Rating: 3.5

This is such a fun and lighthearted read! Set in a little seaside, South England town in June, it's a great read to add to your summer TBR.

The writing is chock full of wit and movie references. Mara is a character that feels incredibly relatable. She's not the best with trusting herself, and she's created a small bubble because she's scared to open up and meet new people. While these are issues that I feel like many women experience at some point, I do think they made Mara's character feel immature, which sometimes got a little frustrating.

The side characters were wonderful, and there's a fantastic sub-plot threaded throughout the story of a Mara and her co-workers trying to save a historic town building. It was a fun story to follow and helped create perfect pacing throughout the book.

Overall, I found this to be a quick and cute read! It feels like a mash-up of Bridget Jones and The Devil Wears Prada, and honestly who doesn't want that?

Read this if you like:
- small, British seaside towns
- classic, 2000's chick-flicks
- wit and humor
- low-spice
- stories about finding yourself

Thanks to @netgalley and @putnambooks for the ARC!

I kind of felt this book was all over the place. I had a rough go at first and couldn’t get past 20% for a week.

I thought it was fine, but it is not a book that will stick with me unfortunately. And I like astrology and all, I think it’s quite interesting, but this felt overkill and therefore a tad juvenile.

It was fun at times and I liked the concept, but ultimately, it is not the book for me.

I loved the journey that The Setup took me on in Europe. I found this book to be funny and an enjoyable read.

Mara was an unusual character that at first I wasn't sure of, but I grew to like her. I didn't understand her obsession with Joe, nor her determination to keep everyone, including her family, away. I loved Ash and Mara together, but wish that they had a little more romantic development. They felt more suited to be friends by the end. Mara's growth really did it for me though and I loved the self-awareness she had at the end.

If you enjoy sarcasm and dry humor, you should enjoy this one!

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for the gifted copy

A fun summer British romance featuring Mara, a young woman looking for love who thinks she's found the man for her when a fortune teller says the next man she meets will be the one. Enter Joe, a random guy who mistakes her for the fortune teller and who Mara tries to convince needs to come see her at the end of the summer.

What follows is a lot of pining after Joe, a mystery man she has no idea if she'll be compatible with to the detriment of the lovely man right in front of her. I did enjoy the secondary storyline where Mara helps save a local Lido (pool) in her English seaside village of Broadgate.

Perfect for fans of authors like Jenny Colgan or Meant to be mine by Hannah Orenstein. This was a little too fluffy/silly for my tastes but it is definitely a good book to add to your summer beach reading if you just want some mindless entertainment. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a relatively fun, sweet read about a character finding her way- as long as I could pretend to myself that the character was a solid decade younger than she's meant to be in this book. In her early 30s, Mara behaves incredibly immaturely and it's hard to believe that the people in her life are as forgiving of her as they are in this story. However, I thought the set up and payoff were worth it, and it's got a lot of charm.

Mara consults here horoscope for EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. If she feels stressed or in a bind she’s looking it up. She believes in the stars and magic but doesn’t trust herself one bit.⁣
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For 31, she’s fairly immature and just unsure of herself and is constantly negative; and she reflects that on others view of her, assuming they will think she’s unusual too.⁣
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When she goes on a trip to Budapest she meets a fortune teller, and she believes wholly in the fate of this love that will come her way, but is that love her destiny?⁣
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We follow Mara on this journey of discovering herself and trying to rid herself of her own negativity while also trying to find love.⁣
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It’s a cute story, but I didn’t feel the sparks in this one as much as I have in her previous work. ⁣
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3.5⭐️ Thank you for an arc for my honest review!

This book was so fun! It was entirely unrealistic and frivolous, but that's sometimes exactly what we need in a summer read.

This book was really sweet and very funny. I enjoyed the story but wish that the main character of Mara was a little more understandable. Some of the decisions she made were hard to grasp and I felt like shaking her!

Mara did grow on me as the story went on and it had fun and clever supporting characters throughout!

Thank you to Netgalley and Putnam books for allowing me this advanced read in exchange for my honest review.

Mara Williams is a 31 year old messy out of sorts person. She infuriated me constantly. I really wish I could have reached in the book and shook her just a bit. She ends up going on a solo trip to Budapest and meets with a fortune teller. Who tells her that she'll meet the love of her life imminently. Then a man comes into the fortune teller shop and Mara thinks that he's the one. In disguise she tells him to meet at the pub the last week of August and he will meet his destiny.

Mara makes herself her project and turns her life around. I really enjoyed her figuring herself out. Finding a purpose and friends. Quirky friends. She has a new roommate Ash and their friendship blooms.

