The only reason I didn’t finish this book in one sitting is because humans need sleep to survive.

If you have ever watched The Bachelor and thought to yourself “This guy is so lame but the girls are awesome, I wish they would just date each other”, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.

I absolutely love Sophie Gonzales’ voice. It captivated me. This book is FUNNY. I have not laughed like this reading a book in longer than I want to admit, and this book reminded me what I loved so much about romcoms to begin with.

The premise is that this guy, Jordy, who is awful, has become famous because his sister married royalty, and so he’s gotten his own reality dating show called “Second Chance Romance” - where he is the lead (naturally), and all the female contestants are his ex-girlfriends, all competing for a second chance with Jordy (gag, we hate him). Naturally, as it goes with many straight white men under 30, he’s been the worst boyfriend in history and all his ex-girlfriends are awesome.

Maya goes on the show for revenge against Jordy for cheating on her with Skye.
Skye goes on the show for a second chance with Jordy, who has told her Maya is a crazy liar.
And they were roommates… literally.

What follows is the most charming romance / romcom I have read all year, that reignited my love for the genre. I laughed, I teared up, I had butterflies, and I loved the very real way their relationship built - no insta love here, we really got to know each other, and it was so worth it.

I’m so excited to get a physical copy of this when it releases on 11/29/2022. I knew on the first page it was going to be a 5-star read, and it was. I loved it so much!

Thank you thank you to NetGalley and @stmartinspress for the eARC of Never Ever Getting Back Together!

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales was a great take on reality show dating for the next generation of 18+ year old's. The rivals to friends to lovers concept was a new take on romance and totally believable. Fun does not even begin to describe how wonderful a time I had reading this book. I should have known better with a title like that. Not to mention if you've heard the Taylor Swift song by the same name, you're singing it all the time. Overall a great read and would recommend.

I have read this book and listened to it now, and both forms are great. I loved the romance and the premise of the story. The one thing I had an issue with this story is that it felt super unrealistic for this to be about bunch of 18 year olds. I felt like the story and the feelings fit an older audience, and a tv show featuring the ex's of teenagers is a little bit weird. Putting that aside, the book was fun and unique, and had great character growth

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this early!

Maya Bailey, and Skye Kaplan have one thing in common; Jordy Miller. Royalty adjacent Jordy Miller, brother to the Princess of Chalonne, invites six of his ex-girlfriends to be on a reality TV show where they'll compete for the chance to continue dating him at the show's end. To Skye, the show is a second chance to win back one of the only people she's ever let herself connect with. To Maya, the show is a chance at revenge. What starts as a heated rivalry between the two girls, slowly morphs into a friendship, each hopes can become something more.

As a fan of Sophie Gonzales, sapphic romance, and The Bachelor franchise, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, "Never Ever Getting Back Together" fell flat for me. A book like this would normally take me a few days to finish, but I struggled to become invested in the story, and it ended up taking me nearly two months to read.

The story is told from two points of view; Maya, and Skye. However, the characterizations of both girls are so similar that it's difficult to keep up with which is which. I found myself scrolling back to the beginning of the chapter to check whose point of view I was reading multiple times.

The ages of the characters feel wrong. It's YA, and I believe all the characters are supposed to be 18-20 years old, but the narrative would make a lot more sense if they were all in their mid to late twenties. The entire concept of the reality show would have felt more natural if the characters were older.

The pacing is off. It starts out slow, and stilted, and then suddenly accelerates pass the point of believability. I wanted to enjoy Skye, and Maya's relationship but found it difficult because it comes out of nowhere.

The last 15% of this book was great, and kept me entertained. I just wish the first 85% would have been better.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for providing me an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This was super cute. It's funny - I don't watch reality TV, but I've really enjoyed a number of books that center around reality TV shows in the past few years. This one hit all the right notes for me.

I love love loved that it was two girls supposedly competing for a past boyfriend's heart who really try to take him down and fall in love along the way. They were great together. Their frank 'yes i dated this guy and this girl and this guy' coming out to one another was enjoyable because it was very much a "yes, I'm bi, what are you going to do about it?" and very matter-of-fact.

Jordy was the sleaziest sleazeball ever and his part was painful to watch but bearable because you just know that he'll get his comeuppance in the end. The 'enemies to lovers' thing was done well and believable. Maya and Skye were enjoyable and while it was frustrating to watch them at odds with each other over a misunderstanding created by sleazeball Jordy, it was very satisfying when they finally worked things out.

