The FEELINGS. I had to keep putting my iPad down to yell because this was so perfect. The tropes were perfect, Dom and Shea were delightfully flawed and fleshed out, and Solomon manages to also wrap in the very specific loneliness of being in your late 20s and feeling like you don't have your life together. This was sweet, steamy, smart, and satisfying. A great pick for fans of Talia Hibbert's Brown Sisters series, The Hating Game, Kerry Winfrey's Not Like the Movies...

This one is a quick read and a lot of fun. Two public radio workers pretend to be exes so they can host a buzzy new show in order to boost the station's ratings. Funny jokes, hot enemies-to-lovers action, and gentle wisdom about work and self-worth.

I’m not the biggest fan of adult romance but this was really cute! I love Rachel Lynn Solomon’s writing so much and the fact that it was centered around public radio was really cool.

I loved this book so much!!! Shay and Dominic's enemies-to-lovers romance was perfectly executed. Their banter is excellent, their love scenes steamy and fun, and I loved each of their individual emotional arcs alongside their growth as a couple. The grand gesture at the end is one of my favorites I've ever read. Finally, I'm obsessed with Shay's dog, Steve Rogers Goldstein. Perfect romance novel that I can't wait to recommend highly!

This is my second Rachel Lynn Solomon book this year and I think she may be quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me. I know her first two novels were less rom-com, more heavy non-romantic relationships, but I really think I need to pick them up because she is so talented at creating an authentic feel to her characters.

The Ex Talk is her first adult novel, and there was a few times where it felt a little unsure of itself, more like a debut. It is, technically, her adult debut, so no shame there! She went a little heavy with the millennial jokes, but truth be told, the audience it’s for will probably eat those up.

It’s hard not to compare Today, Tonight, Tomorrow with this novel, not only because they’re about 6 months apart in pub date, but also because they have the same romantic trope. However, I think T3 did actual enemies-to-lovers better. But for an adult audience, I think coworkers-who-don’t-get-along-to-lovers is easier to relate to and honestly is probably a much easier transition to write. Our main characters, Shay and Dominic, have sooooooo much chemistry and ~witty banter~ and it was legitimately fun to see what jokes they’d crack on each other next.

Now, I know nothing about the radio. I don’t listen to even FM radio anymore, and I’ve never listened to talk radio. I also don’t listen to podcasts. So I have no real concept of the work setting of this book. But it was written so well that I could honestly picture the sound booth or their office and desks. So major points there.

Some smaller things I liked:
Solomon’s Jewish representation that’s present in her books. Same for Seattle and the (what feels) realistic portrayal.
Very very normalized inclusive queer and POC side characters, Shay’s best friend is Indian, Shay’s mom’s boyfriend is Nigerian, his son is married to a man and they have a toddler, her producer is Asian and talks about dating both men and women, Dominic himself is Korean - and not one of these things needed any extra sentences. Everything was just stated as fact, and it sounds like I’m applauding the bare minimum a bit here, but it’s so easy for inclusivity to be portrayed as an afterthought, or something cut and pasted in, for tokenization. It’s just nice to see such a well-rounded group of people organically in a story.
The story tackled misogyny in the workplace - the end of that storyline is satisfying in a fun way, but there’s not much justice, I’m afraid
The feeling of being alone in a big city, being an adult who still feels more like a lost child, seeing other people your age advancing with societal norms faster than you.. idk, as cringe as some of the flat-out millennial jokes were, I think the millennial experience comes across very well in this story
!!!small age gap romance with gender roles reversed small age gap romance with gender roles reversed!!! ((Dominic is 24 and Shay is 29)) I’m 2 1/2 years older than my boyfriend so I was very pleased to see this dynamic
Shay’s dad died in high school, so over ten years ago by the time this story takes place, and she still deals with a lot of grief. But this book is not about healing in the slightest or trying to fix the problem. It’s just a fact of life, it molded her as she went to college and found a career plan and affected her relationships and it was what it was
HER MOM PROPOSED TO HER STEPDAD INSTEAD OF VICE VERSA SO AYEEEE

I could honestly probably go on and I think my T3 review has a similar list of every social issue or item that was touched on in the novel - it seems Rachel Lynn Solomon is great at covering a wide spread of topics at once. Which may help her stories feel so authentic, because real life is never gonna let you breathe in one category just to focus on your big problem at the time. We are all dealing with so much at once at all times... but we have books like this to make it better.

And omg I forgot to mention the extremely hot and steamy sex scenes, and even how much hotter the sex scenes without penetration were, but unfortunately I’m all out of tim-

This book is a pure, goddamned delight. I love every single second of it. Shay and Dominic are hilarious and hot and delightfully nerdy.