I’ve frequently noted that books have made me feel /seen/. This was no exception. In fact, I think it’s my new baseline for having my feelings sucked from my brain and put to paper. Finding Gene Kelly lives inside my heart now.

Our main character Evie lives with the same chronic illness that I do: endometriosis.
She also loves Gene Kelly and Audrey Hepburn movies, misses her Nana who passed away when she was 12, and loves to bake. She left Tallow, Massachusetts and moved to Paris to become a pastry chef and open a patisserie but her flare ups make it so that she has to put her dreams on the back burner. Back in Tallow, she left behind her lifelong crush, the boy she married at 5 years old, Liam Kelly, who loved her Nana and her movies and knew her just about as well as she knew herself. She hasn’t seen or heard from him since she left for Paris.

And in true romcom fashion, he shows up unexpectedly outside her favorite donut shop. Chaos ensues and true feelings rise to the surface. She wants him gone but she also needs a believable date to her brothers wedding so her horrible mother will get off her case about not being married or having children yet. With a plan to fake date at the wedding set, Evie and Liam spend the time before the wedding facing uncomfortable truths and surviving through flare ups.

“I exist in a state of perpetual pain, and I’ve had to accept that to survive—it’d be nice if others acknowledged and were okay with it. Otherwise, the guilt and anxiety of being “a downer” are put on me too.”

The endo (and general chronic illness) representation in this book blew me away. There were multiple passages that I had to take a break after reading because they were so real and exactly what I’ve experienced. It was a heavy read, to say the least. My favorite thing about this book was that Evie is seen as a desirable friend and partner even with her endo. Her mother and a few petty acquaintances are constantly bringing her down for having endometriosis, as if she chose to have an incurable, debilitating, lifelong disease. But her real friends and the love interest love her and support her through flare ups.

I can’t wait for this to release so I can scream at everyone I know to buy it and read it and love it. Torie Jean wrote my illness so beautifully and accurately so I have to return the favor by being this books #1 fan. 5 cheez wiz colored⭐️

The content warnings being listed at beginning of book was a HUGE plus! CW: chronic health, endometriosis, massively toxic mother, discussions of infertility, on page vomiting

This book was so enjoyable and sweet, as someone who has dealt with a chronic illness, Evie's journey really resonated with me and Liam is absolute perfection!!

Finding Gene Kelly is Torie Jean’s debut novel and I CANNOT wait to see what she has next up her writing sleeve.

Evie O’Shea holds grudges on others, loves Gene Kelly/ Audrey Hepburn movies and puns. The biggest grudge she is currently holding onto? Liam Kelly, boy who she married at the age of five, divorced a few years later and has had a messy story with ever since. When Liam enters her life once more at the age of 26 in the city of love, Evie may have to let go of the grudge. Evie’s brother is getting married and her mother insists that she be there. The mother that views E as a burden with no real job and no man to call her own. So, Evie does what she doesn’t think is possible: proposes to Liam that they fake date for her brother’s wedding. Maybe she’ll find her own Gene Kelly?

Finding Gene Kelly highlights character growth and what it means for the female main character to be diagnosed and living with endometriosis. Jean writes about what she knows best and brings reality to the invisible disease that she also lives with. The character growth of Evie and Liam is heartwarming and one will really root for their love story to make it to happily ever after status. The side characters are paced appropriately and the puns are placed in laugh worthy places. Anyone looking for a realistic love story or debut author to root for will enjoy reading Finding Gene Kelly.

Wow, wow, wow! I could not put this book down!! Finding Gene Kelly was such a beautifully written book. The author spectacularly captured Evie's journey through life with Endo. It was a great way of shining some light onto what living with endometriosis is like and Evie is an absolute champ.

The tension between Liam and Evie was sizzling! The childhood friends - to enemies - to lovers was done so perfectly. Add some magic from Paris, and you've got the swooniest book ever. I absolutely adored this book, Torie jean has done a fantastic job with this!
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

"He's everything--late nights chasing fireflies, picking lilacs in blossom, boombox blaring, singing and dancing in the rain, and utter defeat and humiliation. He frankly, is home. And I'm suddenly sick."

Evie O'Shea is living in Paris, chasing happiness, trying to build a life, but more importantly a home for herself. Paris should be perfect, but Evie's still struggling with her endometriosis diagnosis, her mother's consistent judgements, a lackluster and struggling career. The only thing that could make it all worse is exactly what happens, Evie running face first into a pole after seeing Liam in Paris.

