I really enjoyed this one! I found the main character to be very relatable in how she lives her life, which can be hard to find in a fictional character.

Never Say No is trying to be The Devil Wears Prada but fails to live up to its iconic predecessor. Stylistically, it’s over-written, while the characters are under-developed. Emotionally needy BFF Sophie’s “struggles” don’t really seem to be much of anything (guess what, it’s okay to be single at 30! The world will not end if you don’t have a boyfriend!), Dom the boyfriend’s entire personality appears to be “less fashionable than lawyers”, and super-boss Vivian Jones is constantly held up as this incredible feminist powerhouse, but it’s much more tell than show. The book as a whole is overwhelmingly straight (the idea that Hailey might be sexually interested in Vivian or vice versa is mocked, but...queer women do exist) and white (in that frustratingly assumed way, but surely if Hailey or any of her coworkers weren’t white, it would be relevant the same way the sexism angle is?), and most of all, overwhelmingly run of the mill. It just isn’t that interesting a book. It isn’t ghastly, it’s just dull.

**I received an ARC from NetGalley and Bookouture in exchange for an honest review**

Never Say No, by Elizabeth Neep, has all the trappings of a fun romp. Hailey Kidd has recently switched career paths from primary school teacher to divorce lawyer in-training. She spends the novel struggling to balance her new high-pressure job, working for her (new) idol; training for a marathon and supporting her best friend; and grappling with the engagement ring she found hidden in her boyfriend's things -- an engagement ring she isn't at all sure she wants him to use.

This is a quick, breezy sort of book, one that easily keeps the pages turning. In spite of this quick pace, however, it never seems to make much forward progress, like wheels spinning in place. There are few, if any, twists or turns, or even really changes -- few of the characters seem to grow or develop much throughout the book, despite that being ostensibly the point and purpose of it in many ways.

The writing style is fine, if a little repetitive -- all these characters, from big shot lawyers to teachers, men and women, young and old, all seem to speak using the same turns of phrase. And while Neep brings up many issues that could be interesting (Sophie's anxiety and the history with her parents, Hailey's boss's insistence that she supports women while in practice choosing Hailey's male counterpart over her for no reason time and again) she ultimately fails to flesh out any of these topics anymore than she fleshes out the characters, all whom feel like cardboard cutouts filling in roles rather than fully fleshed out people. Even the thesis of the book, the very thing that gives it the title, is left under-explored -- although Neep, through Hailey, gives lip service to the idea of "never saying no" and the cost of trying to have it all, it is not an idea that is fully realized by the end of the story.

There are a few other cringe-worthy moments as well. Hailey spends quite a lot of the book judging the women around her for their sex/dating lives, before, during, and after her own romantic crisis. Everyone in this book is emphatically straight, with the idea of Hailey or her female boss being interested in sleeping with each other tossed around as a punchline more than once. Another issue in the realm of diversity is the assumption of whiteness that pervades the novel, in spite of the drawing on the cover. No character is ever described in much detail, and no one's race is ever mentioned. While this could mean the law firm and Hailey's personal life are both teeming with racial diversity, surely if one of the various lawyers striving for fame and fortune was a person of color, it would be as noteworthy as their gender.

This book is ultimately unsatisfying and frustrating, with a few off-putting "jokes" peppered throughout. A disappointing take on what could have been an interesting exploration of what it really means to have it all.

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was the first time I've read a book written by Elizabeth Neep and defitely won't be the last.
Never say No was so much more than what I expected it to be based on the description. Yes, it is an entertaining and fast read with interesting and mostly likeable characters, but it is also thought-provoking and relatable.
I liked the way Hailey went through so much character growth. To be honest, I applauded her courage to change her career and try to find out what is important for her, not other people, but of course, the journey of self-discovery and re-defining priprities and significant relationships is never an easy one.
The book is well-written and engaging, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

After reading The Spare Bedroom, I was SO thrilled to be given an advance reader copy of Elizabeth Neep’s upcoming title, Never Say No. I was expecting it to be a lighthearted romcom, but instead I got something so much deeper and more relatable and I was so here for it!

As the main character, Hailey was a complex woman, and I found her arc just enthralling. Don’t so many of us have a problem saying no? We make our lives about our family and friends, our jobs, the things that take up our day, but rarely say YES to ourselves and everything our hearts desire. But for Hailey, as she starts her new job at a law firm, she begins to wonder if the life she’s living is the one she wants to keep, or is there so much MORE out there? I really could relate to the protagonists need for self-discovery, and defining her friendships and love as she went along!

