Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

I am a sucker for childhood best friends to lovers books, so it took me no time at all to decide to request an arc of Booked On A Feeling by Jayci Lee. In short, this was a cute and adorable and tooth-rottingly sweet read.

The main characters, Jack and Lizzy, have been best friends since they were 10. My favorite part of their relationship was Jack’s unrequited pining for twenty years, and his longing for Lizzy to love him. I ended up looking forward to his point of views more than I did Lizzy’s.

I rated this book 3 stars because of a few significant factors. First, I thought there were too many descriptions of unnecessary facets like settings and food (I know what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tastes like, I don’t need a two-paragraph explanation), while sorely lacking in character descriptions. What color hair did Lizzy have? Jack? What shapes were their faces? Did they have wide smiles or full lips? It was hard for me to really feel a connection to these characters when I truly had no idea what they looked like, and what they found most attractive/inviting about each other’s appearances.

Another thing I disliked was a good chunk of the dialogue. Most of it was awkward and stunted, and just didn’t feel very natural at all. Like perhaps the author was trying a bit too hard to create witty banter, but it really didn’t come across as witty. I regretfully found myself cringing during a significant portion of the conversations between Jack and Lizzy.

This book would be a good read for anyone looking for a quick, simple romance between best friends, but for the most part, it is pretty forgetful.

I really wanted to love this book. Personally, I was not a fan and I was not able to finish it. There was serious character development that was lacking throughout the book. I do appreciate the multicultural representation of the characters though!

i unfortunately couldn’t finish this book. i don’t know which aspect of it led me to set it down for a final time, but i was relieved when i did so. i always felt like i was actively trying to read instead of relaxing into it. however, i didn’t mind the writing style. it moved quickly, it was descriptive, and the storyline initially seemed enticing. i can see how this would resonate with others, it simply wasn’t for me.

Thanks ver much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! Friends to lovers is one of my favourite romance tropes so I was really excited to give this a read.

Booked on a Feeling follows our two main Lizzy and Jack, they've been friends since childhood but Lizzy is unaware that Jack's been harbouring a crush on her that whole time. Lizzy is a lawyer in LA, and Jack works for his family's brewery in the small town of Weldon. Lizzy is suffering from major burnout and decides to take a three-week vacation to spend time with Jack in Weldon. Meanwhile Jack is looking to make a change in his own career. The two come together to help spruce up the local independent book store and romantic feelings grow between them.

I really liked that besides just a cute romance the author touches on mental health and how hard professional burnout can be as I think it's something we're seeing a lot especially in young professionals right now. Also the idea that it's never too late to make a career change and find that it is you really want to do! Where this book fell a little short for me is that it seemed like the getting together was very rushed. We know Jack has his years long crush, but it seems like Lizzy's feelings developed out of nowhere. I wish it had been a slower build with a bit more tension and pining. It also had a third act breakup which I hate in romance. But over all this was really cute and I highly recommend!

Full review posted to Goodreads and StoryGraph!

This book was cute but I had overall mixed feelings. I found Lizzy's character to be relatable to how a lot of people feel when under the pressure of their parents and find themselves pressured into a life they wouldn't have necessarily picked for themselves. Struggling though burnout and also dealing with the anxiety of living a life that is not your dream is something a lot of people can identify with and I loved this aspect of the story. I loved the childhood friends to loves aspect of this book as well but I found Lizzy and Jack's relationship to be lacking something. Individually as characters I loved them but together I just did not find their love to be as believable as I would have hoped for after twenty year of friendship.

I had to abandon this book. It wasn’t very interesting. I liked the characters, The plot was too weak for me to continue.

