On Rotation is a coming-of-age story and romance rolled into one. There were *so many* reasons that I loved this book, but the top reasons were how accurately it depicted medical school and how real the relationships felt throughout the story.

If you’re wondering what it’s like to be in medical school, or to love someone in medical school, give this book a read. Obuobi creates a vivid and nuanced depiction of life as a third year medical student on the wards, slogging through the day, trying to cram as much information into your brain as possible, and make a good impression on attendings/residents and patients. There were parts of the story that were so real that they took me right back to my third year and and how it felt like there was always something looming over your head, whether it is Step 1 or The Match. I think one of the best things the book captures, however, is the numbness, dissociation, and dark humor we feel in the face of tragedy - the pediatric emergency department scene is something I’ve lived over and over and Obuobi nailed it.

As for the relationships in the book, there is a main romantic plot line, along with an incredible cast of friends that I hesitate to label as “side characters” because the relationship between Angie and her friends (especially Nia) is just as important as her relationship arc with Ricky. Obuobi gives us incredibly deep, tender, and flawed characters who endure hardships together. She gives an accurate depiction of how self-absorbed medical students can become during their training because it’s so all-consuming. I’ve heard there are complaints about the romance arc in the book, but viewed as a coming-of-age story and one with flawed, but beautiful characters makes everything fall into place for me. But you’ll have to read it and decide for yourself.

I could write an entire novel about how much I loved this book and how it made me feel. I hope you pick it up after tomorrow and love it too!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyage for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this story and the main characters. This was such a fun read and I loved how it felt more like a coming of age and finding yourself story than it did a rom-com but still managed to make the romance aspect work really well. The way the relationship between Angie and Ricky developed felt so real and relatable and it made me root even harder for them. Loved reading this.

There were things I loved about this book and other things I disliked.

First of all, I appreciate that this isn't a typical romance novel. Yes, a romantic relationship is a pivotal part of the plot but it's really about Andie's personal journey. Dating is a part of that but an almost bigger part is her medical school career. I loved the scenes when she's working with patients. It told me a lot about this character and also I learned some things about life as a medical student.

I was not a fan of her love interest Ricky, he's a flake. BUT he's a realistic guy. He's not a perfect romance hero and I do appreciate that about him. Their on again off again was frustrating as a reader but felt representative of real relationships.

Overall this was an interesting, engaging read and I recommend it for romance readers.

On Rotation is a great Own Voicescoming-of-age women’s fiction book. There is a lot of personal growth that happened here, in a really rough and realistic way. Angie is likeable, but I also found myself surprised and disappointed with her choices at times - but that made her all the more real. Ricky was also quite the same, in that sometimes his reactions and decisions felt immature or impulsive. The medical school side of the book was well done, interesting and dynamic. The footnotes I don’t think work particularly well in an ebook format(took me out of the story) though I’ve listened to audiobooks in a similar style and it can be quite fun. There is lots of great representation in this book, with heavy topics touched on without feeling forced or preachy. I really enjoyed this debut! Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager for an eARC of On Rotation in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 4.5 Rounded Up

One of the primary reasons I really enjoyed On Rotation is because of how many types of love were explored. Romantic, platonic, familial and self love are all highlighted through Angie’s relationships.

Angie and Ricky’s relationship was quite the roller coaster ride. It had its highs and it’s lows but it felt very authentic. There were times when I wished we could have Ricky’s POV because just like Angie I was confused about whether I should like him or not. In the end. Ricky completely won me over. I was rooting for them to work it out. I loved how adorably nerdy they were together and that they were there for one another during some of the toughest times of each other’s lives.

Another element that was a wonderful addition were the footnotes throughout the book. They were informative, funny and super relatable! There was medical jargon/concepts and cultural elements included that I would have had to look up on my own without the footnotes. I wasn’t taken away from the story to understand something which was nice!

On Rotation included an excellent and diverse cast of side characters that really added value to the story. Angie’s friendship breakup with her bestie was gut wrenching and a plot point I think many women can relate to. The breakup/breakdown of a life long friendship can be more painful than a romantic one. The focus on platonic love is not something I’ve encountered much in adult contemporary romance novels.

