DNF at 24%
The prose was brilliant, full of wry humor. I had high expectations for this book after listening a short while. But then it got really boring. I didn't care about her becoming a stand-up comic, but that was apparently the start of the main plot... in addition to her being in love with her best friend, then having a weird thing with another boy that wasn't going anywhere...
Basically it took too long to get going, and the clever writing wasn't enough to make up for the slow start and abhorrent level of profanity. Are there no longer standards as far as language in books for adolescents?
Thanks, NetGalley for the review copy.

This book was a fun and pleasant surprise! Gretchen is an outstanding character. She is real, complicated, funny, and just really likeable. Gretchen decides to use a fake id to go to a club and ends up on the stage for the first time performing comedy. That is the start of her alter ego and all the antics!

If you are looking for a fun read that will have your laughing this is it!!!

"To the lowkey funny girls, hopeless romantics, and anyone who's ever felt, least likely"

Gretchen has always been more of a “least likely” than a “most likely” kind of girl. So how does she somehow find herself living out every trope from her favourite rom-coms? This story follows her journey as she begins to do stand-up at a comedy club and learns how to be her truest self.

Gretchen is such a funny, relatable, and sweet characters trying to figure out who she is and what she wants. You get to watch her relationships grow and develop with her family, friends, and romantic interests. The characters are great and it's so nice to see character development. Katy Loutzenhiser is very funny and it's nice to see healthy and platonic relationships. Even though many tropes were used, this didn't feel cringy or unbelievable at all.

This was a very cute story, that I think a lot of people will be able to relate to. When I saw that this book has stand-up, I was super worried but didn't need to be, I laughed out loud throughout this book. This was a very quick and fun read, that was very funny, romantic, and a perfect coming of age story for anyone. I would totally recommend this, especially if you liked 'To All The Boys'.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.*

A cute coming of age story about finding once’s confidence & courage to be your true self! I loved how Gretchen is so relatable & how lucky we are to see her become confident not only with her sisters, with her crush, but also herself! This was funny & sweet & a great YA choice for everyone!

4/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and and the publisher for providing this audiobook-arc!

a fun book despite the monotone mediocre narrator

I enjoyed this story, but the adapted audio made it a little hard to understand. I know that it'll be changed when it's released, so I look forward to listening again. My one complaint with the story was the language. This is definitely an older YA book and would not be good for younger YA kids.

Just finished this! The story is a cute coming of age type story and it was fun and just easy listening. The audiobook voice made it a bit hard to get in to because of the weird voice. Overall a good read

As someone who as a kid fantasized about performing stand-up comedy (but never had the guts to pursue it), this novel was some serious wish fulfillment for me. I loved the dialogue and the banter when Gretchen took left turns in her conversations, and I loved her inner monologue, as well as the vivid performance scenes. I'd go see Gretchen do stand-up, and I'll definitely recommend this book to every comedy lover in my life.

The Girl Least Likely by Katy Loutzenhiser is a funny coming-of-age YA rom-com that is sure to delight readers. Gretchen is the youngest of three, and she just doesn't have her thing. The thing that makes her unique.

So, enter a bunch of rom-com tropes and a stand-up comedy routine, and Gretchen begins to find her way.

I thought it might be a bit much with all of the varying tropes, but it was a lighthearted and fun read.

I listened to the audiobook of this one (which adds to the comedic effect) and will be narrated by Jesse Vilinsky. The run time is 8 hours and 30 minutes.

Many thanks to the author, narrator, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl Least Likely was such a fun audiobook. Gretchen is the kind of girl whos likes routine and isn't one for big crowds for the popular crowd. She likes to stick to her normal life with her close friends. But when one night she gets a new look and steps outside of herself and does comedy. This was such a cute story or realizing its not to late to try something new. To set outside of what you think you know and learn something about yourself, something about your world.

Gretchen has a crush on her best friend but she's afraid to tell him. He's also a part of the popular crowd hanging going out and going to parties and Gretchen doesn't feel these is her scene. Once she tries the comedy she starts coming out of her shell but as her alter ego. This book is compared to Jenny Hann To all the boys I've loved before meets The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Which I agree with and Love all 3.