I want to thank Net Galley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. I requested this book because the title was so cute. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, it just didn't make it for me. It was cute and fun, and sexy. but I felt like that there was so much more that was missing. Lizzy is a lawyer in LA. She has just win her first case, despite a crippling anxiety attack at the start of the trial. She is not happy a a lawyer, and it appears she is just in law because her mother has pushed her to excel since she was young. Lizzy always wanted to own her own bookstore. Lizzy goes to Weldon, her old home town , where her best friend jack lives. Lizzy takes a room above a bookstore. Jack's family owns a brewery. Jack works at the brewery, but it is not what he wants.He has secretly applied to a firm in LA for a job. That is basically the plot. It was ok, fun and light. It just wasn't what I was looking for.

thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for giving an honest review.
holy moly. i loved this book so much. i was literally gushing. normally i’m not a huge fan on friends to lovers, like they are good but i definitely have tropes i like better, but this book…THIS BOOK AHHHH!!! my heart feels so full after reading it. it was literally so adorable. i definitely plan on getting a physical copy of this book when it comes out!!

3⭐️
Firstly, thank you to the publishers and NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press publishers for the E-ARC of Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee. The below is my honest opinion!

This is a cute, feel good romance. Booked on a Feeling is a second chance, friends to lovers romance. It follows two POVs: Lizzy, an attorney living in LA who realizes her life is not what she wants, but what her mother laid out for her, and Jack, who works at his family’s brewery wishing he had his own goals and pinning for his childhood best friend. The story revolves around the two helping a local revamp her bookstore.

I enjoyed the Korean culture that is seen throughout the book- the different traditions with both households. I also enjoyed how cute and fluffy Lizzy and Jack were.

Why I gave it 3 stars: I felt like these two people who claim to know the other better then they know themselves and hve been friends for 20years, had a hard time expressing their true feelings. They kept going back and forth with “oh she/he doesn’t feel the same” when they could have resolved the main conflict easily if they just talked. I also felt like there was miscommunication between them when there didn’t have to be.

Overall, a very sweet romance with a childhood friends to lovers, the boy falls first tropes.

Sadly, this wasn't my favorite. Booked on a Feeling was my first Jayci Lee read, and perhaps I would have enjoyed this more had I read the first two books in the series. There were a lot of characters to keep track of and I feel like I was lacking background detail that would have helped me connect to them better. The plot was a tad predictable and I am not a fan of miscommunication that often comes with friends-to-lovers, so that was also disappointing. Lastly, I'll say that I love romance novels where characters are bit older and more mature (Lizzy and Jack are in their 30's) but this somehow still felt a little juvenile. I definitely recommend this to Jayci Lee fans and those that are looking for a sweet and heartfelt romance. The writing was great and there were definitely some sweet and enjoyable moments, it just wasn't for me.

A sweet, easy read about an overachieving big city lawyer who suddenly stumbles and a vacation town guy who has crushed on her from afar.

Lizzy expects that she’ll find success in LA until a panic attack sends her on a three week burnout rehabilitation to the vacation town (Weldon) she’s always visited, where Jack Park has been her childhood friend. Jack is unsure of staying in small Weldon. Just as Lizzy is trying to find herself, so does Jack and Jack also needs to reveal his secret crush to her to move on as well. In the course of taking on a project (rehabbing a bookstore) they have an opportunity to discover themselves at age thirty instead of age ten.

The characters were lovely and the story has a slow build — perfect as a beach read. It’s everything you’d want in a quaint town romance. 3.5 stars.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Twinkling, deep, wide and hopeful but none described as green.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Jack is concerned about the hidden meaning of the flowers in the bouquet he gives Lizzy.

Stop this is one of my new favorites, Lizzie and Jack made me blush from start to finish. Lizzie made for a relatable and endearing heroine and Jack was nothing short of swoon worthy. AND THE EPILOGUE!!!! Don't get me started. 5/5 for me I loved it.

Booked on a Feeling was a cute, fluff-filled romance novel that delivered everything I was expecting and not a word more. After reading hundreds of romance novels, I've come to dislike books that bank on the success of other romance novels. I've seen these tropes a million times before (and I'll likely never be able to get away from them), so this book felt super predictable to me. I didn't dislike it, but I definitely rolled my eyes a few times while I was reading it. 3/5 stars, but I'm probably being generous.

Thank you netgalley and st. Martin for allowing me to read this book. I was excited about this book because of Asian American representation.I tried reading this twice over the period of couple of weeks and just couldn’t get into it. I loved that fmc is so ambitious and got to reconsider her career choices.