The Angie Appiah we meet at the beginning of the story is unlucky in love, unable to stand up for herself with her parents and doubting her ability to reach her professional goals. Angie’s transformation into a self assured woman was beautiful to read. She discovers her worth and learns to love herself. The biggest lesson she learns though is that it’s nice to have friends or a partner but she can survive and thrive on her own too.

Finally, I have to point out that Shirlene Obuobi is a real life superhero for writing and getting this book published while doing a cardiology fellowship!

Shirlene Obuobi has blown me away with her debut novel. I've been following her comics for years so I jumped on the chance to read this eARC when I saw it available. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity!

Angie Appiah is a 3rd year medical student doing her best to navigate rotations, family, friendships and love. Just like our author, Angie is a Ghanaian-American, and proud of it, but she recognizes that this causes many challenges in her life.

I really enjoyed reading On Rotation. I especially liked the insight into Ghanaian family traditions and the inclusivity of LGBTQ+ individuals. This one does have a lot of footnotes, and I mean A LOT, which could pull you out of the reading experience but I found most of them funny and helpful for those who aren't familiar with medical school. My copy was an e-book and I would expect the footnotes to be easier to manage if read as a physical copy.

While I can't relate to Angie in many ways, her story did bring me back to my rotation experiences. (PA school is not as intense as med school but I could relate nonetheless).

The medical school setup felt freshly done and the cast of characters was well thought out. The pieces of Ghanaian culture were so interesting and really gave the story a different light, I loved it!

3.5 stars. Angie is a lot. I loved her; I hated her, my feelings ran the gamut. In the end though, love prevailed, as it should with this great contemporary romance. It’s a coming of age in adulthood when life gets real and nothing stays the same.

This book was incredibly interesting straight out the gate, teaching me words and terminology from a Ghanaian cultural perspective that made the characters feel real. This wasn’t an after-thought add-on, I felt that right to the root of who Angie was, was a cultural hurdle to overcome, and I loved that about this book.

This book is fantastic and a five-star read. On Rotation is thought-provoking, entertaining, and relatable.
Angie is a Ghanaian-American woman navigating love and medicine in her 20s. This book is incredibly relatable and everyone will see a piece of themself in Angie. When we meet Angie at the beginning of the book she's just been dumped and nearly fails an important exam. She's dealing with insecurities we all face while trying to navigate the high-stress, high-pressure environment that is medical school.
I myself am a medical student and I loved the commentary on the medical system. Dr. Obuobi tackles many topics including family expectations, racism, bias in the healthcare setting, mental health, and burnout while also developing Angie and Ricky's love story.
I highly recommend this book and I will be eagerly awaiting Dr. Obuobi's next novel. Run, don't walk, to the store to buy this book when it releases on June 21st. You won't be disappointed.

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A special thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for an ARC of this novel!!!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)

Rep: West African Rep (Ghana), LatinX Rep (Mexican), Black Women in STEM, Black Women in Medicine, LGBTQIA+ Rep,

TW/CW: toxic parental relationships, alcoholism, death of a parent, tragedies in the hospital, cheating


Do you like?: black women in STEM, black women in medicine, interracial romance, side-characters who get their own character developments, strangers to slight enemies to lovers, blerd references (superiority complex activated), and a main character who is downright relatable?

If so, then I highly recommend this book for you!! Scratch that, support my girl and BUY THE DAMN BOOK! BUY TWO COPIES! I DON’T CARE JUST BUY IT!

On Rotation is more than just a romance novel, it follows the everyday life of third-year medical student Angela “Angie” Appiah, a Ghanaian-American who has checked off every box in order to be the perfect eldest immigrant daughter. That is, until her boyfriend breaks-up with her and she finds out that she hasn’t done the best on one of her most important exams. She is thrown into a whirlwind of emotions and now must figure out how to keep her residency dreams in tact. Until she meets Ricky Gutierrez, a Mexican-American freelance artist who is obsessed with love and gorgeous in every way. However, Angie is not trying to fall for another potential love flame that will do nothing but fizzle out in the end. Can Angie live up to the standards of her parents, follow her dreams, and learn to truly follow her heart?

