I really liked the plot surrounding idealizing small towns when that idealization isn't often the reality.
That caught my attention for a story as it's different.

However, there was something about this relationship that I struggled with. Initially, I was all for it but the relationship became too much too soon and too quickly. I found the depth of the relationship to be unrealistic and unbelievable considering the two characters just met.

This book was steamier than I expected which isn't a bad thing but for those picking this book up...do not expect pure sweetness and innocence from this story.

I definitely would consider reading more from this author because I enjoyed the writing style along with the story development. There were just some personal issues that I had with this story that didn't make it a favourite.

***Thank you to the publisher for supplying me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

Thank you to Forever Romance and Netgalley for my copy. A cozy, charming, cute and sweet romance perfect for anyone who loves the small town trope!

I loved the concept of this book and if you're in the mood for a light read this might be a good fit. While I typically enjoy light reads (I normally seek them out!) the structure of this book was weak and some of the language was very elementary. However the idea is very cute and was compelling enough that I finished it.

Thank you so much @ReadForeverPub & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 07 June 2022)

SYNOPSIS | Adina is a twenty-something single woman who still lives at home with her mother, works multiple jobs & is trying to survive in NYC. She is enamoured by small-town life so she pitches a story to her editor about a local "Hallmark-esque" town which is being taken over by a property developer. When she arrives she very quickly realizes that the story she wants to write just doesn't exist.

WHAT I LIKED:
- I really liked Adina's relationship with her mother & best friend
- that its a small-town romance without actually being a small-town romance

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- way too much Lifetime vibes for me
- all of the Gilmore Girls & pop culture romance movie references were lost on me as I haven't watched them...
- I had a hard time actually liking Adi as a main character
- the ending felt very rushed (& I wasn't particularly invested in the actual romance)

Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for a review.

I'm a sucker for Hallmark, so when I saw this book is a mixture of Hallmark and Gilmore Girl vibes, I was here for it. I enjoyed following Adina on her adventure to Pleasant Hallow to find and write her next big article to achieve her journalism career dream. Pleasant Hallow is supposed to be the magical Hallmarkish town. However, it's one disappointment after another. The only bright side to Pleasant Hallow is Finn, but Adi needs to determine if following her heart is meant losing her dream job. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend checking it out.

Thank you, Forever, for my gifted copy.

I tried to read this one but the female main character is annoying and bratty. I couldn’t finish it.

I enjoyed this book. The romance was good but also the writer’s story about the small town romance that was not what she expected.

This is extremely cliché "city girl goes to country to find herself" but I really enjoy this trope! I do like the twist that this town is nothing like the movies.

Loved this one! A great debut from Meredith Schorr. A fun contemporary romance with Gilmore Girls vibes, Jewish rep, relatable characters, and just a feel good story. On the romance front, Schorr reminds us that sometimes love is messy. Highly recommend this one.

I'm grateful to Forever Publishing for generously providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

In Meredith Schorr's As Seen On TV, the New York City dating scene just is not it for Adina Gellar. She's decided she will try her luck in a small, charming upstate town. Adina is hoping life will mirror a Hallmark movie. Especially because she's traveling and staying in Pleasant Hollow to write a story about a developer coming in and building a new resort. However, when Adina gets to Pleasant Hollow it turns out the locals aren't exactly Hallmark Friendly. Also, the man she finds herself attracted to happens to also be from the city, Finn Adams. As it turns out, he works for the developer. Oh, and the residents of Pleasant Hollow actually WANT the resort to come in. Nothing is what Adi expected.

As a small town upstate NY born and raised person myself, I really liked As Seen On TV. Where I am from, people get excited when a new chain restaurant comes to town. Heck, they got over the moon for when Marshalls recently came in I guess. So, Schorr's depiction of small town residents being pro-developer rang true. Heck, where I live now was chosen for a new microchip plant to come in and people are so excited. I can see why Adi's perception would be off if you are from a big city and all you know about small towns comes from Hallmark movies. She definitely gets her rude awakening, but you know, she grows so much along the way. I am a sucker for character growth and both Adi and Finn experience this. As Seen On TV is narrated by Emily Lawrence. The audiobook is 9 hours and 42 minutes long. It is very compelling and easy to listen to.  I think Lawrence's narration had me liking this book even more. Overall, a fun and charming read, if not entirely life changing, but that's okay.

I debated on rating this 3 or 4 stars. So we’ll go with a 3.5. I really liked the premise of this book. I’m a sucker for Hallmark movies and the Gilmore Girls and I really wanted to love this. But I just didn’t like the main character of Adi as much as I wanted to. I did like Finn, best friend Kate, and Adi’s mom. Just felt like Adi should have been a bit more mature for her 25 years. Not a bad read, I was pretty sucked in by the 2nd half of the book. But I did feel there was room to make this an even better story!

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for the opportunity to read this book. It is always appreciated!

In all fairness: I did not finish this book. I have not been successful at getting through the book, though it is well written and has all that one would seemingly want in a romantic comedy. I could not get behind the MC and felt much of what I did read was kind of cringeworthy (which, to be fair, happens in a lot of rom coms!). I took off a star because I simply could not get into it - which could just mean this book wasn’t meant for me.

I enjoyed this book. It didn’t blow me away by any means, but it was still a cute read.

Parts of it were very cringy but I think that was the point because of hallmark vibes.

