3.5⭐️ Cute friends to lovers novella!

Lauree is trapped in a time loop on New Years Eve. Right after she decided she wanted to make changes in her life. Her best friends brother, Max, being one of them. She can’t hold out for someone who has made clear doesn’t like her that way.

This was super cute! I love that Max and her start out as just friends. He’s super shy, it’s so cute honestly. I love how the loop gave Lauree the time to figure out who she truly is and what she wants in life.

This novella was written in third POV. Which is my worst nightmare. Considering I’m giving this 3 stars, it was bearable for me.

I really don’t know how else this book could be written. I feel like the Groundhog Day concept is something that could be written really well or not at all. There were times where it became super repetitive (obviously), but there were also a little bit of self discovery for the heroine Lauree.

I was a bit confused in the beginning as to who the love interest was. And I’m not too sure how Max just sometimes popped up I don’t know where. I’m not sure if I just missed a part describing that he was already there or something, I have no idea. A few chapters in, my brain finally figured out who are hero is.

If you’re looking for a cute, friends to lovers, novella while being stuck in this time loop this is the one for you.

4⭐️s

“I could have had all the time in the world, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I’m not going to wake up one day and not love you anymore.”

What a cute take on the whole, “reliving the same day over and over again” story! Cute with a surprising bit of spice, which I guess is typical of this author, but being that this is my first story by her, I was surprised! Not that I’m complaining! This is a really sweet novella that brings the heat in the end!

Midnight, Repeated by Dani McLean: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶🌶🌶

Tropes: friends to lovers, second chance, hotmess girl- put together guy, slow burn</I>

Here’s what I loved:

The characters
I love that Lauree is a fun, messy girl and not the put together, organized, somewhat “anal” girl that you get a lot in romcoms. I love Max and his orange sweater, and how he’s so sweet and genuine. Drew of course is a dick, but I mean… his name is Drew so…

The plot
The whole “living the same day over and over again” is not a new idea, but I love this take on it, and anytime you can take something unoriginal and make it feel new, you’ve got my vote! I also love that it happens on New Year’s Eve because that’s the epitome of “a new day” and she’s stuck living the same one!

The relationship between Max and Lauree
I love how close their friendship is and how they just get each other. He’s so supportive of her when everyone else in her life, herself included, puts her down and belittles her. I do think his denial of his feelings for her at times is bit annoying, but guys are dumb so it works!

Here’s what I didn’t love:

The lack of backstory on what happened 10 years ago
I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll keep it brief, but I wish we got a little more on what happened between Max and Lauree before. We get a little bit, but I think knowing the situation more would’ve helped make Max’s feelings make more sense.

Jasmine
Not that I don’t like her, just that I wish there was more of her! She’s mentioned a few times and makes a few appearances, but she’s Lauree’s best friend! She seems like an awesome character, so more of her would’ve been cool!


Thank you Victory Editing and NetGalley for the Arc in exchange for an honest review

3.5/5 Stars

Midnight, Repeated is a fun, light-hearted novella with a friends-to-lover trope about Lauree, who got stuck in a time loop.

Lauree is someone who is lost and pretends she has her life together, but in reality, she despises her job and lives with her boyfriend, who criticises her, causing her self-esteem to suffer.

I liked the idea of a time loop right before the New Year. Lauree got stuck in the loop for months, and I liked the way she took the opportunity to find her passion and work on it and stood up for herself, along with quitting her job and dumping her boyfriend. Lauree’s overall character development was remarkable.

I wish we could have gotten more background stories about Lauree, her family, and her friendship with Max.
The beginning of the book was confusing because things were going fast and there was an instant introduction to the characters.

I liked the fast-paced plot and the settings. It was a fun and enjoyable read. A great book for fans of the friends-to-lovers trope.

Midnight Repeated is a very short and enjoyable friends to lovers romance. It's about Lauree who makes a wish at New Year's and gets to relive the day over and over again. It takes her several repeats before she realizes that she's in a terrible relationship with her boyfriend, and during these repeats she finds herself and her passion. I loved her character development despite the story being so short. With that being said, I loved how fast-paced the story is but I really wished this is a full-length novel. I want to know more about the people around Lauree - her history with Drew, her friendship with Max and what she does at work and why she doesn't enjoy what she does. It would have been more interesting to dive in deeper as I loved Lauree and Max so much.

Rating Midnight Repeated ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5.

This is essentially Groundhog Day set on New Years Eve, which is what initially drew me to this book! A nice friends-lovers romance, with some spice at the end - I will definitely read other books coming in this series! It was well written, I enjoyed the characters, and it was a nice quick and easy read!

Midnight, Repeated by Dani McLean was a cute romance novella. The life she has was decided by what her Boyfriend and others thinks are best and they have ingrained that into her brain. It didn’t seem like she had a mind of her own at the beginning of the book. But as the story went on, she gets the chance to relive New Years Eve over like 200 times before she finally finds out what kind of life she wants to live and who she wants to live it with.

It’s a steamy contemporary romance novella that will put you in the New Years Eve spirit. It’s the perfect book to read during the colder months. A great book about letting go of the past and doing what’s right for you. It was a very quick and easy read. I only hope that we get to read more about Max and Lauree’s life in the future. Max, what a beautiful man.