So to start off, this book is a straight BANGER! I’ve never felt so seen by a book in my life! This book is more than just the romance between Angie and Ricky. We see Angie in her everyday life. We follow her through her third-year journey. We meet her family and get an insight on Ghanaian culture; we meet her younger sister who’s a complete firecracker and will do anything for her big sister. We meet her friends who are her second family and see the dynamics of friendships. We witness her go through a tough period with her best friend and see how sometimes your longest friendships can even be tested during adulthood. We meet her mentor, who wants nothing but to see her win. Just as the dedication says, this book is for the black girls who need to know thatyou are seen, YOU are loved, YOU can have whatever you dream of.

Characters:
Now Ricky……Ricky. I like you at the end of the day. But I’m bout to be on yo AHHH! Now, Ricky is not our average love interest. But that’s ultimately what I like about him. He’s a great person. But he shows us that great people, can make piss poor decisions in their personal life at times. I loved how he saw Angie for who he she was. He motivated her despite their different career choices and was always there to give her a supportive shoulder. He cares for her deeply and he shows it through his action. HOWEVER, my boy was on some bully bull for real! I hated the emotional rollercoaster he put Angie on. One minute you don’t like my girl, the next you do. We are too grown for all this and I’m happy that Angie was one to call him out on it instead of making excuses for him. He too was a great character to watch develop despite his excessive red flags lol.

My favorite character was Nia. Nia reminds me so much of my real life best friend. She is supportive of Angie and wants nothing but the best for her. I also love how we got to see some insight into Nia’s personal life as well. She served so much purpose in the story and I loved being able to see more of her personally.

In conclusion as I stated before, THIS IS A BANGER!! Instant buy author! Amazing story! Loved everything about this novel. Prepare to be sick of me because I’m not gone shut about this one for a while!!!

I have some mixed feelings about this book if I’m being honest. However, I did enjoy it. I think I went in thinking this book would be light but it had some heavy aspects to it that I didn’t expect. As a child of immigrant parents I related so much even though my culture is different. I enjoyed the push and pull dance at first but towards the end I wished the drama would just end. I do think this is way more in the women’s fiction category than the romance category. However it still has some of the key components that a romance has which added a light and fun component to it. Overall this book was well written and I loved the keynotes that were added to help learn about Ghanaian culture.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reading copy! I really enjoyed this sweet and honest depiction of medical student life, mixed with friendship and love in this debut OWN voices novel. Angie is in medical school in Chicago who gets dumped, when she meets Ricky, a graphic designer. An instant connection is made, but life is complicated and wading through school, friendships, and life occurrences moves their relationship along in many nuanced and delightful ways. This was a sweet and realistic love story between young people, but also a lot more - Angie is finding her place as a future doctor, figuring out how to be a good friend while becoming an adult, and working out her place as a daughter to Ghanaian parents with high expectations. I really enjoyed the friendships, family, and medical school parts of the story. The writing style of this book moves along the story really well, and I also enjoyed the fact that this is written by a doctor, advocating for compassionate and inclusive patient care amongst a beautiful and fun fiction. I recommend this book for fans of Grey’s Anatomy, women’s fiction, romance, and OWN voices.

DNF at 35%

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I think there was more about this book that I didn’t like than i actually liked. I want to start out by mentioning the character inclusivity and how well done it was. I really enjoyed the aspect of characters with different ethnicities and sexualities and it was refreshing. However, this was the only thing I liked about this book.

The beginning was so slow and did not keep my interest at all. Our MC Angie meets the love interest Ricky pretty soon into the book. In fact she meets him a few hours after her relationship ends. He approaches her in a garden while she is crying and asks if he can draw her.. like dude read the room. Their whole interaction was fine up until the point where he tells her he has a girlfriend after basically courting her for the past few hours. Then gaslights her and tells her that he was just being nice. Yeah, right. I really just did not like Ricky and he gave me the ick so bad that i just knew I would not root for him no matter what happened between them.

I honestly think one of the worst parts about this book was the footnotes. First of all, why? Second, why? I found them to be completely unnecessary and a burden while reading this in ebook format. If you decide to pick this book up, make sure it is a physical copy or on audiobook because they will be easily accessible that way.

I had a lot of empathy for Angie. Freshly dumped, getting a less than stellar grade on a very important exam, heavy pressure from exacting parents, and having little self worth, the universe put a lot on her plate. But then she meets Ricky. Their relationship progresses by dots and starts. They both make mistakes and hurt each other.
But Angie begins to realize she is worth it and just maybe so is Ricky.
On Rotation is a romance that gives readers an inside scoop on preparing to be a doctor and all the demands and expectations that ensue.
Make sure to put it in your rounds.

