I'm very sorry to have to give this book a low rate, but nothing interesting happened. The plot is basically the two main characters crying and stressing out because they love each other but they don't want to take the step because they fear of "what will they say". However, the book talks about an important topic in the film and television industry, which is harassment, although I would've loved it to focus more on that topic, I felt that it was important that it was shown in the book. Anyway, it was a good book to pass the time but it wasn't the best.

Jo is a big name in Hollywood and one of the rare people who have gone from child star to adult success in the film industry. Emma is her assistant and manages to efficiently run Jo’s life and make her smile. When they are photographed in a private moment of laughter the tabloids turn it into a scandal. As the gossip spreads, it affects both their lives and with the added pressure of Jo’s new project on the horizon Emma and Jo spend most their time together. As they both open up in ways neither expected they realise that maybe the gossip has a spark of truth…

This is a book I was really looking forward to reading, and not only because it is my first f-f romance. I am a massive fan of slow burn romances. I love seeing the characters grow closer and closer as the tension between them builds. Sadly, for me this was a slow burn with emphasis on the slow, and absent of any burn. Because I found I wasn’t enjoying this, I decided to stop reading at 40%.

I did like the characters, they were very well drawn. I particularly liked Jo, who was slightly world weary and cynical, but had an underlying warmth when speaking to those she cared about. She was a child star, and as a Chinese American and a woman, she had experienced a lot of prejudice in the TV and film industry making her tough and cautious when it comes to trusting people. Emma, was younger and ambitious, but lacked faith in herself despite her obvious talent. I really liked them as individual, I liked them as friends and co-workers, what was lacking for me was any kind of spark of anything more. I was at 40% and although as a slow burn romance I wasn’t expecting them to be banging it out in the office, I wanted some indication that what they felt for each other was more than mutual respect and friendship.

The knock on issue with that, is that because there wasn’t much happening in the romance aspect of this book, I needed something else to fill that void. Sadly, there wasn’t much else going on in this book either and frankly, I was kind of bored. The story meandered through without much propelling it forward.

So, although I really liked the main characters in this book it wasn’t enough to keep me reading and decided to DNF.

I really enjoyed this book, thank you for the ARC! I read this book because it was recommended by Jasmine Guillory.

I enjoyed this one but never felt fully connected to the story or characters. I am excited to read more from Wilsner .

There are books that reward a reader's patience. You know the books that I am talking about. The ones who are extra satisfying at the end because the destination of the plot feels earned. Something To Talk About is one of these books.

Meryl Wilsner's debut is the slowest of slow burns. It is a delicious sort of torture because you will be yelling at the main characters to just kiss already and it will happen much too soon. This romance takes the scenic route and it is well worth the journey. It makes everything so much more satisfying as a result and builds a foundation that feels realistic to the characters.

The power dynamic between the two main characters could have been an issue. Jo is Emma's boss and that can be a messy dynamic if not handled correctly. Luckily, the element of the story is well handled. The author not only addresses that concern but makes sure to tackle it in such a way that it is no longer an issue. Sexual harassment in the workplace is directly dealt with in the plot and I felt it tackled the serious issues within the pages incredibly well. These elements are given space and time to breathe in a way that other books do not allow for.

The romance is, of course, the heart of the novel. The relationship is such a joy to see develop. Jo and Emma are so supportive of one another and so kind and patient with each other. They may not always communicate as effectively as the reader would like but that is pretty much the basis of every romance book in history.

I love that there was time taken to explore and flesh out the other relationships in both Jo and Emma's lives. There is Jo's best friend and Emma's sister who immediately come to mind as stand outs. The support they offer is a contrast to the more romantic support on display and it makes that aspect even richer. A lot of the humour is supplied from their friends and family teasing that they can see the connection between Emma and Jo even before they have admitted it to themselves. A good romance always ensures that the couple have plot points outside of the relationship being formed and this one manages that really well.

There is a saying that it is not the destination but the journey. I think in this case it is both. The journey makes the destination mean more in this case and it would not be the same without out it. If you like slow burn romances, wonderfully written characters, and feel good reads I would highly recommend picking this one up.

I love how everyone never fails to mention that this is a SLOW burn. But man, is it really.

While I’m not usually a fan of slow burn novels, I thought, what the heck? And guess what? I actually really enjoyed this one! There’s so much that I liked about this story, and for someone who usually wants to get to the kissing already, I actually didn’t mind the wait. I totally understood why...though I did want to just lock them in a room together as it got quite repetitive after a while, because of! course! it did!!

I do, however, wish that we’d been able to catch a glimpse of their relationship afterwards. It would have been so damn interesting to see how these two navigate through Hollywood after so much speculation and after Jo’s public coming out. But alas...

Oh, and did I mention that I actually really liked this book??