The other girls were very much not in focus for most of the book, so I don't feel like I have a very good sense of them beyond the bareset sketch of personality, but they worked as background characters to better show Maya, Skye, and Jordy.

The way the show played out, and the way we could see Jordy manipulating everyone and pulling them all along was fascinating and kept my interest riveted. I listened to the audio and ended up finishing it in two sittings because I just couldn't stop listening.

The audiobook narrators did a great job bringing the characters to life. They made Maya and Skye sympathetic, though not without flaws, and made Jordy truly insufferable. They also did a good job making the other characters waver between sympathetic and self-interested.

I loved the way things played out. The misunderstandings and conflict and moment of realization and grand gesture. Not Jordy's "grand gesture" - his sucked. Maya's, though, was great. Also the ending was sooooo satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing an e-arc and audio arc for review.

🔊Song Pairing: Picture to Burn - Taylor Swift (I bet you were thinking I was going to use a different Taylor song. Okay this book screams Taylor. It could be a Taylor Swift musical)

💭What I thought would happen:

I mean the title screamed drama with an ex. Who was I to say no. I just hoped for every woman’s sake that they were never ever getting back together.

📖What actually happens:

Maya gets a call that she in 1000 years did not expect. Her ex who destroyed her wants her to be on a reality show starring him. A second chance romance bachelor (vomit). Maya is taking this opportunity to ruin this cheating asshole.

Skye is another of Jordy’s victims. Jordy called her to prepare her to beware of Maya his “crazy” ex who went stalker crazy when they broke up and he started dating Skye. Sadly to Skye’s surprise her and Maya are bunking together in the contestant house.

6 women must compete for the love of one douche nozzle who treated them all like last weeks trash and better yet, he’s protected by editing clauses and is acting like the European royalty he thinks he is, fake British accent and all. What could go possibly wrong?!

🗯Thoughts:

Honestly the whole show feels like a lose lose for these women…so your ex gets you to come back into his life only to make him a star and if he looks bad in any way there is an editing clause because he’s connected to the royal family?! This sounds like the 11th REALM OF HELL!!!! Who would sign up for this. I had secondhand embarrassment and rage for all women in the competition.

Jordy is 10/10 that guy who says his ex was a psycho and tells every woman who shows any semblance of emotion that they are overreacting. He is the epitome of chauvinistic sexist asshole. I have made it
my mission to either avoid or destroy those guys with all my might. A castration isn’t asking too much is it?! Also, when I typed his name it autocorrected to hoedown and now I am in a fit of laughter.

I loooove my drama. Don’t get me wrong I hate reality tv especially when it’s pinning women against one another. But Damn do I love reality tv drama in a book. I don’t want it but I can’t look away either. Would 💯 understand where people wouldn’t like this book, it’s full of mean girls who are actually nice but are turned that way by a raisin dick.

Pick this up and then message me as soon as you’re done. K thanks!

I absolutely LOVED the concept of this book. Two contestant on a dating show falling for each other? Say less!

But…the execution just didn’t do it for me. I found the main characters to be unlikable and annoying, to the point where I didn’t really care if things went their way. I also found parts of the story so incredibly far-fetched. I’m not sure why the main man needed to be fake royalty? It didn’t add to the story in any way and the whole made up country with made up royals was confusing.

I also think second chance romance (the trope AND the fake show) doesn’t really work with teenagers. This concept would have worked so much better with adults, but since they were all teenagers I was eye rolling from the very beginning.

Really wanted to love this one! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I wanted to love this one, I really did, but I ended up closing the book feeling entirely too lukewarm.

Get a 2nd chance at dating your ex on a reality show? Sure, if you are still really into him. But if you just want revenge for how he embarrassed and trashed you? That would feel even better. Especially because the girl he cheated with will be there, and you can take her down… maybe.

I didn’t care for Maya. Her singular focus on getting revenge was relentless, and it was distracting. Though the more I got to know of Skye, the more I liked her. This is a fun premise, though it doesn’t feel YA to me. The characters aren’t super fleshed out until individual dates or competitions, where you see activities geared towards personal tastes or strengths. They also had a ton of downtime. It seems like if you’re rooming two girls together to create tension, that time would be somewhat filmed because that makes for dramatic tv. But there really wasn’t that much filming going on.

