Honestly this book was pretty slow paced for me. I'm not really the biggest fan of friends to lovers so that's probably why it felt slow to me. I LOVE that it took place in a bookstore!

2.5 stars

Booked on a Feeling had a lot of things I enjoy in a romance: dual POV, small town vibes (and bookstore vibes!), and friends-to-lovers.
I've personally read a lot of books lately where the main character is a lawyer, and she's usually killing it, so when this book started out that way, I wasn't sure if this was the right time for me and this book. However, when we learned more about Lizzy and her anxiety, it felt like a fresh take.
Ultimately, this book is about two people trying to find what brings them joy. Lizzy takes an unexpected vacation from her high stress job to go visit the small town her best friend, Jack, lives in and ends up volunteering at a bookstore. Jack, trying to find a job outside of the family business, is thrilled as he has harbored a years long crush on her.
It felt like the beginnings of a cute romance, except it never really got there for me. Jack's internal monologue bugged me, as he apparently has loved Lizzy for years but as soon as things take a romantic turn, he had such cold feet. It just felt juvenile and like a game to me. And on the other hand, Lizzy's feelings seemed to take a complete 180. The writing felt more telling than showing, and maybe that's why I didn't feel very connected.
There also didn't seem to be a lot of tension, both characters were seemingly going through the same dilemma with their jobs and breaking away from their families. The tension in regards to the romance and ruining their friendship just seemed unbelievable.
This book is part of a series, but is easily read as a standalone.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I had a tough time with this one.
I liked the premise of returning to your small hometown and discovering love. However, I didn't think the main character's choices made a lot of sense, the story moved liked molasses and the hero harbored a crush on his best friend for a decade. I'm sorry but if someone nurtures a crush for that long his side of the friendship comes off as icky in my opinion.

I wanted to love it because it had a lot of the scenes in a bookstore, but it fell flat. It was back and forth with the same jargon throughout the whole book. Will they or won’t they? …but you know they will. One of the main characters was extremely repetitive. It was the same script every chapter. It goes from friends to lovers so quickly that you feel like you are reading about completely different characters then the ones you started out with. The cover is cute. It was raunchy in some scenes. I have no doubt a true romance lover will enjoy this book. I’m glad I was given a shot to read this ARC from NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this book. Owning a bookstore would be awesome. I’ve read the first two in the series. I like these characters. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Review 3.5
I didn't realize this was part of a series but I do feel like it stood well on it's own without reading the previous books. This book had everything I usually love in a romance: dual POVs, friends to lovers, and delicious food descriptions. However, I found it really hard to get in to for the first half of the book. It may have been part of the author's intention but as Lizzy was feeling the burnout from her stressful job as a lawyer, I felt the beginning of the book was sort of dragging along. However, as Lizzy started to grow and realize her passions, the book became more lively and the story finally started to build. The romance was cute but I felt it could have been a little bit more developed on Lizzy's side. She went from seeing Jack as a friend, to seeing him as major hottie but I seemed to have missed what made Jack start to stand out to her as a love interest. I LOVED the bookish subplot and I now want to have my own bookstore as my second career. Overall, it was cute and it did make me want to see what the other books in the series.
Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for a digital copy to review

Fun romance, nothing particularly unique but you don't always need that in romance. Wasn't a fan about what happened in the last act but the HEA was satisfactory.

Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee

Lizzy Chung is a lawyer in a high end law firm in Los Angeles. She is working on her first case to go in front of a judge. During opening statements she has a panic attack and passes out. Then at the end of the trial she wins. Lizzy is on the upward trend to become partner in a couple of years. This should be all good news for Lizzy but it isn't she is burned out, tired and has been stressed from her mothers expectations. She decides to take a 3 week vacation and spend it with her best friend Jack.

Lizzy and Jack friendship begins to blossom into something more will it work out for them? How will Lizzy's mom react to her taking a vacation and the changes she is making for herself? Will Lizzy find happiness in all aspects of her life? You will need to read this heart warming sweet romance to find out what happens to Lizzy.