I love how the story lets her realize there is more things to try and not everyone is as she thought. She meets new people and makes new friends and people finally start listening to her. She becomes her true self and gains so much.

This book made me laugh and have all the warm feelings. This is such a good/cute read. do yourself a favor and read this lovely story

Thank you NetGalley and Harper audio for the advance audio book. I absolutely adored this listen, even with synthetic voice. I think I’ll mark it to listen again with new narrators.

This coming of age YA was flagged as romance, but it is so much more than that. I loved the comedic aspect of the book mixed in with the navigating teenage years and discovering one’s self during high school. Gretchen, who has been an outsider her entire life, is plagued by awkwardness and a twinge of anxiety around groups of people. She is attached to her best friend Sam, who she may or may not have a thing for, but begins to come out of her shell as they start to drift apart through the end of high school. Even though Gretchen doubts her awkwardness, no one in her close circle feels that way about her - They find her funny and charming.

One fateful night, Gretchen finds herself on stage doing stand-up comedy at an open mic night. She quickly starts to blossom and she even finds herself in a love triangle (or square?). Her character development is spot on and I think many young readers will relate.

The ending left me completely satisfied. I must note that I can often predict the ending at the beginning or halfway through the book, but I truly enjoyed this surprising ending!

The Girl Least Likely is an amusing and quick Rom-Com. Loutzenhiser does a great job developing diverse, well-represented characters along with a storyline that has some unpredictable moments--and, the comedy is funny!
This is the 2nd book coming out this year with a young, female comedian pretending to be someone else. This may be in part due to the hit comedy series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I love that we are seeing young females represented in an industry that is dominated by older males. Girls can be funny and smart!
3.5 stars

I really enjoyed the main character’s voice. It seemed genuinely realistic and sarcastic, which makes sense given the fact that she ended up doing stand up. I actually found myself thinking that these are things I would think/say, and that she is a person I would hang out with.

Though this mocks the rom-com thing, it followed the plot of one, which I think would have been fine, but it ended up having a bit too much going on that I felt myself losing interest in certain parts. There were quite a few characters for this type of book. I would have liked it to have focused a little bit more on the more central relationships so ai could have really had an opinion about who I wanted her to end up with.

Overall though, it was a fun book & I think that with a narrator this will really shine because of how well the main character’s personality comes through in the writing.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Harper Audio, and Katy Loutzenhiser for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

**Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & the publisher for a chance to listen to & review an ARC of this audiobook!**

Please find my extended feedback below...along with some spoilers (beware).
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Things I Liked:
-super cute coming of age story
-I liked the character development
-cute & unique premise (the stand-up story line)

Things That Didn't Sit Quite Right With Me:
-it's hard to get into the novels with the computerized voice (not really a flaw of the audiobook...just because it is an ARC)
-the main character felt a bit whinny to me at times
-it mixed too many rom com aspects for my taste

Overall, I gave this book 3 stars. I think it would be a great read for those who enjoy YA, "double life" stories, humorous stories, & overall cute rom com reads.

I received a voice galley of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

17-year-old Gretchen has always been reserved and doesn't always know where she fits in. One night, however, her sister and cousin convince her to sneak into a comedy club with a fake ID, and before Gretchen knows it, she finds herself performing onstage as “Sabrina”. To her surprise, Gretchen discovers that she actually like being on stage, making an audience laugh. With her set, she catches the eye of Jeremy, another comedian. For the past few months, Gretchen has had a crush on her BFF Sam, but now she finds herself interested in Jeremy as well. Sam has no idea about her crush, though, and Jeremy doesn't even know Gretchen's real name. The double life is bound to catch up with her eventually!

This was such a cute book! Gretchen both loved romcoms and making fun of romcoms, and I enjoyed that the she found herself in the middle of so many common tropes! Though it wasn't part of the blurb, I loved the fact that when Gretchen stopped trying to hide away from her classmates, she actually liked them, and they wanted to be her friend. While there were romantic themes, Gretchen had a lot of growth in all areas of her life. I really liked her relationship with her older sister and cousin. The comedy from the stand up routines was funny!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this voice galley.