Liam Kelly is Evie O'Shea's first love. At the age of five, Evie and Liam got married, with Nana officiating, but its two decades later and Evie hates Liam. Paris was the perfect escape to avoid being around Liam all the time. Except now she has to shove her anger down and ask for help. Her brother is getting married and she needs the perfect fake date to get her mother off her back.

I LOVED THESE TWO. The bickering was excellent, but that slow burn from I-hate-your-guts to maybe-I-was-wrong-about-you to I'm-in-love-with-you was everything. After so many years of anger, there is finally communication and Evie's walls are slowly coming down. Liam is actual perfection, Torie Jean really did write him as a modern day Gene Kelly for Evie. His patience, and unconditional love for her had me in TEARS!! These two were a perfect match between their puns, and looong time pining.

The relationship between Evie and Liam was beautiful and felt very raw and honest. Torie Jean does a wonderful job writing about Evie's journey with endo. Evie's experiences with her chronic illness are such a central part to this story as it doesn't only effect her body, but her relationships with people, and her entire life. Evie's dream career was put on hold because of her endo, and everything else has been put on the back burner too. Reading Evie's arc through this book was emotional. I wanted nothing more than for Evie to pursue her dreams and leave her chronic illness insecurities behind so it stops completely defining her life.

Torie Jean's writing is full of puns, delicious treats, snarky banter, heart, and raw emotion. Anyone who wants a book that is a beautiful romance and more is sure to love this.

Thank you Netgalley, Torie Jean, and Sunset and Camden Creative for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

↠ 5 stars, pink donuts, cans of Cheez Wiz and peaches

Oh oh oh!!!! I LOVED this book! I loved the chronic illness rep, I loved the complicated family relationships, I loved the found family, I loved the enemies to lovers and the fake dating and the Brother’s Best Friend tropes and New England rep!!! A perfect and lovely book!

I loved this book! I thought it was a really cute romcom, I ended up liking it way more than I anticipated. I LOVED the Paris theme, and I enjoyed that it was a light and easy read. It had all my favorite tropes and the cutest moments!

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

Thank you NetGalley, Sunset and Camden Creative, and Torie Jean for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I was originally interested in this book because of the GORGEOUS cover, but I was happy to find that the story is fun as well!

This book follows Evie as she runs in with her childhood nemesis Liam Kelly. She lives in Paris now - and the book includes plenty of entertaining descriptions of the city - and has grown a lot since seeing him last. It includes some great endometriosis representation, which is pretty unique in romance books, and I really enjoyed it. I learned more about the chronic condition and could really empathize with Evie throughout.

The dialogue between Evie and Liam was really fun and it includes fake dating as well! Overall, this is a good book that discusses some important topics. I recommend this one for romance fans!

after a rather terrible run-in with childhood nemesis/constant pain in the ass, liam kelly, evelina thought her time abroad in paris was doomed. right out of the gate, their friendship was heavily based on teasing each other and joking around which (as a reader) seemed to be the start of what could be an incredible romance (in PARIS non the less) 💕

after spending time with liam, evie began to realize that he had changed since their teenage years and he was now a respectable, well-mannered, n i c e guy that literally everyone but evie thought was in love with her 😍 the plan was to fake date for evie’s brother’s wedding but the two fell for each other before they even get back to the states.

evie and liam’s relationship was so pure and genuine. liam really tried to understand evie’s endo and respected her when she was having flair ups and other related ailments — he never once got frustrated or upset. liam quickly became evie’s safe space & her home 💕 (i’m not familiar with endo but i feel the author did an incredible job depicting it)

y’all this book was pure ʝσყ right from the beginning 🥰 emotional, humorous and witty, i couldn’t have picked a better book to start the month off with. not to mention, the puns in this book were downright amazing. this was an easy 5 star read for me from the moment i started it. i fell in love with the characters immediately and the subtle mentions of boston (🙋🏽‍♀️ born & raised) were awesome.

finding gene kelly will be out on september 20th so be sure to add it to your tbr and preorder ASAP! 💕

A classic-musical-loving woman living with endometriosis, living in Paris to avoid her awful family, encounters the handsome asshole she couldn't stand and also was attracted to in high school. I love this premise. I really wanted to love this book. But it didn't work for me in execution. I couldn't wrap my head around the interactions between the two leads. I know, the author is going for enemies-to-lovers, but I just couldn't get why either of them were saying and doing the things they were saying and doing. For me, it didn't work, and I gave up on reading it before I got to the end.

I really loved this book. It was sweet. It was cute. It was everything I wanted and more!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I loved this book. Such a roller coaster (in emotional way) I loved Liam kelly and the other characters. Everything was good.