Even Jack had issues with his current life situation and wanted changes. He works for his family brewery business doing all the accounting. He is bored and wants more to do. He has also had a long time crush on Lizzy.

I really enjoyed this story for many reasons one it shows the struggles women have in sacrificing so much to move up in the legal field in big law firms. Burnout happens because of the long hours that are put in to win cases. Lizzy had no life other than her job and that is not sustainable for no human being.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for a free copy of this book for an honest review.

Booked on a Feeling is a perfect book for people who love rom-coms and "friends to lovers" books!

Booked on a Feeling is about a lawyer (Lizzy) who is burned out from her job and takes a vacation in a small town where her childhood best friend (Jack) lives. Jack is elated to spend these three weeks with Lizzy because he has been in love with her for 20 years. Lizzy doesn't know about this crush, and he plans to keep it this way so that he won't risk their long-time friendship. The more time the they spend together, the harder it becomes to hide this.

I loved this story and love the way Jayci Lee writes. I was immediately hooked from the start! The characters in this book are cute, funny and you could feel the chemistry between them. Additionally, it was really nice to see the growth that both of the main characters had. I love that the author included real life struggles in the storyline such as anxiety, family issues and figuring out what you want to do in life.

I really enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to anyone who loves romance and the friends to lovers trope. Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee comes out on July 26, 2022 and I will be buying a physical copy of it!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest opinions and review.

This is such an adorable romcom! I love the best friends to lovers trope and this one definitely delivers! Plus I loved the coziness of the bookstore setting!

On the surface, this book is everything that I love in a romance novel. We have a bookish theme, characters burnt out from their careers who need a new path, and the friends-to-lovers tropes. Those story pieces do play well together and have played well together in the past. However, this book was missing one fundamental piece to tie everything together: a plot.

Before jumping into the nitty-gritty, I want to start with what did work in this book. The Korean and Korean American culture that seeped through the pages was amazing to see. Not only did the descriptions of food make me want to locate a local Korean restaurant in my area, but the descriptions of the food made it easy to imagine in my mind. (Although, I do draw the line at the three-sentence description about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.) If you read this novel, be warned: it will make you hungry.

Unfortunately, the food descriptions were the only strength the writing had. This novel heavily relied on telling, not showing, which provided a choppy story flow. I found myself craving setting descriptions, more figurative language, and less on-the-nose adjectives/adverbs to describe emotional states. That was the writing style aspect I struggled with the most. When I read a novel, I want to be able to feel what the character is feeling, and that best comes through inference on a character’s emotional state. But you can’t have that inference when the novel is reading as “Lizzy felt anxious.” I wanted to see Lizzy’s palms getting sweaty, her heart fluttering in her chest, her stomach feeling as if it’s crawling up the back of her throat. Those descriptions make a reader feel something, and that was the spark this story needed to add depth to the descriptions.

Compounding the lack of descriptions was, frankly, the lack of plot. By the 23% mark, this was all that had happened:

- Lizzy won a trial.
- Lizzy took a leave from absence from work, went to her BFF's (Jack) hometown.
- Lizzy and Jack had developed mutual (but unspoken) crushes on each other.

Normally, that would have been fine if there were multiple sub-plots running beneath the surface. However, there weren’t true sub-plots in this novel (or prolonged conflict, for that matter). All I can tell you is that the plot consisted of Jack and Lizzy mutually pining for each other, Lizzy rebuilding a bookstore (which only lasted from 25-75%, approximately), a third act breakup happened (over a brief, and their first, argument as a couple), and a resolution. Again, on paper, it looks like a plot; but, with the amount of meandering, brief conflicts, and lack of engagement from the characters, there wasn’t much plot working on the page.

