying and very “woe is me.” She was hard for me to relate/connect to, and that likely also impacted my reading experience. As someone that has worked in education and education adjacent fields some of the things she said were major red flags for me with her being an educator. I found that really hard to look past because I’ve seen first hand the impact that can have on children and their education- so it was hard to suspend any disbelief for me. Ultimately though I felt for her loss and was rooting for her to make it as a writer and get her HEA. It was not my favorite but it was not a bad book, and could still be a great read for someone else!

This book reads like a stream of consciousness which can be ok but this one was a miss for me. I had a very hard time connecting with the main character and ultimately didn't care what happened. DNF at 50%

In this book we are following Allison who is an aspiring writer, she is also a teacher, and her mom is tired of her being single. She eventually runs into this popular radio host, who her father and late brother loves/loved… and she acts like she doesn’t know that much about him(she does, but ya know we love a little mess). They start dating, but then.. she also meets Emma(idk why the blurb says Maddie), and she starts to catch feelings for Emma as well.

This turns into a predicament for obvious reasons. Lies are being told. Sneaking around etc. all the things you’d expect from a messy lit fic.

I have read some reviews and I do have to agree that I think this would have been better as a short story(150 pages or so).

I never felt quite connected to Allison’s grief over her brother. It felt like it was more just something that happened vs something she was really feeling deeply.

There was one scene where Allison is in an argument with someone and she said when they were done, she wanted to shake their hand. Idk that made me giggle!

This is definitely a character driven book vs plot.

Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the ALC!

This one didn’t quite land for me. It had an interesting set up, but I found myself struggling to stay invested. While I appreciated the exploration of grief and identity, the characters felt distant to me and didn’t quite resonate.

That said, I can see this appealing to readers who enjoy introspective, voice-driven fiction with complex emotional entanglements.

I was lucky enough to receive the ALC from Hachette Audio via NetGalley, which was narrated by the author.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Big thanks to Grand Central Publishing for the Advanced Listener’s Copy of First Time, Long Time!



Let me start by saying—I wanted to love this book. The writing is smart, witty, and Silverberg clearly has a great command of language. But whew… this one took its sweet time getting started. For a novel centered around an affair, I was expecting things to heat up a little sooner.



Now, the narration—done by Amy Silverberg herself—was actually a highlight. She’s got a really likable voice, the kind you wouldn’t mind hearing narrate your inner thoughts on a bad day. It suited the tone of the book perfectly and added a nice



I appreciated the sharp humor and clever observations, but I’m personally not a fan of slow burns that take this long to catch fire. For me, it was a solid three stars!