I have an early arc, so perhaps it will go through some editing before release day to revise some inconsistencies. Like Skye swimming the backstroke around Maya, but then a few pages later, she couldn’t swim, so they were going to stage a rescue. There are some other issues, but again, my copy is early, so there might be another round of editing in store.

I was definitely way more into the relationship between Skye and Maya than the rest of the story and could have tossed the whole dating show and Jordy out. But I like how the girls eventually supported each other, most of the time, because it’s nice to see that in fiction. There are a lot of fun moments, hilarious comebacks, and quips that I think readers will enjoy. So this book had some ups and downs, but I think readers will enjoy this one, so please take my lukewarm feelings with a grain of salt. Thank you, St. Martin’s, for sending this along.

This book was so much fun to read. As someone who loves watching The Bachelor, I absolutely loved reading this book. The drama in this was everything. Maya and Sophie are so cute and I loved their characters so much.

In terms of the writing, it felt like it was lacking at times, especially development-wise. The characters felt sort of one-dimensional up until the end of the book, but I guess it also makes sense for the characters to be the way they are. I was kind of annoyed at how stubborn both Maya and Sophie were but I think that's just the way their personalities are. The progression of Maya and Sophie's relationship felt a little rushed or abrupt to me in that Maya and Sophie just one day have feelings for each other. However, this might have just been the way I interpreted their feelings and not how it was actually written. I thought the pacing of the story was really good though. The story didn't drag on at any point and there wasn't a single dull moment. I really enjoyed the concept of this book and I think we need more of girls getting together after a man cheats on them. The reality show setting of this was just so fun and as I've said before, I loved it. This book is the epitome of men are trash and I ate it up.

Overall, this was a very fun and easy read. It was such a good book to read to get me out of my reading slump and I really did enjoy this book a lot. Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

This was really cute. Skye and Maya were the two co-conspirators to lovers I was looking for when first reading this book. I loved how all of the girls even as secondary characters felt well rounded and like they could be real. Also I love when I can just hate a character so freely and Jordy was a fantastic character to hate.

The only problem I had with the story is it was slow to start and there was some slower parts in the middle of the story, so overall just pacing issues.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves to hate-watch the bachelor or just likes the bachelor. Also for anyone looking for some girls taking down a really annoying shared ex.

Thank you to netgalley for this arc.

The cover and title were enough to draw me in, and the story did not disappoint. Sapphic Enemies to lovers within the setting of a reality tv competition show. Super fun and sweet.

A huge thank you to Wednesday Books, St. Martins Press, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!
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I have loved everything I’ve read from Sophie Gonzales, so when this widget hit my inbox I wasted no time in downloading it! Not going to lie, I started singing the Taylor Swift song in my head every single time I saw the title or told someone what I was currently reading; you’ll never be in danger of forgetting the name. Jordy is basically the worst love interest on the face of the planet, so when he is cast as the lead of a reality show to find love with one of his ex’s, Maya is ready to get her revenge. What she doesn’t account for is falling for her nemesis Skye, who is also one of Jordy’s ex’s. Gonzales really leans into the Bachelor-style drama populating the book with characters all there for their own personal reasons…or vendetta.
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I do wish that this was a New Adult book, rather than sitting in the Young Adult category. It seemed so unrealistic that a dating show would be filled with a bunch of eighteen and nineteen year olds just out of high school, especially since these are all supposed to be girls that Jordy has been in a relationship with. Some of the tasks they were asked to do just didn’t seem all that plausible. Yet, on the other hand, it was fun watching Maya navigate alcohol for the first time as the country they were filming in has a lower drinking age, and the characters were all trying to figure out where they fit in the world and the expectations thrust upon them with high school graduation behind them. If you’re looking for a bi-rep, sapphic romance this one is filled with angst and rage and a slow-burn romance, set against a beautiful backdrop.

As an avid romance reality TV binger and a lover of all books queer and feisty, this rivals to lovers book HIT!! The rivals to friends to lovers arc was totally believable, and the moments with the ex boyfriend love interest were clever and engaging without being too heavy handed. My only complaint was that this book wasn’t longer! I loved it so much.

I am not a reality TV watcher and I was worried I wouldn't know what I was reading or what was going on at first I thought it was going to be a bust but then I decided to pick it up again. I was finally drawn into the story. It was easy to follow and I liked how it all came together. I highly recommend if you do like reality shows. Fair warning the MC Jordy sucks!!