A further issue was the lack of characterization and development. This was unsurprising to find, as there weren’t many conflicts for the characters to grow from. If characters aren’t engaging with conflict, aren’t pursuing goals, aren’t actively changing, they then have no agency. And no agency in characters makes for a boring story. I would argue that this story was flirting with the characters having no agency. While both Jack and Lizzy had personal goals (of discovering what they want to do with their lives, where they belong, etc.), there wasn’t a greater goal or conflict putting pressure on the characters to cause change. I just wanted more engagement between the characters and the plot to add that tension and growth that make a romance novel shine.

Lastly, the anxiety representation wasn’t well done. Early on, Lizzy describes herself as being anxious and has a panic attack that causes her to faint in the court room. But when she leaves LA to travel to Weldon, she stops taking her anxiety medicine and has “no anxiety at all.” As someone who has generalized anxiety disorder, I can absolutely say that is not how it works. I would love for my anxiety to simply shut off depending on my location or situation, but that’s not how it works. Anxiety isn’t a condition that just comes and goes; it’s something that you learn to manage overtime. It felt like anxiety was a convenient character trait and not something that Lizzy, or the story, truly cared to grapple with.

Overall, this book failed to execute and tie together known tropes in a new, original way. There were many execution issues that were not only distracting but weakened many aspects of this novel. As I’m walking away from this novel, I can’t help but think how much more this could have offered to the reader.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I loved the premise of this book, and enjoyed reading the dual POV! Friends to lovers isn't my favorite trope, but I liked Lizzy and Jack overall. I also enjoyed the description of food in this book; clearly, this writer is a foodie! My only major con with this book is that the plot seemed disjointed From Lizzy's lawyer life to her helping out at the small-town bookstore, and then also her relationship with Jack, something felt off to me. I look forward to reading more from Lee in the future!

Booked on a Feeling is the third novel in the A Sweet Mess series where each novel can be read as a standalone. This story follows Lizzy Chung, an aspiring lawyer in Los Angeles, who has a panic attack during an important work moment. She decides to take a break and head back to small-town Weldon, California to regroup as she questions if she is cut out to be a lawyer. When she returns home, she has the chance to visit her best friend, Jack Park, who works as a bookkeeper at his family’s microbrewery. The two connect further when Lizzy decides to revamp the local bookstore and Jack decides to help her.

As Jack has loved Lizzy since they were ten years old, there is some secret pining between them. Lizzy’s life is initially based on Los Angeles and Jack’s is in Weldon, there is tension about how this will work between them. The two have a natural chemistry, which I enjoyed as their connection did not feel forced, even on a friendship level. Throughout Lizzy’s time in Weldon, she has the chance to reevaluate if being a lawyer is for her. It was her parents dream for her and while she wants to please her parents, she must think if this is the career for her.

This story was very sweet as the two characters shared a lot of history. It was interesting to see how their relationship progressed as feelings developed, but there is always the possibility that this could affect the friendship. Some characters from the previous novels do make an appearance along with multiple other characters. Sometimes this was difficult to track as I did not know who I should pay attention to the most for the secondary and tertiary characters. Overall, this was a sweet story and a great addition to the series!

**I want to give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, for a review copy of this entertaining novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

Thank you Netgally and St. Martins Press for an ARC copy of this book.

Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars

This is a personal opinion. It I usually don’t love books where the main character is a lawyer. I have zero interest in law, lawyers, courtroom scenes, judges, juries etc…

I am here for the bookstore scenes..especially when the guy passionately kisses you against a bookshelf.

Thankfully, the law scenes were short lived and the personal growth through helping a struggling bookstore comes in quickly.

I really enjoyed the two main characters Korean backgrounds. It was nice to read a little bit about their culture through food and family.

I found the dialogue to be a bit cheesy at times but at around the 40% mark, I started to really get into the characters. Sometimes the friends to lovers trope takes some time for me to get on board.

Overall, I thought this was a cute love story. My favorite part being the idea of running an independent bookstore, because like Lizzy the main character, it is my dream as well 🥰

This story was very cute! I am giving it a 3.5! I really enjoyed it and I really liked Lizzy and Jack. The story itself was very cute and I really liked the way the author led the characters to finding themselves and their passions.