Thank you to Netgalley & Bookouture for the chance to read this title in exchange for my personal opinion. To see my full review, head to booksaremagictoo.com on pub day, September 4th!

On the Kindle cover page it says that this book is "funny and uplifting". I am afraid that I didn't find either of those things to be true.

This was a book about a woman who had been coasting along in her life, she was a primary school teacher, just like her best friend and her boyfriend, but then decided to train to be a lawyer. She lands a traineeship in a prestigious law firm and things pretty quick start to spiral out of control. I think most of us have been where Hailey was, in terms of being tempted by someone she shouldn't have been. I am sure that if you have lead a bit of a sheltered existence, being in the world of a top legal firm must be a little surreal. That was really well described, actually.

I wasn't too sure about the dynamic between Sophie and Hailey. I wasn't feeling the deep bonds of friendship between those two.

Yes, there were definitely shades of The Devil Wears Prada, only at the end, I wasn't high-fiving the main character in this book. It ended a bit awkwardly, I thought, and there were things left unsaid between the three best friends.

My favourite character was actually Vivian. In the beginning, I didn't like her at all, but by the end of the book she had revealed herself to be a flawed human like the rest of us and was a bit more humble, which endeared me to her. It shows the skills of the author that she changed my mind about her too!

I wanted to love this book, but it was more of a like, for me.

4 stars from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture.

I was first attracted to the book by the cover - it is bright and fun. I thought I may identify with the main character as I, too, have terrible FOMO, a lot!

I really enjoyed reading Hailey's story but found myself wanting to shout at her a lot. I wished and hoped that she would redeem herself at the end, which she does! I was left feeling satisfied with her journey and sympathising with the lessons she'd learned along the way.

Overall, this was a fun and uplifting read that is beautifully written and has believable and likeable characters! Except Vivian, of course. I thought she was vile...

A favourite quote is "I refuse to let the maybes of tomorrow steal the joys from my today." ♥️

This book is perfect if you're looking for an easy read, maybe a literary version of a Hallmark or Lifetime movie? Hailey is constantly saying yes, to way too many things. Honestly just reading about her life was exhausting! I was anxious about her relationship with Dom and furious at her boss/coworkers, and I guess some of her actual choices. Overall it's a solid chick lit read, pretty much exactly what I expected. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys the genre.

Never Say No was a strange read for me.

It was light-hearted and had some amusing elements, but some of it just seemed a bit far-fetched. I enjoyed the story and was keen to keep reading to see how it ends.
Would there be a happy ending for Hailey? I know I was rooting for her all the way through.

This highlighted that sometimes your career and your life aren't as compatible as you'd like, and you need to make decisions on how much you will let that change you.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The book is written very well, and I quickly flew through it.

Hailey was a good representation of a woman in her end twenties trying to figure out life and ‘getting her shit together’. I love how relatable she was at times, and how the author made sure that Hailey wasn’t a ‘perfect’ character, even though her boyfriend and best friend seem to think so. It was really fascinating to take a look into Hailey’s mind.

Hailey, Vivian and Sophie went through an amazing character development, which I love. In my opinion, the other characters were quite flat to me.

From time to time, something unpredictable came up and caught my attention again.

I give this book 3,5 out of 5 stars.

4.5⭐/ 5⭐ rounded

Hailey Kidd is the protagonist of this novel. She is a long time best friends with Sophie and Dom. Dom is also her boyfriend. They all were teachers. Hailey switched her career from teacher to lawyer and begins training with her idol, Vivian Jones. To make her mark in Law firm and to get herself noticed she started struggling with work-life balance. The result was she ignores her best friend and boyfriend, and begins to forget and cancel planned activities with them. She is so attracted to her new life and new people that she has started having doubts about everything and everyone she had in life earlier.

This is a story of friendship, relationship, love, emotions, career change, work-life balance and much more.

The few reasons which love the book is it covers the scenario where people take relationships and friendships for granted and don’t value people who are there for them until they are no more there.
The second reason is that love relationships also have their phases and initial sparks and butterflies will not be there always.
The third point which I liked is Hailey idolizes Vivian for having a successful personal as well as professional life until she knows the real story as the grass is always greener on the other side.
The fourth one is the career change, Hailey changed her career at the age of 30 she left her teaching career and started as a trainee in the law firm she went for her dreams.

I love a lot of things about the book and my list will not end. I think the synopsis doesn’t do justice to the book it has much more to offer than mentioned in the synopsis.

Elizabeth Neep is now on my favourite author list and I am definitely going to read her other books too.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me with a copy in exchange of an honest review.

