I enjoyed this read! I’m a big fan of the U.K., so it was nice to read a book that was set there. I also thought this book was hilarious and enjoyed the concept of it generally. It was a nice read.

The story follows Gigi, whose friends sign her up for a tour in London guided by Zane, her audiobook narrator crush. Now that seems ridiculous, who'd travel across the planet for a voice? But bear with the book, it's so much fun.

Likes:

✨️The tour. I love learning about new places and looking them up.

✨️The characters were absolute delights, especially Francis, with his reciting totally random facts. Also, getting to know each character and the way they all united in the end was an enjoyment all on its own.

✨️The fact that Gigi owns a bookstore, defends it and her reading, and that she uses them as getaways. I mean, when she said, "I need the comfort of the bookstore as a reset." So real.

✨️Now to my favourite thing of all. Taj. His sarcasm and jokes? Perfect. The interactions? *chef's kiss*. The biceps? ;)

Dislikes:

✨️Mentioning 'The Unhoneymooners' and 'Colleen Hoover' had me crashing back down to reality. Major turn off.

Many thanks to @netgalley & @kensingtonbooks for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

ℝ𝔸𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔾: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.8/5

This was a super cute and charming book. At the beginning, I was a little skeptical because Gigi's reasons for going to London were cringe. But I ended up enjoying these characters so much!

“If I go for more than a week without hearing someone play Spice Girls on a harmonica I start to get the shakes.” —Taj. This is such a sweet and funny book. There were so many intricate characters and relationships throughout this story that I absolutely loved. I loved seeing the connection of other romance authors and bookstores through the book and of course the setting being a tour through all the great places of England. It makes me want to travel so badly.

Gigi, Listening
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Genre: Romance
Author: Chantel Guertin
GR: 3.69

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley, Kensington Books and RB Media and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

My Thoughts: This book was good and I enjoyed the story, however, I do wish some things were done differently. I did connect with the MC throughout the story. Gigi is constantly searching for a love that her parents had. She is convinced that Zane, an audiobook narrator, is her soulmate. Zane did the narration for the book that brought her parents together. Her friends surprise her for her birthday with a bus tour in London, that Zane runs. However, he is not there when she arrives and shows up towards the end. The eccentric passengers, grumpy tour guide Argus on this ten day bus tour through London with a surprising end.

The story is narrated solely by Gigi, in her POV. I would loved to have seen a male narration in there, especially for Zane. Gigi is passionate, caring, and just wants to find the love of her life. The supporting characters were eccentric, witty, and really added a layer to the story. The characters were well developed, had witty banter, chemistry, connection, and well done. Gigi has a long road of self-reflection and growth throughout the story. The author’s writing style was complex, some spice, some swoon, and overall flowed well and easy to read. The story has a wonderful ending.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It’s a quirky road map to a love story.

Gigi, Listening is a light, low stakes, low steam, relatively predictable RomCom that is well-written enough to forgive some of its shortcomings. Gigi grows throughout the story and the supporting characters are charming. A good vacation read.

It has been a long time since I read such a good romance. And a road tour in England with just the amount of interesting people added to my enjoyment. Thanks to #NetGalley and #GigiListening for advanced digital copy.

3.5 stars for this sweet little predictable romance! I loved the British setting as well as the very American (and Michigander) Gigi! She definitely is a woman who has been through a lot but has worked to develop herself, her relationships, and her passions. I thought the ending was just perfect and suited the story very well. I did round this down to 3 stars in the official review because let's not forget that Gigi travelled across the world in a stalker-ish capacity to go on a tour with her favorite audiobook narrator. Oh my goodness! I have SO MUCH to say about this level of ridiculousness. And if Gigi had been a George, well, a man would've been arrested pretty quickly for similar behavior. But Gigi is just cute and her friends are all in on this. It was, all in all, a sweet little predictable romance and would be a great travel read over the summer!

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Gigi owns a bookstore and is obsessed with the narrator of an audiobook that once brought her parents together. She is convinced that Zane Wilkinson is her soulmate, which is why her friends gift her a guided tour through the UK, hosted by non other than Zane himself. Only when she shows up to that tour, Zane isn't there...
Instead, she starts spending a lot of time with the sarcastic bus driver and learns that you can't plan everything in life, especially not love.

I really enjoyed this book! Gigi really went on an emotional journey and I feel like her character developed greatly during the story. I loved reading about her and Taj, but all of the other side characters were amazing as well! Really lovely story!