*ARC REVIEW*

3.5 stars

Finding Gene Kelly was a very sweet book. While it did take me a bit of time to get into, once the "its always been you" trope came into play, I was loving it. The story follows Evie, an expat living in Paris, who reconnects with her childhood love-then enemy Liam. They are a very fun couple to follow throughout.

I think the best part of Finding Gene Kelly was the endometriosis representation. It elevated the book from a sugary sweet read to something with really interesting complexities. Reading the intense details of Evie's flares and how her condition effected her life physically and mentally showed just how strong she (and anyone with a chronic condition) is. As someone with a partner with a chronic illness, the story gave me a lot of good insight into how to be there for them. Liam and Evie's friends put on a masterclass of how to show support. I thought it was all handled beautifully.

Evie is living in Paris to escape her mother's constant criticism. Evie also suffers from chronic, and at times severe, pain due to a medical condition. She has set aside her dream because of it, and her sense of self-worth has taken a beating. To make matters worse, her nemesis since grade school, Liam, has shown up unexpectedly. During childhood, he embarrassed her on numerous occasions, many of which led to her mother again making hurtful comments.

The relationship between Evie and Liam is hilarious. The dialog is absolute gold. Read this book if for no other reason than the witty banter. But Evie's struggles with her health are no joke. She has severe issues which are not going to magically go away. They eat at her spirit and confidence. Even if the reader doesn't have the same medical condition, the harm portrayed here is relatable. My only quibbles are that Liam seems too good to be true, and the best friend trope is unoriginal.

Not family friendly due to profanity and a lot of body and sex talk.

I don’t even know where to start with this review. Finding Gene Kelly is an extremely cute romance book and it has some very catching tropes like:


🍩 childhood frenemies to lovers
🍩 reverse grumpy x sunshine
🍩 second chance romance
🍩 fake dating


However one of the reasons i decided to request this book was because of the endometriosis representation it has.
Evie has suffered of this bad b*tch for over 10 years and of course it changed some aspects of her life: her character, her perspective of life, her expectations, how she interacts with people and her intimate and private life.
I loved Evie’s character, how her insecurities reflected on her love life, her incredible stubbornness and firm reasoning. Her passion for pastries and sweets was also on point, i’m so happy for how it turned it out for her!
And Liam, i saw some reviews saying that he was “a bit unrealistic”, but honestly which men for romance books isn’t? More than unrealistic i would say that someone that loves like that, from such a young age and is willingly accepting of every part of a person, for how difficult and challenging they can be, is quite rare but that must be someone’s reality out there.

I personally will never be able to understand what having endometriosis means but i’ve had such painful and heavy periods for years due to pcos and a congenital malformation and i felt so seen, for how Evie dealt with her pain and how she accepted it and wished others to do the same. And i loved how things didn’t ✨magically✨ solve themselves in Liam and Evie’s sexual life.

I cannot recommend this book enough, but please be aware that endometriosis is one of the main characters: it’s always there because Evie can’t get rid of it but she can definitely live with it, even a wonderful life.
I got emotional while reading it and i’m getting emotional now writing the review so i’m gonna close it here🙈
Side note: i love all the references to french architecture, literature, history and art!!😍

This was a really sweet and poignant book that dealt with the realities of chronic pain. I feel like the last 3/4 were way better than the first 1/4. In the set up it felt like there was too much reliance on cute quips when establishing the characters that was distracting and hard to connect with. This got better a little ways in and I was really rooting for a HEA.

This one was ok, but tended to go on for too long. There was a lot of endo in it... so much so you could consider that one of the main characters. It was frustrating to be 70% of the way through the book and just know that the rest would be conflict and strife until the last chapter. The most enjoyable part for me was the fake dating section. The rest was meh.

This was a lovely read. Some things that I loved:
- the foreword from the author, as well as content/trigger warnings
- endometriosis representation, which was educational for me
- beautiful cast of characters - main and their friends

Things that I liked a bit less:
- the over-the-top, too-many, forced Paris references. Every other sentence was peppered with something French: music, pastry, landmarks, architecture, culture. At one point I just started skimming over those
- pop culture references which made no sense to me

Enjoyable overall! Thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

DNF
I'm sure it's probably going to be well-loved by those dealing with endo, but ... it was a bit much for me and the endo overshadowed what I was hoping would be a sweet rom-com and I gave up before finishing.

As someone current suffering from chronic pain that you cannot see from the outside, I had a connection to this book. It is great to see representation in the silent sufferers. It’s not the most sexy topic but it is something a lot of people can relate to. Loved this book!