This was a cute little romcom.

Jordy’s exes compete on a reality show to win a second chance at love with him. However Maya is coming on the show to exact revenge for Jordy cheating on her then lying about it with Skye. However Skye thinks she was just a crazy jealous ex.

I thought this was a cute romcom involving multiple female characters and a male antagonist who honestly was far from likable. I did struggle finding Maya and Skye to be likable as well. The whole storyline did feel very rushed and didn’t feel like Maya and Skye’s relationship really had a foundation not almost felt like it just appeared out of nowhere and then they were in love.

It was cute, full of some humor and enemies to lovers type trope. But just felt way too rushed and didn’t mesh well for me.

I really enjoyed and would recommend this book. I was wary with the starting premise that seemed to pit women against each other a bit more than I'd like but I am so glad I stuck with it because the book addressed and managed ot quickly and to my satisfaction. Jordy is an excellent bad guy - just extreme enough to be comic relief but (sadly) realistic enough that it didn't feel overly silly. I was at least 80% convinced/into the attraction between the two main love interests - that was one place that could have been a bit better developed - but I did find their quirks sufficiently believable to accept the third-act conflict. Ultimately, I liked the way everything shook out and I was interested the whole way along wondering how it would go.

I ended up reading the audio version and am glad that I did - Natalie Audus (who voices Maya) is one of my favourite narrators.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to read this early. Review has been posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I loved this book, and read it in a day. Minutes into the book, after meeting the two main female characters, all I could think was “they should be together”. This was a love letter (read as hate note) to all the men that still think their exes are in love with them. News flash, you’re an ex for a reason.

It very much reminded me of Charm Offensive, which I also loved, but with fierce females. By the end of the book- all the ladies want to take their ex-boyfriend down and make him feel the pain they all did previously. Mixed into the story is the sweet romance between the two female leads. They came for the ex-boyfriend, and found unexpected love.

3.5 rounded up to a 4. This was a fun revenge plot with a reality tv twist and while I was originally given an e-ARC from Netgalley (thanks!), I didn't manage my time well enough and ended up listening to it instead (it was great on audio, I really liked that Maya and Skye had their own narrators). The writing was funny and every character had their own distinct voice, even the exes who didn't last for long on Second Chance Romance, and Jordy was absolutely the worst in the most fun way. I would read a book about producer Isaac any day! The ending was so deeply satisfying.

There were just a few nitpicks: making this a YA novel was a little strange to me because everyone was 18-20 and it just felt a little too young for being on a reality dating show; the characters all felt more early to mid 20s anyways so why not bump it up a bit? The major nitpick was how on earth did Maya think she was going to successfully get Jordy to fall in love with her so she could break his heart when she couldn't even be near him without recoiling or being mean? Her plan really should have failed immediately and repeatedly. Similarly, Skye knew what the deal was so the 4th act 'betrayal' felt silly...but also, they're 18 so I guess that makes sense.

Never Ever Getting Back Together is a queer romcom involving Skye and Maya who go on a reality TV dating contest. Maya initially only goes on the show to get revenge on Jordy, her ex of two years, but when she finds out Skye will also be on the show (the one who stole Jordy from her) she's even more determined to get revenge. Skye is not a fan of Maya and the scene is set for enemies to lovers right off the bat.

Never Ever Getting Back Together was entertaining and had some laugh out loud moments. Lots of reality TV elements if that's your vibe, and a sweet romance. Though it was hard for me to discern any real chemistry between the two leads, I was able to still enjoy the story.

I'm only recently in the last few years have been getting into queer romances with the likes of Alexandria Bellefluer's Written in the Stars series so I decided to give this one a shot. This was my first Sophie Gonzales novel and it was okay. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would but it wasn't terrible.

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press and Wednesday Books for providing me with and eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical of this book since I've been disappointed by overhyped books before. but I genuinely enjoyed reading this. Overall a 3.75/5, despite the few plot holes and things that I chose to ignore (their ages, Skye’s issues, etc), this had been enjoyable. This book is comedic and it has me laughing out loud a few times ngl.

I've always loved a queer bachelor/bachelorette - especially after the news came out about Becca Tilley, Bachelor alumni, dating our lesbian Jesus, Hayley Kiyoko - so this book was fulfill that a bit.

I really enjoyed this book. I have always been on the side of what if a dating show was queer and that always intrigued me. Seeing it play out in this was nice. I really liked how there was no big third act drama that set us all the way back to square one for no reason. Everything seemed sensible and made sense. I’m a big fan of this author and can’t wait to see what comes next.

Love the bachelor and gave me total Taylor swift and the 20+ seasons of the bachelor vibes lol! I enjoyed the banter and the never ending what could possibly go wrong. What an enjoyable read!

Did I request this simply because it reminded me of Taylor Swift's song? Yes. Did I actually end up liking it? Surprisingly, yes! I liked Sophie Gonzales' writing and the story was fun and cute.

I loved this book so much. The author always has the best banter and funniest dialogue! I wasn’t sure exactly where the story was going but I was so glad to see Maya and Skye get together cause I already knew that hatred was gonna turn to love. I would have loved a little more sexual tension but overall this was a great book!

A reality show about getting a second chance with your ex, what could go wrong? From the start Maya and Skye are out against each other, capitalizing on the past history of them. With this story told in the alternating points of view for both Maya and Skye, the reader is given insight into each of them. I enjoyed this story and laughed out loud at many spots while reading. While I enjoyed both of them, I found myself rooting for Skye a little bit more. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

This premise was so so fun! I enjoyed the banter, the characters, and the overall vibes of this book. The miscommunication in the beginning drove me a bit nuts, but overall I found Never Ever Getting Back Together so charming.