Do you often find that you would rather be immersed in your book than dealing with real people? Do you often find that you have a preconceived idea of how things should go when dealing with people and aren't sure how to adapt sometimes when they obviously don't go how you expect them to? Then you will absolutely relate to Gigi, the main character of this story! It is a well written rom com that will have you going through all the feels! The decision becomes whether or not to stick to the ideal in your head or alter route and follow what is in front of you? Give up the ideal dream or live life messily? What would you choose? Better yet what did Gigi choose? To find that out you'll have to read the book and I promise that you won't be sorry! It was very well written and the characters are so relatable and realistic!

Gigi has fallen in love with a voice. Her parents' love story started with a book, now hers may very well begin with the same book decades later. When her friends book her a bus tour through England with the audiobook narrator as tour guide she joins a colorful cast of characters and finds that it is always better to listen to your heart.

Y'all, this book was so fun to read. The characters on this bus tour deserve their own stories, because they were a hoot. Each character was complex and woven together so well and it added so much to the storyline that wasn't just your regular romance novel tropes. Don't get me wrong, the tropes and romance were equally great. I loved watching Gigi grow through the tour and deal with her grief and shortcomings and Taj was a lovely grump (secret cinnamon roll!) Everything played out well in the end in a very PG and sweet way.

Romance bookstore owner Gigi is obsessed with Zane. He narrated the audiobook version of the novel that brought her now-deceased parents together. She finds solace listening to his narration--over and over again. When she learns that his family operates tours of the UK she is determined to meet him in person, convinced he is her soulmate.

Her friends surprise her with a gift of one of his tours for her 30th birthday, but she is crushed to arrive and learn he is delayed and the tour will be led by Angus. She makes the best of the situation, becoming friendly with Charlotte, a widow from Charlotte, and the busdriver, Taj, who seems over-qualified to be driving the bus. When Zane finally joins them, Gigi thinks all her dreams may be coming true. But she has a few niggling doubts. Zane is perhaps a little basic? Maybe even dull? And she feels guilty for jettisoning Taj, who is really much more intriguing.

Not gonna lie--I had trouble with the beginning of this book, because I really didn't like Gigi. The premise was too ridiculous--that she believed she was meant to be with this man she'd never met, and behaved as though his not being on the tour at the outset was the end of the world. But that's kind of the point of the book. Gigi learns that her fantasy was unrealistic and absurd as she forms genuine friendships with the other people on the tour, despite how annoying they seem at the beginning. Get past the first few chapters and fall in love with this book, as I did. #GigiListening #NetGalley

3.5 stars
Overall this book was okay! Not good, not bad…just okay lol it took me a pretty long time to read and I found myself getting bored in the middle chapters. However, I’m surprisingly really happy with the ending so I’m glad I didn’t DNF. At the beginning it felt like there were a lot of characters to keep track of, but once we got to know them more, I appreciated their side stories and how they added to the main character’s journey.

If you can get past the fact that the MC is a literal stalker who flies around the world in the hopes that an audiobook narrator falls in love with her, then this is a super cute, if predictable romance. The writing is very nice, and I really loved getting to know all the characters. Plus, a nice journey through England gave it a solid setting to lean into.

Reading the description, I just didn’t realize how intense the whole falling in love with the voice of a book thing was!

the story she’s obsessed with isn’t even that good.. like ok they were both reading the same book wow

The idea is that she "is love" with the voice of a man who narrates audiobooks, and we follow her through her quest to find this man.

It's funny, sometimes heavy, but entertaining.

Gigi is a romance lover bookstore owner that has gotten the chance to join a ten-day bus tour through the countryside.

But not for the beautiful outside. No, the person who is leading the tour is Zane her favorite audiobook narrator as well as the man of her dreams.

What was a bad plan at meeting him turns out to be a story of friendship, love as well as some grief.

This book pulled me in as well with the secondary characters.

They brought funny scenes and cute moments.

I loved seeing all the reveals of their lives.

It was all so touching.

DNF at 33%. I thought the premise of Gigi Listening sounded really good - Gigi has developed a crush on her favorite audiobook narrator just from hearing his voice. Her friends send her on a guided tour where the narrator is scheduled to be the tour guide - perfect! Or is it?

Well - I won’t ever know because at 33% in I feel like I’m really still waiting for the story to begin. It’s too slow moving for me and I’m not invested enough to stick with it. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

A bus trip in England with romance and found family. Sign me up.