Angie and Ricky are a lovely couple who fit perfectly together. But they both bring baggage to the relationship that gets in the way. It's easy to understand why she doesn't trust him, and how that leads to the miscommunication between them. The ending is beautiful, reaffirming the strong bond between them. The author also did a good job of immersing the reader in the high-stress world of a medical student, and the struggles of trying to please parents who mean well but don't understand. This book should appeal to both romance and women's fiction readers.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I really enjoyed Angie's growth through her rotations. From learning to set boundaries with her family and having to transition friendships between different life stages, she struggled but found herself. Her friends and family are fleshed out and having interesting secondary storylines. But Ricky is not for me. He likes Angie but he doesn't necessarily make the time to know her until the finale. When Angie and Ricky fight, she seems to have formed a full view of him and a reasonable guess as to how he would act. Ricky waited until there was big conflict to reflect and expand his view of her to include what she offers as personal insight. Overall I kind of wish the romance had been trimmed down and the story had involved more of Angie's dynamic with her friends and family.

Angela Appiah is a Ghanaian-American who is in medical school and recently bombed a major test much to this disappointment of her family and on top of that she was just dumped. Deciding she needed a me day she goes to a street fair and has a good cry in a secluded garden. While in the garden Angela meets Ricky who was in there drawing, the two decide to spend the day together and strike up a friendship. This story is much more than just the progression of their relationship but also about the struggles that Angela goes through as a med student as well as first born daughter who feels the weight of her family on her shoulders alone. I really struggled with this one and I am not sure why. The writing drew me and I read it very quickly but I never felt attached to the two characters and wasn't very invested in their story. Over all this one was just ok for me but I am curious to see what else this author writes in the future. Thank you Avon and Netgalley for my gifted copy for review.

Angela is a Ghanaian-American medical student in Chicago navigating friendships, relationships, family and cultural expectations, and medical school. There's great representation in the book not just with Ghanaian characters but with Latinx, Korean, LGBTQ+ characters, among others - and they are all fully and thoughtfully developed. Don't let the cover fool you into thinking this is going to be a light romance book. There is much more substance to the book than the cover might imply. There is romance in this book but it felt more like a women's fiction book than a romance book. This book will probably appeal to older teens and new adults the most.

This was an absolute delight!

We had witty, chatty, bantery conversations.

We had a swoony leading man.

A bad ass leading lady.

A great combo. Loved it, enjoyed it and I see this being a huge summer hit!

I am so honored to have had the chance to read an ARC of On Rotation! I have thought long and hard about this review because this is definitely one that is going to stick with me for a while.

Angela Appiah. Ghanaian-American. Oldest daughter. Third year med student. It’s that time in her life when she is supposed to have everything together, until it all starts falling apart. Her boyfriend dumps her. She bombs the most important test of her medical school career. She disappoints her parents and her best friend starts to pull away. It’s complicated. It’s busy. And it just gets more so when she meets Ricky Gutierrez.

There are SO many things I loved about this book. As a nurse, I was drawn in for the medical aspect and DID NOT DISAPPOINT! Is actually a doctor herself so the medical school/residency life feels so real and authentic. When Angie and Ricky meet for the first time it was #nerdalert and I am freaking here for it! I proudly fly my nerd flag so I really appreciated all the references that could be found throughout the book. The cast of side characters were beautiful and diverse. I LOVE a character that uses the they/them pronouns. Plus learning about Angie’s culture was absolutely beautiful!

Is there romance in this story? Yes. But it runs so much deeper than that. Sharing the experience of Black patient in the hospital holds a very special place in my heart. Especially as a former NICU nurse, where it is very well known that Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die from complications surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Read that again. Those numbers are staggering.

This book is deep and raw. If you are looking for a picture perfect romance, this is not for you. Angie and Ricky have their problems. It takes them a while to work through their histories and find each other. (But trust me friends, when they did, it gave me goosebumps.)

Pick this one up if you like:
-Medical settings
-A beautiful case of diverse side characters
-A relatable and raw love story
-Fantastic character growth
-Strong female friendships