I was lucky to receive an advance copy of Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review and opinion. This was a cute book but sort of reminded me of watching the TV show, The Bachelor, which I gave up after a few seasons as it got way too cheesy for me. I enjoyed this book - did I love it? No. Did I dislike it? No. This was pretty much just an average book for me.

Unable to review at this time. Will review at a later date. I'm cleaning up my netgalley in order to review 2023 books. This book sounds delightful and will read once fully caught up on my account. Thank you for this opportunity! I look forward to reading this book!

DNF - I tried a few times to get through this one but couldn't get past the first few chapters. Thanks to Netgalley for the chance

This book has a solid premise, an intriguing hook, with two contestants on a reality dating show falling in love with each other rather than the “bachelor.”
However, the toxic behavior of contestants and overall distasteful personalities is a major turn off for entry point of the reader. I found it difficult to get into the storyline and hold out for the queer romance I was looking forward to, when I had to muddle through the horrible personalities of other contestants. And unfortunately I decided it wasn’t worth it.

So great.
I loved this story and had such a great time reading it.

The charaters and setting where fun. The story kept me entertained and I couldn't put it down.

Blog:
’m revealing my age here, but in high school I definitely watched the very first season of The Bachelor (and a few of the following ones). I wasn’t yet out to myself, but even so found myself wondering why the women were such better catches than the man. Apparently, long after I stopped watching, in 2016 two of the women contestants got together with each other. But this happens far less frequently than one might imagine. In any case, when I saw the plot description for this book, let me tell you, I smashed the request button on NetGalley without paying too much attention beyond – two women on a reality tv dating show get together.

Beyond the reality tv show wrapping, this uses the enemies to lovers romance trope. I’ve historically avoided this trope because I had a hard time conceptualizing how I could root for someone to get together with someone they start off disliking strongly. This book showed me otherwise, though. Although it starts in Maya’s perspective in just a couple of chapters it shifts to Skye’s so it becomes easy to see how these two women have come to dislike each other based on a bad misunderstanding. So there’s not actually something enemy-worthy about either of them. That said, both of them are flawed (as are well all) but with the enemies to lovers they start out only seeing the flaws then start to see what’s great about each other. It makes for a really realistic depiction of a healthy relationship at the end, because it’s not all rose-colored glasses. Also, I really like how they move from enemies to women supporting women to women loving each other.

This book is also hysterically funny. I legitimately laughed out loud multiple times while reading it. Representation is decent. Two of the secondary characters are people of color, and one is gay. Both Skye and Maya are bisexual. Because Jordy hid his two-timing ways easily since his family moved all over the world, his exes are also international. Chalonne is funnily contrived in much the way Genovia from The Princess Diaries was. (Incidentally, this got me to wondering if European writers set books in fake countries in the Americas the way we seem to make up fake European monarchies. It seems like most of them that do exist are more of an alternate history where either fascism takes over or the colonies never won independence sort.)

There were three things I wasn’t so keen on in the book that held me back from five stars. First, I just didn’t feel like these characters were 18. They read as more like just out of college than just out of high school to me. It was easy for me to give that a pass, though, because I just headcanoned them older. Related to my mistaken belief that they were older when I started reading it, in the first scene, Maya is at a bar and not drinking. Oh nice! I thought. Representation of sobriety in a romance. But no. She was just under the drinking age in the US. As soon as she gets to Chalonne, where the drinking age is 18, she starts drinking. A lot. Just not wine because she thinks it’s icky. So that was disappointing to me. I also wish that the scene where she has too many vodka jello shots was more realistic. Binge drinking for people assigned female at birth is 4 drinks in one sitting. She has way more than that. She should have been very sick as opposed to having a mild hangover that passed by lunchish. I refuse to believe this reality tv show would have gone light on the vodka when we all know they like for contestants to get drunk. To be clear, while I personally would like to see more romances depicting sober people, I understand it’s realistic to show people drinking. But if we’re going to show them drinking and drinking too much in one night is a plot point, let’s be realistic about how much is too much for a person in a body assigned female at birth. Last, while I get it that Jordy needs to be the bad guy, he’s such a bad guy that I struggled to understand how all these nice women fell for him at all to begin with. I understand from Maya’s perspective he’s gross for valid non-physical reasons (the cheating, the lying, etc…) but we do have the chance to see Skye’s perspective as well, and it’s not clear to me from hers what she sees in him either. Maybe even if just in one of the first scenes where Jordy takes his shirt off Maya found herself attracted to him in spite of knowing his douchey ways, that would have helped me to understand. But she even seems to be turned off by his looks. It left me scratching my head a bit.

Overall, this book was a breath of fresh air, featuring two women bisexual leads who fall for each other surrounded by a very humorous reality tv setting. While some of that setting was a bit difficult to believe, the enemies to lovers plot was so enjoyable that it was easy enough to just focus on them.

Instagram:
If you’ve ever wished that two of the women – any two of the women – on a reality tv dating show would just get with each other instead of pining over the questionable man they’re supposedly there for, this one is for you. The first enemies to lovers plot I've enjoyed and laugh out loud funny.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review! Full review on my book blog.
#bookalicious #sapphicbooks #avidreader #bookaesthetic #whatimreading #bookrecs #liesdas #bisexualbooks

GoodReads:
I'm really wrestling with whether to mark this 5 stars.

Importantly note: this delivers what I, as a bisexual woman, have always wanted out of the very straight reality dating shows: two of the women contestants getting together and saying "screw this guy."

Loved the premise of this one but it fell a bit flat for me.

Like other reviewers have mentioned, I think it would have worked better as a NA book vs a YA. The ages didn’t seem realistic to me.

The pacing was also a bit off and the book dragged a bit in the middle.

I did love Maya and Skye’s relationship and was rooting for them.

Overall it was a cute read.