Gigi Listening
By Chantel Guertin
4⭐️

Gigi is a romance bookstore owner who has the hots for an audiobook narrator, Zane. For her birthday, her friends gift her a trip to England where Zane is a tour guide. When Gigi gets on the bus, Zane is not there. She feels like she’s lost the chance to meet her soulmate. Or maybe she hasn’t?

This was so cute. I loved all the literary references throughout. Gigi strikes up relationships with all the other people on the tour and you get to know their quirks and their baggage throughout. I enjoyed the found family aspect pretty equally to the romance.

Review to run in next two weeks

Gigi, Listening is the story of a girl who falls in love with the voice of an audio book author and determines he is her one true love. Naturally, her life’s journey takes a lot of twists and turns as she pursues her fantasy man.

Our story starts with Gigi’s birthday party during book club. Her friends hand her a ticket to England (nice!) and to a bus tour called Shires! Spires! Shores! led by none other than Zane, her audiobook crush. Gigi promptly calls her brother Lars, who is between jobs at the moment, to run the bookstore she owns and takes the plunge to go on the trip.

Once in England, she is ten minutes late arriving at the bus but is saved by the fact that Zane is a no-show, so the tour hasn’t left. Needless to say, Gigi is bummed. The whole point of going was meeting Zane, so what use is being there without him? After some haggling with Taj, the bus driver, and substitute guide Angus, she reluctantly agrees to stick with the tour. Zane will be joining them later, hopefully, so her trip overseas won’t be a total bust.

At this point, we are only twenty percent of the way through the tale, and my eyes were already strained from all the rolling they had been doing. I couldn’t figure out how in just a couple of weeks' time, Gigi was able to get the needed paperwork to travel to a foreign country. It can take as long as six weeks just to get a passport. Did she have one lying around? If so, why? I found it hard to believe that she had a profitable bookstore that focused only on romance. Very few shops can pull that off in this day and age. Her friends spent a fortune on her gift. - as described, it would cost at least several thousand dollars, and that seems an awful lot of money, even spread over the handful of people involved. It would have been more believable from a wealthy aunt or a lottery win. Gigi actually refuses to listen to the explanation given to the tour group for why Zane isn’t there while she stands outside the bus, trying to figure out if there is any purpose to being in England (!!!) if she can’t meet him.

I had also already encountered my second problem with the text by this point which is Gigi’s immature attitude toward love. Setting aside the fact that a thirty-year-old woman is treating a celebrity crush seriously, I struggled with how immaturely she viewed the whole concept of couplehood. Gigi was focused on a meet-cute. Her own parents had met when her father read a book aloud at a bookstore (irritating to other customers who are trying to peruse their own volumes but I digress) and her mother had fallen in love with him right then, so it seemed natural to her she would fall in love with the man who performed the audiobook version of the same volume. She fantasized about how amazing it would be to tell her children how both she and her mother had fallen in love with a guy who read Their Finest Hour aloud. It did not seem special, natural -or healthy- to me. Gigi also seemed to have no understanding that beyond their first meeting, there would need to be a whole relationship.

Strike three came during the first day of the tour. Gigi, jetlagged due to not planning a hiatus between arrival in England and departure on the tour, takes up Taj’s whole break by first sleeping on the bus and then insisting on doing a few non-tour activities. Her attitude was that he shouldn’t be upset about this because she is the customer and taking care of her is his job. As he explains, he is employed to drive the bus. That’s a whole other issue, as numerous comments in the text treat being a bus driver with heaping handfuls of derision. What really bothered me here is that Gigi seemed like the worst sort of customer at this moment, feeling entitled to being catered to by Taj simply because he was employed by a company providing her with a service. She wasn’t in the least remorseful for demanding far more than what he was contractually obligated to supply.

Eventually, we get to meet the quirky folks who are along on the tour with Taj and Gigi. All of them but a young woman named Jenny lack depth. They are fun or poignant as needed, but the story just felt dragged down by their presence.

Zane makes his appearance at about the 60% mark, delivering a love triangle since by this point Taj and Gigi have been spending time together and are enjoying each other’s company in spite of Gigi’s elitism.

Overall, I did not enjoy Gigi, Listening. The second half of the book is better than the first, but I shouldn’t have to read a bad book to get to a good one. I don’t recommend this.