I really wanted to like this book. The synopsis held so much promise, but the book failed to deliver as much as I hoped for from it. I enjoyed it well enough, but with a few tweaks it could have been an even more enjoyable read.

I'm extremely happy I didn't have to pay for this book. I really wanted to love this book but I just didn't vibe with this one.

Although this book isn't one of my favorites, I did appreciate the disability representation in this read. There were a few red flags in this read, some that have absolutely been addressed on Goodreads and other places, that I think really brought the book down for me overall.

Yikes. There may be too many red flags for me to name.

Thanks to NetGalley / Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for a review.

I enjoyed my time with this book. I felt like to some extent I learned alot about the disease in this book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this title. Unfortunately, I was not able to get into it. This story just didn't feel like it was for me. Since I didn't finish it, I will not post a review to Goodreads.

So I finally got round to reading this book but I’m not sure it was worth the wait. It was too insensitive about lots of things and the main character was just irritating. I tried to get onto the story s as few times but it just wasn’t for me

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I was first interested by this book because of the cover but found that that was all that I was interested in. I could not get into this book.

The title of this book grabbed me. However, it turned out to be much different from what I expected. I’m not sure what to make of it.

I tried really hard to like the main character of this book, as well as to be supportive of it - as I'm all about representative protagonists, especially in YA genre. I almost feel guilty I can't rate it higher, but it hit so many trigger points and the main character is despicable.

I really wanted to love this one, I was excited by the synopsis and the rep that was going to be in the book.
Ultimately I DNF'd the book because I got annoyed with how much the main character was talking about sex and how much she wanted it. Like, I get that teens are having sex and that they think about it. But it seemed to be the only thing the mc talked about most of the time. She had dreams involving film making, but I just really struggled to like her and get past her always thinking about sex. So in the end, this one wasn't for me.

I received a copy of this book for review from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It took me awhile to get in the mood to read this book and to actually finish it because life got in the way. But, I loved every page of it from the very beginning. I’d never read a book quite like this before, I feel like the fact that one of the main characters has a disability really made this book even better because it made the fact that those with disabilities aren’t held back doing what they love just because of their physical appearance. This is one of my favorite books of the year and I’d recommend it to absolutely anyone!

Oof. This one was hard to get through. I was really excited about the premise, and I wish I had more positive things to say about it. Our main character, Maeve, is desperate for male attention, sex-starved and borderline sexist? I am all for women, especially young women, taking control over their sexuality, but hoo boy, this was a LOT. And listen -- I don't think that just because a guy is in love with his best friend means she has to love him back. The "friend zone" is not a thing. But Maeve completely snubbed her extremely troubled best friend for the hot, popular guy who was THE. WORST. CHARACTER. I have ever read. He's constantly sending her one-word texts and dick pics and then pretending she doesn't exist IRL -- what a f**kboy.

Not to mention there were really insensitive jokes about LGBTQ+ people, mental illness, suicide, women, other people with disabilities...

This book was just all around one big yikes.

While I was excited to read a love story for a person with a disability, I just could not get into it.

Maeve makes movies. The fact that she does so from a wheelchair shouldn't matter. But when it comes to dating, she sort of understands why it does. She's got MS, which means she's stuck in a wheelchair. And girls in wheelchairs don't "get the guy", right? But then the sexy guy starring in her film shows her interest, and suddenly she's not so sure about that.


I would love to have something positive to say about a book like this. But I don't? I wasn't even sure how to feel when I finished reading this. I flat out did not like the main character. She was self centered, she had some questionable practices. The male... was he a love interest? I'm not actually sure if he was. Or if he was taking advantage of her the whole time. Shouldn't I have been able to tell definitively??

I waited so long to review this, because I wanted to have something better to say. But I just don't.

“I liked bring ridden, and offered the chance to pretty much every guy in Video II“

The above quote is the first sentence that starts the book, and if your mind went to the gutter, just keep it there because that’s basically where this book was the entire time. This is Not A Love Scene is a story about an aspiring director, Maeve, who according to the book summary yearns for romance, however, she feels like her life with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, is the cock block to her greatest romance yet. However, when actor Cole Stone is agrees to be casted in her film, she feels like this is her one chance to finally have the romance she’s dreamed of…

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this review that doesn’t make it sound like I am just berating the book–because I don’t want to–but this book rubbed me in all the wrong places. First and foremost, I did not like our main character, Maeve. Self-absorbed and horny is the complete defining traits of our MC. That’s it. I could not relate to her at all, except that we both have a love for film. With little to no self respect for herself, she lets Cole and others walk over her and basically treat her like a toy than an actual human being. Not only does Maeve never respect herself, but she shows little to no respect to anyone else–especially those of the female sex. It was almost a repeated point that was driven that Maeve did not like interacting or having anything to do with females.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The woman rose and shoved the whole clipboard in my lap.
IF SHE WERE A GUY: God, chivalry. Mmph.
BECAUSE SHE’S NOT: Overkill assistance. Offensive.