The reviews I've seen thus far have been somewhat mixed, and I really wasn't sure what to expect. Something to Talk About is a realistic, slow burn f/f romance that's very much low on drama.

If I had to elevator pitch this book, I'd say The Bold Type but as a contemporary romance instead of a drama with a larger cast. There's a major focus here on the film industry, particularly the #metoo movement, though it's not specifically referenced. The tone of these call-outs too reminds me of The Bold Type, which deals with heavy themes in a very light, inspirational, and quick way. Everything's neater and easier than it is in the real world, with true change happening in a snap. It's the sort of thing that can be super satisfying if you read in the right mood and super frustrating if you're not.

The romance features the tropes boss/employee and age gap, neither of which are particular favorites of mine. I will say the age gap didn't really bother me, because their ages don't really come up except as a reason for them not to be together. They spend time together constantly and seem to share interests; their age is never a barrier except potentially in the eyes of society.

So far as the boss-employee romance goes, I think people are going to have strong opinions about how it's executed here. Although maybe not, because I feel like I'm right in the middle. On the one hand, I think it's wonderful that Wilsner took a pretty inherently problematic trope and wrote it in about the least problematic way possible. Everything is about as by the book as it can be. On the other hand, I do wish the relationship, and the book as a whole, had had more tension.

Something to Talk About is told in dual third person limited POV, and I wonder if that's part of why this felt a bit emotionally flat. Though I actually really liked the writing, I do prefer first person for contemporary romance, because I feel like it makes the feelings more immediate. The feelings often felt told, rather than shown, particularly Jo's. While I think she's meant to be the brooding heroine with a heart of gold, it didn't get down into the feels the way I would have liked. I mean, don't get me wrong: I liked them, but I wanted to LOVE them.

If you're looking for something optimistic and inspiring ala The Bold Type with a sweet, slow simmer romance, I'd definitely recommend this. I wanted it to be a bit more fleshed out emotionally and in a couple other ways, but I did have fun reading it.

Yes, yes, yes! More queer modern romantic comedies! More queer modern romantic comedies that feature ladies!

Much more slow burn than I typically like, but a great debut! I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. And hurrah for LGBT rep in romance!

Something to Talk About is the debut book from Meryl Wilsner, and I look forward to their future books. Jo Jones has been a household name since she became famous as a child actor. She needs a buffer to pull the spotlight off her and the rumors of her possible involvement with the Agent Silver movie at the SAG Awards. She takes her assistant Emma as her "buffer" date, except they end up on the red carpet together and Jo and Emma are photographed together laughing and holding hands. The rumor mill goes absolutely crazy, and from the very beginning, the no comments don't really seem to be doing the trick.

My first impressions of both Jo and Emma were they both were strong women. Jo is a decade older than Emma and has been a fixture in Hollywood pretty much her entire life. She has written the scripts for the television show Innocents for 5 years and is now writing the script for Agent Silver, her very first movie script. Emma dropped out of film school, but dreams of being a director one day. She started out in props on Innocents and is such a dedicated and hard worker, she moved up to Jo's assistant within a year. Emma does way more at her job than most assistants would be doing, and Jo tells her she does the work of an executive producer and is more than willing to make her one. Emma just needs to hire her replacement as Jo's assistant over the summer hiatus.

I really liked both Jo and Emma as individuals and together. They had an amazing working chemistry, and I could tell from the very beginning they had pretty strong feelings for each other. I had to laugh that until the SAG incident and the media coverage that followed, neither had ever really explored what those feelings meant to their working or personal relationship. My only issue with the entire story was lack and often miscommunication between Jo and Emma. I guess because Jo was older, I expected her be more forthcoming with her feelings. I did love she was super protective of Emma, just as Emma was protective of Jo. I guess because I knew how they both felt because there was so much internal dialogue, I expected one of them to step up sooner and share their feelings. I will say once they finally both were open with one another about their feelings, the payoff was more than worth the wait.

Something to Talk About was a wonderful debut story. I loved Meryl Wilsner's voice and can't wait to see what they write in the future.

An absolutely marvelous queer romance with a magnificent slow burn! I loved everything about these characters and I hope Meryl Wilsner goes on to write many more queer romances because I am here for it!

Really loved this one! The characters are great and I enjoyed really getting into their heads as the plot moved along. And what a great cover!

When I read the description of this book I was so excited! Unfortunately the book let me down and I DNFed it around 25 percent after trying desperately to get into the story but character and plot issues plagued it. The premise is great: assistant to a Hollywood hotshot and they fall in love. But despite the assistant being supposedly great at her job, she ignores orders from her boss and a PR person and talks to the press causing her previous massive mistake to blow up even further. I really, really, really wanted to enjoy this book. I always want more to hit shelves and I want the genre to grow and see more publishers branch out into these stories! Unfortunately this one just wasn't for me. I look forward to more titles of this nature from the publisher!