I tried to pick this up twice and I just don't think it's the book for me. The main characters feel very flat and borderline juvenile and the pacing seems to be really slow. Also, I got quite lost in the legal jargon of the first couple chapters.

I was excited for the Asian-American rep, but this book just fell really flat to me. Big disappointment.

As always, thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I mean a book about books, I’m in.
This was such a sweet, uplifting, happy, fantastic story! I adore Lizzie and Jack- best friends turned more AND a second chance romance?! The author also was spot on (at least in my case) about dealing with anxiety.

Lizzie is so relatable as she re-examines her career as a trial attorney. The pressure she experiences from her mother could be felt through the pages.

Jack might be the most genuine hero I have come across, with his love for Lizzie so pure and patient.

You get to follow both characters as they face their own worth, realizing they must each discover themselves first and foremost.

I now need to go back and read the first two in this series!

gracias net galley for a copy in exchange for an honest review

the cover and plot sounded really interesting to me so i was pretty excited to read this butttt it was very mid to me :/
don’t get me wrong it wasn’t bad i just wasn’t too impressed i feel like not much was going on. the conflict was also very irritating and trivial. the characters also felt like they both immediately liked each other i was under the impression they would slowly fall in love. i think individually i did like jack and lizzy, the bookstore setting was really fun, but nothing else really stood out to me. the ending was my utter nightmare so it is safe to say i was not a fan of that. mmm maybe like a low 3 stars :(

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC. This book was very cute if not predictable. It was an easy read that gave you all the good feels. I felt the heroine was more likable than the hero but the story still works. Of course my favorite part are the bookstores. All opinions are my own.

This book is so freaking cute!! It's filled with warm happy feelings and the perfect read for any moment of the year!

The story follows lizzy a burnt out lawyer who takes 3 weeks off following a major panic attack and decides to spend some time with her best friend in his small town. Over these three weeks the two battle out the tension between them and enviably fail.

If you like friends to lovers with a bit of spice this is the perfect read for you!

I picked up Booked on a Feeling because I was in the mood for a sweet childhood-friends-to-lovers romance, and boy did this dual third person POV book not disappoint me. It contained some of my favorite minor tropes (girl boss/male wife; he falls first) and managed to hit the best aspects of the friends-to-lovers subgenre.

Booked on a Feeling takes readers into the lives of Elizabeth “Lizzy” Chung, a 30-year-old attorney in LA, and her best friend of 20 years, Jack Park, the accountant for his family’s small town brewery in their hometown of Weldon, CA. After Lizzy wins her first trial but finds no joy, she decides to take a vacation to return to Weldon for three weeks, staying in an apartment above the town’s indie bookstore. As they help the bookstore’s owner turn the space around, Lizzy and Jack must work through their muddled feelings about their professional futures and decide if the chemistry between them is worth risking their long standing friendship.

The characters are what move Booked on a Feeling forward, who I read as a lot of energy and thought going into. Both Lizzy and Jack had dumb moments that made me roll my eyes, but it was also those moments that made them feel like real humans. When they each contemplated their motivations for their professional lives and how their families’s influenced their outlooks, I had to step back as their thoughts were ones I’d had about my own life just months before. Side characters held less roundedness, but that is to be expected when they have less influence on the book overall. Aside from our mains, Shannon—Sparrow’s owner—shined. While we didn’t get to know a whole lot of background info about her, I enjoyed reading her interactions with Lizzy and Jack and how she subtly pushed them along.

As this is a romance novel, I’d be remiss not to discuss how well written Lizzy and Jack’s relationship is. When we start the novel, Jack has had a crush on Lizzy since they were ten, but she has him firmly in the friend zone. Once action picks up, I liked how Lizzy was hesitant to engage with him because she didn’t know how he felt about her while he didn’t want her to know how much he already loved her. Miscommunication comes up between them several times, but I actually didn’t mind it here? I guess it’s because I can see these situations happening in real life so miscommunication is not overblown. The ending look at where they’re at did seem a little too perfect to be only a year after the conclusion, though I’m willing to forgive this since the rest of the book made me smile so much.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶/🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 (One longer, detailed explicit scene; several smaller explicit comments and references)

**I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**