The girl hate and sexism was strong in this novel. Repeatedly she sought after the help and advice from the males in the novel and continued to shun any and everything that had to come from someone who had a vagina. Maeve completely disregarded the feelings, and emotions of her friend Mags–almost to the point where I felt like she was condemning Mags for not liking and reciprocating actions that were made towards her like Maeve would have.

With that said, let’s get to the main character trait of our Maeve–horniness. Now I am a lover of erotica and raunchy sex books, but that wasn’t what I signed up for with this book. The only goal Maeve had throughout this entire novel was sex. No matter who it came from (which to me sends out a SUPER wrong message to the target audience). Sex was the only thing on Maeves mind, every other paragraph it seemed was about sex or how she couldn’t get it because of her disability or how hard it was to get sex, or an innuendo to sex. Literally the book ends with “…I just want to fuck Cole Stone.” I was annoyed with the sex.

Lucky for us, Maeve isn’t the only problematic character in this novel–we have our love interest (if you can call him that) Cole Stone, AKA the guy Maeve tries to sleep with throughout the novel, AKA the asshole. One dimensional at best, Cole used Maeve simply for his own pleasure and that was it. Literally that was it.

“Tonight was different. Tonight, I felt normal. Healthy. Not asexual. Tonight, I felt like a person.”

With so much sex talk, came a lot of phobia–specifical acephobia, and crude/rude jokes about lesbianism. Maeve makes these remarks like in the quote above, to dissolve any and all thought that because she is in a wheelchair doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of attraction and how it’s important that she come off as normal (as if those who identify as asexual are not normal) and that is why she comes off strong towards men. Maeve then goes on to crack jokes with Mags about how her boy troubles could be wiped clear by wishing to be a lesbian. I felt like her references to asexuality and crude jokes came off very acephobic, homophobic, offensive, and super problematic.

One big ass yikes fest.

One of the biggest yikes of this novel, at least for me, was the author’s handling of depression and suicide. As a person who struggles with depression, and has attempted suicide several times in the past–this book made me mad. It made me mad, because it made the supporting character, KC, who was going through this battle and struggle feel like just a throw in, like “oh wouldn’t this be great for our MC to deal with.” I felt like the issue of suicide and depression was brought up, tapped lightly on the head and just left there. The representation was poor–to me at least– and to some extent I felt like how things played out invalidated the supporting character’s struggle– to which it felt like it invalidated my own.

I could say a lot more about how problematic this book was, but I think I will keep it to these main points. As you can see, I did not enjoy this book at all, and because of the lack of a content warning, or trigger warning, I had to take some time away from family and friends and do some heavy self care.

I don’t want to deter anyone, maybe this book has elements that you can relate to and glean from as it is a own voice novel for disability through muscle dystrophy. To which–fantastic! I am glad that you could! However, I do implore you before you pick this one up if you do–to please practice self-care before, during, and after reading.

(Huge thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for sending me an ARC for my honest review! Quotations taken from an uncorrected proof and may change upon final publication.)

Okay..... I SO BADLY wanted to love this book. Really. I could not wait to start reading it, and I even rushed through all my other books I had been reading at the time just so I could focus 100% on this one. I was that invested.

Unfortunately I did not really care for the book. I thought the idea of it was great, which is why I was so excited to read it, but I ended up really disappointed. And it was mainly the main character, Maeve, as the reason. Now I have read novels where I didn't like a main character, and that's fine, it happens, I get that. But Maeve was just SO. INSUFFERABLE. And I have seen that a lot of people didn't like her character because of how "brash" or "outspoken" or "vulgar" she is. That's not what bothered me because as far as "teenager syndrome" goes, it was decently accurate. I mean really, you should have heard some of the things my friends talked about growing up. No, what bothered me was that she was SOOOOO self absorbed, completely ungrateful, and showed no respect for anyone who was genuinely just wanting to help her. She completely ruined the entire book for me, and I honestly don't know why she had friends or how anyone even liked her. Francois was the cutest though. So kudos for the good idea, but unfortunately the main character sucked and ruined the whole experience for me.

DNF I was not drawn in at all. I was lost immediately. No substance I did try a few times to start over in a few weeks and it was a miss for me

It was an entertaining read and sweet YA but nothing to go to crazy for. I almost didn't finish it but decided to try to finish it anyway.

I really liked this book. Honestly, before I started it, I read a few reviews on Goodreads and they definitely had me feeling a bit skeptical. I'm happy to say how wrong they were. I don't know if its because I have a very personal relationship with muscular dystrophy, it has claimed the lives of three of my uncles, but I thought this was great. It was light hearted but eye opening as well. More authors should write main characters with disabilities. This was so refreshing.