I had so many high hopes and expectations for Something to Talk About, it was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it sounded so very promising to me as someone who enjoys celebrity type romances. Unfortunately, this ended up being both one of my biggest disappointments of the year and one the books that I disliked the most. Now this might sound harsh, but I genuinely was so frustrated with this book, I had a physical reaction to it, which was a first for me.

Now, I can hear you ask: but why was this book so frustrating to you, Fadwa? And all my reasons can be summed up in one single sentence: All the wasted potential. This book genuinely had every single element to become a new favorite of mine. A sapphic romance (between a lesbian Chinese woman and a bisexual Jewish woman). Age gap. Hollywood setting. Criticism and discussions about all the ways Hollywood is rotten to the core. But I can say with certainty that only the latter was remotely satisfying to read about.

I had two major problems that pretty much ruined the book for me. The first being that the two main characters do. not. communicate. Never. Not once do they tell each other anything they’re thinking about or anything happening that involves the two of them. Instead they talk to other people about each other, talk circles around each other and let minor issues fester until they become these huge blown out arguments that had no place to be to begin with. And I would be okay with this if it happened once or twice because it happens in real life so why would fiction be immune to it? But instead this was the basis of every single conflict which made the story both repetitive and tiring for the reader who had to witness the characters never learning from their mistakes.

My second problem was that although this story happened over the better part of a year, which I would have loved in normal circumstances because it would have made for a satisfying slowburn, I felt like the author chose all the wrong scenes and moments to showcase, a lot of the scenes were either useless for the romance development or cut too short to be of any real significance, which made the romance feel like it all happened off-page and that fueled my frustration further. Because I could see all the wasted moments, all the conversations we don’t get to read, the missed chances for both emotional and physical intimacy. And that was too bad.

Now, like I said in the beginning, what I did enjoy is the discussion around how bad hollywood is. Especially for women and more specifically women of color. From how award shows are rigged, to the way Jo, the Chinese MC, was treated in her work environment as well as well as sexual harassment. The latter specifically gave way to this whole subplot that was extremely interesting to read about but unfortunately, here too, I felt like the author wasted a very good opportunity and didn’t see it all the way through.

So this book took me a while to get into, but it was a quick, sweet read. I liked that there was an older love interest. Jo’s cool, elegant, and at the top of the game in her career. I pictured @themichelewang as Jo. I was slightly concerned for Jo’s constant coffee consumption, though. ⠀
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Emma was... boring. Nothing remarkable or funny. Emma felt rushed compared to Jo. I did like that we got some Jewish representation. Emma- she goes to Temple and celebrates Jewish holidays with her family. ⠀
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Is it just me or is it a thing in contemporary romances for the bff of the protagonist to be extremely successful? Avery is an amazing pastry chef, with a bakery, twins, and 3 dogs, in LA. Oh and she has time to hang out with her sister whenever. 🤔⠀
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The pacing of this book is wild. Some chapters cover a day, some span months. It was somewhat difficult to track. Overall, not bad. Cute and fun romance with Asian and Jewish love interests. ⠀
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Would you rather drink Jo’s morning latte or Emma’s iced chai? ☕️⠀
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CW: Public outing, sexual harassment, medical- asthma attack, on page sex

This was so ooey-gooey adorable! I LOVED being able to see a sapphic adult romance like this, and Jo and Emma were so lovely to watch falling for each other. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the Hollywood setting, the boss/employee relationship was very nice and handled well. My only complaint would be that I wish they'd gotten together a little sooner, just so I could see them as a couple a bit more.

A workplace romance set in the world of television drama, featuring enjoyable characters and a LGTBQ relationship.

Wilsner's debut, Something to Talk About, is a slow burn romance between Emma and her boss powerhouse showrunner, Jo. The pacing is much slower than a typical romance, and it doesn't hit the "beats" romance writers typically expect. I wish there had been a bit more conflict — at times it was hard to see what was keeping the characters apart — but overall I enjoyed it.

Can't wait to see what Meryl — who is a total delight and joined my book club to chat — does next.

Hoo man was this the slowest of slow burns. I literally flailed at how many times the characters misunderstood or avoided talking to each other (even though in real life I am a queen of Not Talking). I love the characters and the writing and get their perspectives, but goodness gracious did it take them forever to figure it out, even after each of them finally got it for themselves. Whoosh. Remember that crock pot conversation? This is the stew you have to smell for 24 hours before it’s officially ready to eat.

Cw: asthma attack on the page, bad familial interaction, on-page sexual harassment, repeated invasion of privacy with a touch of blackmail (or maybe it’s extortion? I don’t know where the line is)

The slow burn in this unfortunately didnt work for me felt much less like a slow burn romance and more just a slow romance. I wanted to like it more but it just didnt work for me