I started out by listening to the audiobook and I didn’t not enjoy the narrator so I think I might have liked this book better if I would have skipped the audio entirely.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

My favorite part of this book is the cover.

The first three quarters of this book were so bad, but by the end, it had grown on me a bit, which is why I gave it three stars rather than two. Though it could have grown on me because it was just SO LONG. At least, it felt way too long.

The main character, Adina, has the worst case of main character energy in the universe. She thinks she is the main character in everyone’s life and everyone else is just a dumb side character, there to fill a sterotypical role. The language and slang were so cringe and difficult to read at times. I wish I had written down every line or word that made me cringe or go WHYYY, but I think I would’ve taken down a third of the book.

I will be filing this under “couples who don’t stay together when the book ends” and hopefully erasing it from my memory.

At the end of the day, this author wrote a book, and I didn’t and that is something to be proud of. Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Light, fun spin on the Hallmark movie market and the classic celebrity-in-real-life dilemma. Realistic characters and romance without being syrupy. That's not easy to pull off!

Adina hasn’t had much luck with love or with her writing career. That’s when she sees there’s a small town being targeted for development she starts thinking. How about she goes to this small town to find her happiness and maybe even help save the town? If she writes the article that can do this, she might be able to start her dream career as well.

I’m a big fan of the small town romances and movies/shows. Gilmore Girls has always made me want to live in Stars Hollow, so I was hoping Pleasant Hollow would be the same. Our main character finds out that not all small towns are what they seem and her dream article may not be what she wanted it to be. I do love that the author showed us that not all small towns are like what you see on TV. Even if we all want them to be.

I did love learning about the people who lived in town and Adina wanting to help them keep things cozy instead of turning into something its not. That’s where things got tricky, because Adina did get on my nerves at time. When the town wasn’t what she wanted she decides she should change it for her article. I mean you can’t force things to go a certain way.

The encounters with Finn were interesting and I loved him as a character. His life had him busy and certain things made relationships hard, but Adi started opening up those walls. Apparently you can find love in other places than expected. I enjoyed that their relationship wasn’t perfect from the start and they did have struggles. The article Adi ends up writing really made me smile and how it all ended as well.

If you’re looking for a fast and fun read with some Gilmore Girls references I definitely suggest picking up As Seen on TV!

I was so so so SO excited when I learned Meredith Schorr would be publishing a new book and with Forever, no less, one of my favourite publishers. I’ve known Meredith for years and have loved her work so to have her traditionally published rom com, As Seen on TV, in my hot little hands was a thrill. And it was such a enjoyable read, too!

Here's the book’s description:
Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real . . . and maybe even find her dream man in the process.
Only Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who’s more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can’t seem to find—even if he does work for the company she’d hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time?
OK – tough things out of the way first. I have to say that I wanted to love this one more than I did. Does it mean it was bad? NO. It just means my expectations were SKY HIGH. It was tough to swallow when Adi drove me nuts with her incredibly naïve views on small towns, as I grew up in a small-ish town. That said…I did really like that the story was a twist on the Hallmark movies we’ve all watched. The small town isn’t always the place to find a Happily Ever After!

There was a bit of a nostalgic feel to this book, even though it’s very much a contemporary set rom com with a young heroine. It felt like the rom coms of many years ago, you know the classic ones that we all rewatch over and over again. There was a lot of heart and a lot of cringeworthy moments with laughs along the way and all wrapped up with a Happily Ever After bow. It was delightful.

Schorr created an amazing cast of characters with this book. Even with Adi’s questionable thoughts about small towns and how to be a journalist (my partner is a reporter so I’ve had a front row seat on the profession for a long time), I still loved her. I wanted to hang out with her and really get to know her better, which is something I always look for in my rom coms. And Finn!? Yes, please. I shouldn’t be surprised that Schorr wrote such a fabulous hero because the love interest in her self-published Blogger Girl series is just as wonderful. Adi’s best friend, Kate, and Adi’s mom were amazing side characters and I loved how strong all the relationships were between the women. So good.

Meredith Schorr’s new novel is perfect for fans who love old school rom coms. As Seen on TV is full of love and laughs and will leave romance readers feeling satisfied.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Forever, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Adina is obsessed with Hallmark movies, when she has the opportunity to travel to a small town to right an article for a online magazine about a small town she jumps on the idea. As she soon finds out not all small towns are like that of the Hallmark movies she loves.
While looking for a story she meets Finn. Can she have her Hallmark movie ending?

I was not as excited about this book as I wish I could have been. To me the writing was lacking. It was a cheesy Hallmark movie kind of story. I felt there could have been better character development and chemistry between the two characters.

I choose to listen to this book while I was driving and doing chores as well. The audiobook did add a bit more feeling to the story, but I felt having more than one narrator would have made it even better. The audiobook did help with the reading pace because without it i found myself bored.

Adina Gellar loves Hallmark movies - You know the ones: typically set in a small town and "against all odds" the two main characters fall in love. Well, that is exactly what she is expecting in Pleasant Hollow (which is just a few hours outside of New York). Except Pleasant Hollow doesn't care about the big-city developer moving in on their town, nor do they have quaint little events in the town square. Pleasant Hollow doesn't even bake their own baked goods! It's a travesty really. That is until Finn Adams. Is Finn her dream man that she was supposed to meet? Or just another one of those disappointments from Pleasant Hollow?