I really loved this book. As an American I love books set in England. I enjoyed the characters and their struggles.

Mara is on a solo vacation visiting a fortune teller who tells her she is about to meet a man when the fortune teller goes into labor and has to leave suddenly. Mara is locking up the shop when in walks Josef. He seems to be the man the fortune teller described to Mara takes fate into her own hands, pretending to be the fortune teller and telling him he will meet the love of his life in a pub in an English town the last Friday in August. That gives her just 3 months to get her life together and be ready to meet him and she is determined to make it happen, but her handsome new roommate keeps expressing his doubts.

At first, Mara’s character was not for me. She felt like she was stalking Joe and her obsession with astrology was just not something I could connect with. I also didn’t really feel her connection with her love interest and really didn’t find myself rooting for them for the majority of the story. While the chemistry was never quite there for me the characters ultimately grew on me. I love a cinnamon role of a love interest so I was happy he ended up being such a softie in the end, and I truly loved him. And Mara, thankfully she ended up showing huge growth by the end and really got it together, becoming far more likable by the end of the story.

Thanks to Penguin Group/Putnam and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

DNF at 16%. This book and I are not a fit, sadly. I'm not a fan of the FMC's personality or decisions, and the writing felt jammed together to sound interesting without making much sense. Total shame because this is a perfect summer-y read and the cover art is perfect :(

Thank you @netgalley for a copy of this eARC in exchange of my honest review.

I knew going in that this story was going to be quirky, but had high hopes that I would enjoy the outlandish storyline. Unfortunately, this book and I were not meant to be. It was just way too out there for me to be able to get into. I wound up skimming rather than reading just so I wouldn’t have to DNF this one. I do enjoy Lizzy Dent’s writing, but the plot was just not for me.

This one gets 2⭐️‘s from me.

It’s been awhile since I read a good book about an astrology-obsessed heroine who’s desperately in love and uses astrology to manipulate her love interest… last time it was Justine in Minnie Drake’s Star-Crossed. This time it’s girl feeling a little lost in her life who turns to astrology to help her find her way.

Mara’s life is at a bit of a standstill… she’s single and lonely, working as a bookkeeping at her small coastal town’s lido, and her best friend Charlie is married with a baby and doesn’t have time for her anymore. Mara finds herself on a solo trip to Budapest when Charlie cancels on her, and she wanders into a clairvoyant’s shop to have her palm read. After being told that she’ll meet her great romantic love “imminently” but first needs to make some fixes to her life, the clairvoyant goes into labor, leaving Mara to lock up behind her. But before Mara leaves the shop, she impulsively tries on the clairvoyant’s veil and jewelry, and a handsome classical musician named Josef enters. Believing that he fits the description of her true love but knowing she still needs to get herself “ready” to meet him, she poses as a palm reader and tells him he will meet the great love of his life named Mara at a specific time and place three months in the future at her village pub. Thus setting the stage for Mara to spend time working on her new and improved self before he “meets” her. But when she returns home, her new roommate Ash turns out to also fit the description of her “imminent” love. Having already decided that Josef is her destiny, she basically friend-zones Ash and gets to work making improvements to her life, with Ash’s never-ending patience and support - fixing up their flat, rallying support for the town’s failing lido, and overhauling her look and wardrobe. Before too long, she finds herself being pulled in two directions: towards to ease and comfort Ash provides, and the fantasy she’s built up in her mind over Josef. And no amount of consulting her horoscope can help her make a decision.

Overall, this book was an easy read and quiet enjoyable. Mara started out a bit annoying and weak, and a little unbearable, which is probably the point so you can see her personal growth throughout her journey. Her relationships with her family and best friend highlighted how self-absorbed and anti-social/withdrawn she was. On the flip side, you see how she lets go of her fear and feelings of inadequacy around her coworkers and the rest of town as they work to save the lido, which then gives her the confidence she needs to come out of her shell and start really living her life. This newfound confidence also allows to her her through her relationships with her parents and best friend, and she’s able to let go of her crutch and coping mechanism. Her extreme reliance on astrology to make even the smallest of decisions held her back. Once she’s free of the stranglehold, she’s able to see what’s real and right in front of her and what was a false sense of security and fantasy, and finally live an authentic life.

I enjoyed The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent, but I just couldn’t get into this one! The Setup was such a cute idea. I had a really hard time connecting with this MC. I was very interested once she met Joe, but then the story fell flat for me after that. The book became very slow, and I almost had to DNF it.

