Angie has a lot on her plate and nothing seems to be going right. From family pressures to medical school to friends and her live life, it’s been a rough time for Angie. In this novel we route for and cringe for Angie along the way.

There were things I liked about this novel and some things that I didn’t. Honestly, I enjoyed everyone but Angie for the most part. She had a great group of friends and a sister, but it was the Angie show the entire time. She really didn’t have much time to show any care for her friends and flew off the handle multiple times at them. I found that super frustrating. But then she would be interacting with her mom and I’d feel so bad for her again.

Overall I liked this story, but a few parts of it were a little rough.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY FOR THE ARC! This is my honest review of the final!

ON ROTATION has some of the realest, messiest characters I’ve read about in a while. What intrigued me is that it’s written in the POV of a medical student by an actual doctor, but though it provides an authentic glimpse into that world, it’s more of a character driven novel than the soapy drama you’d expect on things like General Hospital or Grey’s Anatomy and I really enjoyed that.

Angie Appiah is having a TIME. Her boyfriend dumped her, her sister is getting engaged, and she’s failed her STEP exam, which she’s been working toward her whole life. Matters are further complicated when she meets Ricky Gutierrez while crying in a garden, and the two immediately click. I could NOT figure Ricky out for the longest time. I think the author did an excellent job drawing us into Angie’s perspective and making us doubt him with her. He was in many ways an aspirational guy, sweet and sensitive, but some of his seeming flakiness also felt very realistic. Angie is also a flawed character, who for understandable reasons (the complexities of dating and engaging with the world at large as a Black woman who comes off as too much to other people) hits quite a few snags along the way to her happy ending. We’re not the same, but I related to a lot of Angie’s diaspora experience.

I liked watching them circle each other and overcome misunderstandings. The book is more of a women’s fiction novel than a romance, with some serious medical topics and systemic biases discussed along the way, but both Ricky and Angie feeling like real, fleshed out people helped me immerse into a world I otherwise don’t know very much about and I felt satisfied with the conclusion.

Plus, I learned a few things about becoming a doctor, so that’s pretty cool too!

On Rotation follows Angie as she navigates her final year of med school, clinical rotations, balancing her Ghanaian family, and romance (of course!) I thought this book looked cute and as I'm a psychologist, I had a similar experience with different clinical rotations during my training and thought it would be interesting to read a book about a character going through similar experiences. Also the book is set in Chicago, where I live!

I really liked this book! I was a little nervous about having a book similar-ish to my career but I thought Obuobi did a good job showing the ups and downs of rotations without it seeming too formulaic or negative. I liked Angie a lot as a character, especially her nerdiness and desire to help her patients. I liked Ricky and the side characters as well and I enjoyed getting to see more of their personalities and how Angie fits into her friend group. I liked seeing her figure out how to work with her family as an adult and set personal and professional boundaries.

I think that this book is set in 2015-ish which is a little weird because that wasn't THAT long ago but the dates of graduation don't match up for current times. Also Beyoncé is sadly not touring for Lemonade anymore. It felt a little weird reading those details but I'm assuming that the author was reflecting on her time in residency during that time. Either way, it wasn't too distracting but pretty recent for historical fiction!

I thought the friend drama and miscommunications quite annoying, but to be honest I happily skipped over a lot of it to get to when the plot progressed more. Which thankfully did not take a lot of skipping! I guess we all turn off our brains once in a while for the drama.

Overall, I had a good time reading this book and recommend it to anyone wanting a good romance. 4 stars. Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

This book was fun! I was really excited about the premise of it - but I do wish that there was a little bit more about med school. I wasn’t as invested in Angie and Rickys story as I was invested in Angie’s career. The miscommunication 😖😖😖 … way too much back for me! Overall, fun and unique story!

I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to read this book. Well, actually, I do know why—I have been going through a miniature reading slump, and I’ve only been able to consume books via audiobook while playing an attention grabbing game on my phone. But luckily for me, I waited so long to read On Rotation that it came out, and I was able to download an audiobook copy. (The narrator, Mela Lee, was fantastic!)

Oh my god, this book was exactly what I needed right now. I will never shy away from reading books about children of immigrants who have tons of pressure on them and extremely complicated lives, so this book was right in my wheelhouse. The med school setting, the Ghanaian family, the wonderful circle of friends, and the dreamy love interest all enhanced the story of our protagonist, Angela, so incredibly well. I laughed; I cried. I am so smitten with this book.

This was a light and easy read. I was hoping for more of the medical side of things - I was expecting it to be more like greys anatomy!

Great debut! This was so good. I highly recommend it.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

On Rotation was such a fantastic debut, one that's very much needed in the publishing world and will hopefully inspire and encourage other women in the STEM field. This book was for the first-gen daughters of immigrants, pursuing their passions and dreams in a field where women, especially women of color, are usually at the bottom of the food chain. Genuine, feisty, and heartfelt, this is one of the best debuts this year and I'm hungry for more!

I tried but just couldn’t get into this one. I’m not sure if it was the conversation style or the presentation of the content but I just couldn’t connect. I think the writing was strong and have recommend it to others, it just wasn’t for me.

2.9


My favorite thing about this story was the love interest. For a description that says that it is for Grey’s Anatomy lovers, I was left hanging… Everything surrounding the female lead is absolutely toxic. Even her and her attitude. This female lead had her moments of clarity that made her likable, but everything that came out of her mouth left me with eyes and mouth wide open. Her relationship with her family is beyond toxic. I know that family dynamics are very personal and everyone has to deal with their respective relatives in their own way. Still, this particular story seems to go above and beyond ridiculousness. For being grown adults, her best friends behaved like little kids. And most of the book I was reading with a WTF? Look on my face. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to DNF. I had to know how the mess would end and how her life would magically be fixed. I kinda want my time back.