Jack and Lizzy were adorable and witty! I loved seeing Lizzy though Jacks eyes. You could really feel the love he had for her come through the pages. I also really loved how Lizzy would point out she was insecure and struggled with anxiety but wouldn’t let it stop her from doing or saying what she wanted and taking control of her life. I really admired her for that.

I felt like the story had a slow start but it eventually took off. I think it could have had more to it in some parts. Something would happen and I was hoping for more from it didn’t quite deliver in some areas.

Overall it was very cute and left me really liking the characters. It is the third book in the A Sweet Mess collection, but can be read out of order, and it did make me want to go back and read the first two stories to get to know some of the side characters a little better! Definitely give this one a shot if you like cute romcoms where you can basically feel the love the MMC has for the FMC!

Thank you for the author, published and NetGalley for giving me ARC in exchange for a honest review!

3.75 stars

I enjoyed this sweet little rom-com. It’s the third book in a series, apparently, but I haven’t read the others, and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I liked the main characters, for the most part. I especially liked that the female protagonist is a smart, educated, conventionally-successful woman who still loves some traditionally feminine things (in this case, romance novels); that was fun to see. I liked the way the story was put together, and even though it felt like there were still a couple of loose ends that weren’t really resolved, I liked the conclusion, and I suppose that just makes it more realistic. This was my first book from the writer, but I might have to go back and read the first two from the series as well.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

I'm a sucker for the friends to lovers trope/childhood love trope and this book was exactly that. I loved Lizzy and Jacks' relationship and they had some of the cutest moments. The bookstore scenes were probably my favorite parts of the book.

It was interesting to see their dynamic change from friends to lovers especially because Jack has always had a crush on Lizzy but when Lizzy starts reciprocating the feelings, he almost backs off and wants to go slow. It was kinda shocking but also nice because then, Lizzy had to fight Jack about going further with their relationship.

It was great to see the characters sorting out what they wanted to do career wise especially because it is such a relatable feeling that I may or may not be currently feeling. The relatable aspect helped me feel closer to the story.

Overall, a very cute, quick, and easy read. I haven't read the other books in this series but this book can be read as a standalone if you're looking for something quick to read and love a book with characters who love to read and work in a bookstore (fmc).

Thank you to Jayci Lee, St. Martin's Friffin and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Booked On A Feeling is a friends-to-lovers romance following childhood friends Jack and Lizzy. I felt drawn in from the cover and title alone! After experiencing a panic attack in court, Lizzy decides to visit her best friend for some time to de-stress. Jack is ecstatic to see Lizzy, but struggles to keep his secret-he has a crush on her. Both Lizzy and Jack must decide what this means for a potential relationship between them and whether their friendship can survive.

Booked On A Feeling is the latest installment into the series "A Sweet Mess." It can be read as a standalone, though readers who have read the other books will appreciate the cameos. I really enjoy Jayci Lee’s work and Booked On A Feeling might be my favorite book from her yet! Lizzy had great mental health rep, as she struggles with anxiety related to family expectations and work stress. Watching her find the confidence to choose for herself what she truly wanted to do was amazing! Jack was a gentlemanly and swoon worthy MC. He similarly dealt with internal and external pressure about his purpose and goals. I loved how Lizzy and Jack always brought the focus back to their close friendship and were always there for each other. Booked On A Feeling is a sweet read, perfect for readers who love romance, indie bookstores, and friends-to-lovers. Thank you to Jayci Lee, St. Martin’s Griffin and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, Wordpress blog, and Barnes & Noble etc

Cute friends to lovers romance with a lovely cinnamon roll hero. I liked seeing how both main characters were trying to sort out what they wanted to do career wise and make changes from what they were currently doing. Bonus points for all the lovely bookshop plot points!

2.5 rounded up.

This one just didn’t keep my interest very well. The first half was super slow, and I found myself wanting to speed ahead.

I just wasn’t falling in love with the characters, wasn’t feeling the chemistry/tension. I also didn’t love how the FMC handled the “big fight”.