However, don’t let this review stop you from checking out The Setup - that’s available on June 7th!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me an ARC of The Setup in exchange for an honest review. Overall, I thought this book was just okay. I struggled with the main character consistently and did not find her to be an enticing main character. I did however love the side characters and the overall journey that they went through the book.

The Set Up
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Romance
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 6/7/22
Author: Lizzy Dent
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Pages: 384
Goodreads Rating: 3.75

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for providing an advanced digital copy of the book for me to read for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: The last place very average thirty-one-year-old Mara Williams thought she'd be is on a solo vacation impersonating her fortune teller when she finally meets the one. Josef, a gorgeous Austrian cellist, sits down for a reading and before she knows it, she's telling him his destiny will be sitting in a pub in the English seaside town of Broadgate on the last Friday of August. And her name is Mara. Meanwhile, the crumbling, formerly glamorous beachside pool club where she works is under threat and her eccentric colleagues enlist her help to save it, just as a handsome new housemate casts doubts on her ideas about "the one." Can Mara pull off the transformation of a lifetime? And by summer's end, will she know who is her destiny?

My Thoughts: The story is narrated from Mara, in her perspective. Speaking of Mara, I had a really hard time connecting with her, she was immature, and likely because she annoyed me. The characters are well developed, they had depth, some of the characters were likable, while others were not. I did like Ash, even as a supporting character. Mara was so focused on “the one” that she didn’t see the love right in front of her. I believe this book was more fiction than romance as the focus was on relationships, family and friendship, along with self-discovery with romance as a secondary factor. I really wanted to like this book as I do like this author, but the book just fell a little short for me. Overall, the book was good, just not something I would normally read.

⚜My Summary
📚The story of a lonely woman in need desperate need of finding love. I initially noticed that this was a slow read but I tried my best to push through and it got interesting when she met the Joe and read his palm. But it plateued again and the slowness took everything out of me. The sadest part is this story had potential to be a page turner but never got developed enough to be a good read.

Just Read Stars
⭐⭐

Well, this book ended up being a lot different than I expected and not at all in a bad way. I enjoyed myself the entire time reading it, but I didn’t fully connect to it until about 75% in and then all of a sudden, I was hooked. As much as Mara infuriated me at times with her Joe obsession and how she acted towards her family and coworkers at first, I related to her in so many ways. I really loved her romanticism and how much she loved movies. I understand her lack of trust and belief in herself. As a childfree woman whose friends are all having babies, her strained friendship with Charlie really got to me. Plot wise, the Joe storyline didn’t really excite me. I mean, at the end, it provided a really good conflict, but I loved seeing Mara connect with Ash and her coworkers and her efforts to try and save the lido more. I loved the small community of Broadgate. Mara really grew in this story and her development was wonderful.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for sharing this digital reader’s copy with me in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to the publisher, Penguin Group Putnam - GP Putnam’s Sons. I received advanced reading copy via Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

The Setup begins as Mara is getting ready to enter a bar & choose between two men. She doesn’t make decisions without consulting her daily horoscope and isn’t sure which way to choose.

While on a solo trip to Budapest, she is told by a fortune teller that she is to meet “the one” imminently - and then, through a series of events, she thinks she has - and that he will come looking for her in three months. First, she needs to makeover her life.

Mara is stuck and feels a failure - didn’t graduate from film school nearly a decade ago, no serious relationship in the same amount of time, job at the local lido (community pool), no local friends, and a new flatmate, Ash, who turns out to be a man.

She aims to turn everything around to be perfect for “the one” - but what happens when things don’t go according to plan?

Mara was a tricky heroine, because she sometimes made decisions and I wanted to shake some sense into her. I didn’t always like her. However, as you learn more about her past, her decisions and lack of trust in herself starts to make a lot of sense. I enjoyed seeing her grow as a person and embrace her new community.

And Ash. Ash is basically the perfect romance book hero - does the man have any flaws? It didn’t seem so.

Quality side characters abound, especially her coworkers at the lido! Her friendship with Charlie was also very relatable.

Good book to bring along to the beach or read with a book club and discuss!

Solid 3.5 stars rounded up to 4

I loved Mara's journey and her growing to embrace change in her life. The lido felt magical and I enjoyed how it brought everyone together in Mara's life and helped her come out of her shell. It was a fun ready and I liked how Dent made me as a reader go from rooting for one character to then finding myself completely flip and beg Mara to make another choice. Dent is so good at building the idyllic settings in both The Setup and The Summer Job- I can't wait to see where she takes me next.