What a delightful read!! There are so many things to be said about On Rotation, but if to keep it brief, if you love the medical world, meet cutes, and strong female characters then pick this up now!

Things I loved:
- the cultural perspective provided
- the honesty and insight into the medical world
- the love
- the fact that she gets the degree, the friends and the man. Being a woman with multiple priorities can be done!
- the writing was great, easy to read and captivating

Overall, I really loved this read. I finished weeks ago and have still been thinking about it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It doesn't fit neatly into a single genre, and I think that's partially why I found myself so engaged - yes, there's romance, but there's also a strong focus on Angie's career, her relationship with her family, her personal goals.

I look forward to reading more from Shirlene Obuobi, because she's a masterful author. The characters leap off the page - they're so clearly drawn, I felt like I knew them within a few sentences of first meeting them. This also means that when the characters struggle, you feel it right alongside them. I had to remind myself a few times that these are characters in their early 20s and they're supposed to be making mistakes, because I definitely wanted to yell into the book a few times there! However, I think that's a sign of a successful novel - I really cared about Angie and where she ended up.

Angie has spent her whole life working towards being everything her parents dreamed she would be. When her well planned future starts slipping away, she will need to uncover what it is she truly wants. Once she discovers that, can she put the pieces of her life back together to get there?

I enjoyed this book. It wasn't overly dramatic and felt completely believable. The relationships Angie has with her sisters and friends were extremely relatable. While I could not quite relate to Angie's work struggles, Obuobi does a great job of making Angie's work challenges feel like challenges in any other career path. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a heartfelt, easy read.

This was a romance novel which didn't follow the usual tropes and clichés. I appreciated the two characters from different ethnic and racial backgrounds as well as the narrative which covers career choices, parental influence and relationship vulnerabilities. Oboudi writes with ease and detail and the characters felt well created and realistic. I enjoyed the story and would read future novels by this author!

This is another story that I really enjoyed. From the first page, I felt the MC 100% because she was speaking about the struggle of having "an ass". I also felt her struggle of dealing with family dynamics and wanting to do more for her future. I liked the romance though, I wish there were more spice/intimacy but I also know that that wasn't the primary focus of this story. There were so many layers to this story and a child of immigrants, I really appreciated her experience. This is just a story I deeply connected with and I know so many others would connect with it too.

*** Thank you to Netgalley and Avon Books for sending me an advanced reader copy of On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi! All thoughts are my own! ***

What I really liked about this book was getting a look inside Angie's rotations inside the hospital in the different departments. The reader really got to see what it's like inside a hospital and the amount of work it takes to become one.

Also loved Angie's friend group, the Sanity Circle. You can tell how close they really are, from the Beyoncé concert to their hangout in general. They are the kind of friend group you want in your life.

I kind of think some of the fights in this book were forced, both with the love interest and the best friend. Some of it really could have been resolved like adults if they just talked it out.

Also figured this is point that needed mentioning, Ricky is the sweetest cinnamon roll of a human being ever. That is all.

The end of my book was probably my favorite. The amount at stake kept me from putting the book down, between Ricky and Angie's relationship and Ricky's father.

I love the addition of asterisks, leading to commentary from the author, but I really would have liked to see footnotes at the bottom of the arc. It could have been because it was an advanced copy and they couldn't format it, but I realized all of the asterisks lead to the end of the arc. This might have changed with the physical copy of the book, but I'm not sure.

On Rotation is out now! Be sure to get your copy!

I was really excited for On Rotation because it is so rare that we get to see a strong, smart black woman as the FMC. I really appreciated the representation and loved the way the author showed the struggles of being not only a medical student, but a Black, female, immigrant med student.

All that said, I really thought this had a lot of potential but the romance fell flat. As soon as Ricky admitted to being in a relationship after several hours of flirting with Angie, I was frustrated. While the way their relationship developed may have been more realistic than most romance novels, it didn't make me giddy and happy the way I expect of the genre because of the fact that there was so much added drama and tension. Additionally, Ricky ended up being relatively manipulative, with some gaslighting throughout the story.

I'd definitely read another book by Obuobi because I did like the writing style, concept and representation but I just could not stand the LI,

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Angela subscribes to mentality of deciding what you want then doing what you need to do to get it. As the daughter of an immigrant, she feels the pressure to measure up to her parents’ expectations. When it all falls apart, she is heartbroken.

This was a beautifully written novel - I can’t believe it is a debut! Shirlene beautifully writes her characters, especially Angela, and we get to see her growth as she is working her way to her dreams - or what she thinks they are.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for my review!

A Black Woman in STEM with LGBTQ and API representation. This book has it all, most importantly a strong female lead who is career focused but flawed + a romantic interest that is just the right amount of complicated but oh so sweet= GOLD! If you are looking for a book that has more than romance this one may be for you 💗

I enjoyed reading this book, I had no idea how difficult it is to be a medical resident and go to med school at the same time. The main character, Angie, is a Ghanian-American who’s parents have such high expectations that even her choice of specialties could disappoint them. Her parents also have fixed expectations about who she’ll marry, and set her up with guys she has nothing in common with.

At the same time, she faces prejudice at work. She’s goes to a fair by herself and meets a guy she likes, who’s an artist and would be completely unsuitable to her family. His outlook on life is completely different than hers, which makes her even more determined to make up her own mind and choose her partner on her own.

I liked how Angie faced her issues with her parents, and it was great to watch her navigate all the parts of her complicated life. 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.