My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

🎵 We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together 🎵

The love story your didn't know your needed! This was SUCH a fun read! Do you like laughing? Do you like strong women? Do you like when women band together, and get that r e v e n g e they so desperately deserve? Then you will love Sophie Gonzales' upcoming novel Never Getting Back Together! And yes, I too have had Taylor Swift stuck in my head while reading this.

In this story, our main characters Skye and Maya have both dated Jordy, and reluctantly decide to go on his new reality show called Second Chance Romance. They end up having to room together and quickly learn that they have WAY more in common than just being Jordy's exes. This book was perfection! I loved every part of it.

📖 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮:
• enemies to lovers
• ya queer romcoms
• drama
• reality tv shows
• r e v e n g e

"Is this who I've become, someone who gleefully smuggles contraband electronics, and isn't automatically nice to bad people just because they're nice to me, and who plans and executes an international revenge plot? It's a slippery slope between rule fudger and world domination, and baby I'm already enjoying the ride a little too much."

✍🏼 𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧: Sophie Gonzales
🗓️ 𝙋𝙪𝙗 𝘿𝙖𝙮: November 29th
📚 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚: YA RomCom LGBTQ+

Thank you Wednesday Books for this e-ARC! I definitely recommend this cute book!!

This one just felt very meh to me. I LOVEDDD the premise and found it to be an overall fun romance. I feel like other than her seething need for revenge against someone she dated when she was 16, I didn't feel a lot of character development out of Maya. I also could decide if this was meant to be a YA romance or an adult romance based on ages.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book; my thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed Sophie Gonzales's debut novel and so when I saw the premise of this book I was hooked.
I was so excited for this that I couldn't wait to read it.
Unfortunately, it was a letdown. I don't know why (probably because the full description wasn't available when I first learned about the book) but I believed it would be a NA or Adult novel because of the reality Bachelor-esque premise of the book.
Instead, they were 18? It felt weird to read adult conversations about relationship's they had as children and the lack of life experience for them to be looking to settle down and get married...
I feel like this premise would've been better if the characters had been older, not super old but older than "I just became an adult" (in most of the world since in the US it's like 21 to drink and all that)
I liked the "I want revenge" premise, unfortunately the romance wasn't really interesting. None of them are likable enough for me to care about their romance, one was rude and the other just hard to care about.

I think the romance is so unbelievable because we don't spend enough time on it, there is too much of the book spent on Jordan and on the other contestant which meant we did not have enough time to see interactions and moments that made the romance realistic. I felt like they barely knew each other, but I did enjoy the small interactions they had.

Jordan didn't make a lot of sense, for someone we are meant to hate, it just didn't feel that way and his choices (who to keep etc) seemed inconsequential and made little to no sense with the information we were getting while reading the book which made the book seems slightly dumb/silly.

I was just disappointed, great concept and an unfortunately bad/poor execution.
2.5/5 stars

Fun does not even begin to describe how wonderful a time I had reading this book. I should have known better with a title like that.

This book had it all. A sapphic pairing, a villian you love to hate, and a ridiculous setting. The reality show provided a whole host of possibilities which really paid off.

Sometimes all you need is a truly entertaining plot to make a good book and this is a perfect example.

Thank you NetGalley, Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC for my sincere review.

Based on the premise, I expected to really enjoy this. Ultimately though I was disappointed. I think this had the potential to be great, but it fell short.

For me the pacing was a little off. I also thought that maybe this premise would have worked better with an older set of characters.

I did enjoy each of the main characters and their growth throughout the novel.

I would still probably recommend this book to fans of reality tv romances and young adult lovers.

Imagine the Bachelor and MTV's Ex on the Beach had a crossover this book would be it! Maya and a host of other ex-girlfriends who once "dated" this terrible womanizer Jordy. After Maya begrudgingly agrees to go on the show to reveal the cheating ways of the adored Jordy only to have each of her plans ruined. In a cute twist of fate, she didn't expect is to fall in love with the other woman she once despised.

My thoughts: I loved the plot and most of the characters but it would have made more sense for the characters to be in their 20s rather than YA. Maya's need for revenge getting foiled one too many times could have been cut shorter but fit the Bachelor vibes so overall it was a cute rom-com that I'm sure many will enjoy!

My Rating: 3.5⭐'s

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.