Funny - Check
Friendship - Check
Family - Check
Rom-com - Check
Troupes - Check
Good read - Check
Comedy Club - Check

Reading the synopsis, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I was happily surprised it was just shy of being as great as her first book. It did take some time to find a flow within the story but when it did, I couldn't stop hearing. The dialogue is what I loved the most. The humor is dry and the banter between everyone is cute, even when the tone is serious. She makes an unbelieve situation quite believable for a teenager in a comedy club. Formulas were broken and when you expected it to end a certain way, it changes it, still leaving you with a smile,

I didn't get the ending I was rooting for, but I wasn't too put off by it either. My only concern was it lacked a little chemistry, with perhaps one troupe not as believe as the rest, but it was a very enjoyable read with a pre-order of this book already ordered.
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Gretchen (a senior in high school) goes to a comedy club/bar with a fake id with her sister and cousin. She is very intrigued by the thought of doing comedy and starts doing so with the fake name from the id.

The concept of integrating comedy sketches into a YA/Romance is novel (hah).

Very enjoyable. The comedy really adds to the lightheartedness of this book.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher (Harper Audio) and the author, Katy Loutenhiser for the opportunity to review the advance read copy of this audiobook. Publish date is currently listed as June 29, 2021 by Balzer + Bray.

So this is definitely my favorite book of the year so far. Wow. The rom-elements, the comedy, the visuals this writing gave me. All incredibly well done!

"Voice galley," read by a synthetic voice, not whoever is the eventual narrator. The sound of the voice is pretty good, but intonation, emphasis, pronunciation are not always consistent. The real narrator will undoubtedly be much better.

Gretchen is a high school junior in Portland, Maine, the youngest of three siblings, and a generally quiet, somewhat withdrawn girl. She doesn't call attention to herself. She has only a few close friends, and not a large number of friendly acquaintances. She's a member of the yearbook club mainly because an extracurricular activity is required, and in her freshman and sophomore years, there were enough members that she as able to do only tasks that didn't require much interaction with anyone not a member of the yearbook club.

Becoming a standup comic is something that never crossed her mind.

This year, there are only four members of the yearbook club, and so she has to be actively involved with people. Her sister and her cousin convince her to go to a bar with them, with a fake ID originally created for her cousin's ex-girlfriend, and due to a series of events that don't quite make sense to her, she winds up doing a standup act in what she doesn't at first realize is a competition--and placing well enough that she's expected to return next week.

Oops.

It's not long before she is living a double life, and her standup comic alter ego is bleeding over into her "real" life. Her friends in the bar/comic world think she's of legal age, and a far more outgoing person than she has ever been, in addition to thinking she has a different name. But she's also using some of her "standup comic" personality to help her do the more challenging tasks she's stuck with in the yearbook club, asking questions of people involved in the various other school activities.

And her new best friend is the guy who's the photographer for the yearbook club, while her longtime best male friend whom she has a crush now, is suddenly more distant, and spending time with girls Gretchen knows she can't compete with.

She can't keep all these balls in the air forever, and things must inevitably come crashing down.

It's a lot of fun, and genuinely funny.

I received a free electronic "voice galley" of this audiobook from the publisher via NetGalley, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

It’s been over a week since finishing this book and I still find myself giggling over it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the stand up bits in this novel to be absolutely hilarious! Seriously, I was laughing so hard that I had to stop reading. Aside from the comedy bits the book was overall quite funny in its own right and it kept me wanting more.

I loved the main character and felt her high school growing pains. I’m sure we can all relate to those awkward and uncertain years. The sisters and the cousin added color, depth, and also provided some backstory. They were wonderful characters and left you wanting more!

The main character’s growth came from her own desires and actions. She gains confidence, independence, and begins to see her own self worth. It was beautiful to watch and an empowering message to future young readers.

Katy Loutzenhiser’s focus on female empowerment paired with comedy and laugh out loud standup scenes came together wonderfully in this 2021 Young Adult release.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ four stars for this uproarious coming of age young adult novel with a PG rating