Never Say No is a story about self-discovery, friendships, love, and monogamous relationships. I was actually expecting the book to be more of a contemporary romance but was pleasantly surprised that it was so much more.

Hailey Kidd is the protagonist in this story and she has always felt like she has to be perfect for everyone around her. She has been best friends with Sophie and Dom as long as she can remember and always thought she had to be the one to keep everyone together. This meant never saying "No" even when she wanted to do other things or even explore a different career than her friends. She brought this same mentality into her relationship with Dom who she loves dearly. However after a few years of teaching (which is the same career move Sophie and Dom chose), Hailey decides she wants to pursue her law degree and start practicing law. She gets hired on by the prestigious law firm Taylor, Laters, and Jones and starts training under her idol Vivian Jones.

As her lawyer career starts to unfold, Hailey is unsatisfied with the paperwork/research duties she is assigned and not actually being involved in a case. However, after a late night at the office she encounters a scene with her boss that changes not only her view of her idol Vivian Jones but also her trajectory in the law firm. These events not only plunges her deeper into the dysfunction of Vivian Jones' life but also the choices of what she is willing to do or put off to move forward in her career.

This was a really enjoyable book that surprised me. Hailey was such a relatable character and during her self-discovery she learns that mistakes are "ok" but also that relying on her friends and boyfriend more instead of trying to be the "strong" friend all the time was not helping her mentality.

Changing career paths, trying new things or even thinking about relationships is not limited to a certain age per se. Hailey just happened to be at her 30 year mark, but what truly set her to rethinking about her life choices was discovering a ring box in her long term partner drawer.
A person can panic and start taking stock of their life at any point in time and the author chooses to do it in a lighthearted manner. She uses different ways for Hailey to examine herself and her range of possible alternatives if she were to act on certain scenarios.

I think the author did an exceptional job in presenting various ranges of options of possible ways to change her life ideals. One she could go the route of her friend, Sophia and date many.
Two, have affairs on her partner. Three stay with her partner in a safe boring life. Four, shake it up with the partner and let him know it’s time to make changes. Five leave and be on her own!
I think many are going to focus on not liking Hailey because she is not saying what she wants fast enough and will not see what the author is really portraying.

I actually liked the book and I am an older person, and I hope people read it and truly appreciate and enjoy the fullness of a fun, romance and adventurous young woman seeking her identity!

Thank you to the authors and publishers who work diligently for us the readers.

I received an advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.

Hailey has just started the job of her dreams under the mentorship of a woman she has idolized for awhile. She hopes to become a lawyer that makes headlines with cases that impact people. At the same time she is trying to maintain her longtime relationship with her boyfriend and continue to be a good friend. The new job keeps asking more and more of her and she must make some hard decisions about her priorities.

When I was pitched this book, I was very into the synopsis that accompanied the book, but I have to say that the synopsis nor the title didn't quite fit the book that I read. I liked the story that I read, but would have made some changes to the title and the synopsis.

The story I loved centered around Hailey and her struggle with a major career change and how that affects all the other areas of your life. It is the time old issue of work life balance and is there ever really an ability to balance all the things you want to give your attention to and make sure you are being to do all the things you wish you could.

I loved Hailey as a character to follow. There were moments were I was definitely talking to the pages and encouraging her to make different decisions, but I enjoyed watching as she stumbled and made mistakes in hopes that she would end up in a good place. It is also good when you want to know how a character's story will end.

This was a nice and light read which is what I needed at the time of reading it.

"Vivian's voice softened. It was this sharp but sweet persona for which she was known, the one that kept every man on his toes; that told every aspiring female lawyer: you can."

I was eager to begin reading Never Say No because it sounded so relatable - like a woman finally realising, after a lifetime of choosing what others wanted for her, that it was time to choose what she wanted for herself. All of this and in a high-powered law firm setting, like The Devil Wears Prada if it was less "florals? for spring? groundbreaking" and more "a divorce? after infidelity? groundbreaking".

While I feel like this book touches on a valid topic - the necessity of learning who you want to be amidst people who want you to be somebody completely different to your 'true' self - I just couldn't feel connected to any of the characters. It felt like nobody was truly fleshed out; like they were all just archetypes. We didn't get to know them beyond a few set traits: high-powered businesswoman who has affairs to relieve tension, best friend who's anxious about turning three decades old and who's training for a marathon, steady boyfriend who wants the protagonist to hang out with him, attractive older guy who calls the protagonist by a nickname.

I also couldn't relate to the main theme underpinning Hailey's storyline. Many of the anxieties in this book hinge around turning thirty and needing to have everything figured out, and maybe it's because I'm still more than a half-decade away from thirty or maybe it's because I've never bought into the 'you have to be settled by thirty' narrative we give to women, but it held no stakes for me. I was also irked by Hailey's sudden, overpowering spark of attraction for suave Liam despite being in a long-term relationship with good, kind Dom. She wonders to herself "what if there's something better?", and at that point, when she treated her partnership so callously, I just couldn't root for her.

(There were also punctuation errors that truly grated on me, although I recognise that's a bit nit-picky of me! A great deal of vocative commas were missing, turning "[Name], wait!" into "Name wait!", which didn't help my immersion in the story. Given that this is an ARC, I expect those errors will be fixed when the book is actually published, and it has not affected my rating!)

A light hearted, fun read! After a recent career switch, Hailey is trying to figure out how to juggle her boss, her boyfriend, and her best friend. Hailey is a "yes" woman and often spreads herself too thin. The story is funny and has enough twists to keep the reader engaged. The chapters are short, which I like. A great book for anyone that loves romance and misadventures. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this book.

I don’t really know what exactly I was expecting from the story, but it still managed to make me feel like I had been short-changed in some way. I have seen Never Say No being compared to The Devil Wears Prada numerous times, which is a book series (and film) that I absolutely love, but unfortunately this story just didn’t draw me in or give me anywhere near the same feelings.

I think the main thing that caused me to have issues with this book was just simply the fact that I found none of the characters likeable, I really struggled to pick anyone to root for because as soon as I thought I had made a conclusion of who I wanted to come out on top, something would come along and change that. The actual storyline was fine and I really do think that it’s an overall decent read, just not one for me. With all things considered I think that I’m going to give Never Say No a rating of 3/5 stars, I really do think that other people can genuinely enjoy this story, and may like the characters and root for them, but it’s just not for me (they can’t all be winners after all!)

I love it when I read books and I think to myself, "I'm not sure I know how this is going to end". I really enjoyed how I felt the main character was authentically represented in the fact that she faced a ton of pressure to find an acceptable work/life balance. Some of her actions were awful but that was what made her character "whole'. I really enjoyed that. I wish I had gotten a little more depth into the relationships Hailey built, but otherwise it was a completely satisfying and enjoyable read!

I loved this book! It was so different than any book I have read recently! It hooked me from page 1 and I couldn’t put it down. It was relatable, it was mesmerizing and so cute. I don’t usually reread books but I plan on rereading just so I can enjoy it again. I highly recommend you add this to your must read list!

Thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture and Elizabeth Neep for providing me with a review copy.

"I've earned the right to never say no."

So says top lawyer Vivian Jones, who specialises in family law and holds marital vows and monogamy in high esteem. Hailey Kidd recently switched career from being a primary school teacher to a trainee at the law firm Taylor, Laters and Jones. Ever since hearing about the independent female lawyer Vivian she wanted to be just the same.
At home, Hailey's boyfriend Dom is still adjusting to her long workdays and late hours. Will their relationship be strong enough to survive such a change?

When I started this book, I thought I would be reading about a girl who just cannot say no, instead of someone who chooses never to say no. I thought this would be about learning to stand up for oneself, to finally say no to the annoyingly possessive boyfriend, the dramatic best friend or the overwhelming job. But no, this book is about saying yes to everything you think you want without considering others.

So what is Hailey actually facing in this book? She has just started as a trainee at the law firm and is immediately swept off her feet by senior associate Liam. Hailey has been together with Dom since they were about 15 years old. She has never been involved with another man romantically. Meeting Liam, Hailey soon sees herself forced to choose between two men: the slightly boring, but perfectly safe Dom or the exciting and obviously bad Liam. I won't tell you whom she chooses, but I do ask you this: Why isn't there a third option? Between settling down with Dom and running off with Liam, there should be more choices for this young woman! What is wrong with being without a partner and actually experiencing the world around you? Hailey, dear, live a little!

Besides this gripe, I did enjoy reading Never Say No. I was captivated by the story from the beginning to the end, hoping Hailey would choose for herself instead of her boyfriend, best friend, boss or colleague. Unfortunately that did not happen, but I enjoyed the ride nonetheless.
It is not surprising that author Elizabeth Neep has written a story set at a law firm. She studied Law and Australian Law at the University of Nottingham and the University of New South Wales. Besides writing, Neep is a painter and she also works as a senior commissioning editor. Never Say No is Neep's second novel. Earlier this year she published The Spare Bedroom, which was well received.