Thank you Netgalley and the author for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is a short and fun novella. Basically Groundhog Day but on NYE. I didn’t love this but I liked it alright. It was a quick and easy read. Childhood friends to lovers. Maybe the last 15-20 pages get spicy. I will read the future books in the series.

two stars! ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ i did not even realize this was a novella until i finished it within an hour or so and i was like… what? guess i probably should pay more attention to details lmao.

anyways, this wasn’t necessarily a bad novella, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. i’ve read a couple books with the groundhog day plotline and honestly i think that’s a very hard plot to write, especially in novella form. i feel like it just wasn’t explored enough and the length of the novel didn’t do it justice. i mean, the main character went through the same day for half a year apparently and we only got to see like 20ish different days? it felt way too spread out to the point where it was just absurd. and it didn’t even really bother the main character? she kinda just… accepted it. idk.

i also wasn’t a huge fan of both the writing and the characters. the characters felt very one dimensional, very flat, no real personality or anything of interest. the romance wasn’t really all that great either, if i’m being honest. i didn’t really feel like it was genuine, ig. there was no real development or anything, it seemed. the writing felt very repetitive and pretty simplistic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but i just feel like with the plot it needed to be a little more developed!

overall, just not really my cup of tea, unfortunately!

<i> huge thank you to netgalley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review!! </i>

Thank you netgalley for giving me an arc for this!

I really liked this, it was quick and meaningful. Lauree was easy to relate to and max was good for her.

I did find it hard to really connect with the characters sometimes because everything felt like it was happening very fast

New Year is always the beginning of new resolutions, new challenges, and trying to break away from the comfort you had in the previous year. However, after the new year hype, people's resolution tends to fall through. Many blog posts, youtube videos, and simple methods are tossed around to help us stick to our new year's resolutions. Even then, it is proven to be challenging year after year.

Now, what if you are stuck on New Year's Eve? In come Lauree, a woman who is stuck in a New Year's Eve loop. No matter what she does, she will wake up to New Year's Eve all over again. She has even developed a routine!

I love the concept and love how the book pushes us to challenge ourselves. We may not be as lucky as Lauree to re-live the day, but it doesn't hurt to start now; because some days, Lauree wakes up, hoping to remember the previous day.

This is a short book and I would love for the book to explore more of the character's backstory. More on Max and how they had grown together. Also, Max has Deja Vu sometimes, maybe it can be explored more too. And a longer epilogue!

It is perfect for those who want a quick read!

This was real, and if she wasn't careful, this amazing reality she'd been chasing could be gone. Except this time, there wouldn't be any second chances."


//
Location of review: Goodreads
Date of review: 23 Sep 2022

sadly, this book did not live up to the expectations I had for it. I wanted to love this story but there was just something missing

This was such a fun, cute, quick read. I live the relate days troupe and the fast paced of this novella. I think this was a nice read to bridge in-between my other fantasy reads.

Love a good friends to lovers romance, especially when it’s a best friend brother!!! Lauren was a fun character to get to know and I loved the way she used the time loop to discover herself:

midnight, repeated by dani mclean book review (arc)

★★★★

okay yes, so i might obsess over beautiful book covers but look at this cover!! it’s absolutely gorgeous! this book will be out november 1st 2022 so save the date because this is certainly a good read!

it’s new years eve’s and when the clock doesn’t strike twelve, that’s a sign that there is definitely something wrong. Lauree makes a resolution to let go of the past but then she gets stuck in a loop. guess it’s not time to let go of the past, huh? she thinks that maybe kissing the right man should get her out of it but well… he’s not a normal man, well, he is but he’s her best friend’s brother.

i loved this book, i really enjoyed the plot and how it all played out! I loved how easy and quick of a read it was, I absolutely adored the characters.

max, this beautiful man, I love him so much. he’s amazing. and lauren, this beautiful woman, i would definitely go mental if i was stuck in a loop and she didn’t, to add to that, she found her happy ending. this book was beautifully written.

4.5 ⭐️

This novella was extremely cute and enjoyable! Midnight Repeat follows Lauree who spends her days trying to make a man happy and be who she feels everyone wants her to be! When realizing she’s stuck in a forever long loop she finds herself.


I found Lauree to be an extremely relatable character! We do often get lost in what’s around us and I loved watching Lauree find herself and her passions outside of what everyone else wanted for her. Midnight Repeat is very fast paced. It’s giving friends to lovers and slow burn.

I will say I wanted more of Max and Lauree when the epilogue ended. Def a great, one sit read though!

Thank you Netgalley and the author for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Rating: 4.5⭐️/5


I’m so happy i got approved for this arc!! I really needed a quick read in these days and this one did not disappoint.
Our main character Lauree feels in a deadlock, she has a job she hates, a boyfriend who’s only criticising her, that has a complete different view of life from her and that is basically wracking her self esteem.
Furthermore, she’s still not over her lifelong crush for her best friend’s brother: Max, who turned her down when she confessed her feelings 10 years before.

As she’s stuck in this position and doesn’t seem to find the courage to take the matter of her life in her hands, she finds herself blocked in a loop and is destined to relive New Year’s Eve for months.
It’s right this time loop and that will give her the courage to change the course of her life and practice on baking, to possibly work at Max’s coffee shop.



I found this story very enjoyable and easy to read (it’s around 150 pages long). Laureen is a capable and smart girl, who’s played too much attention to certain as**oles in her life who told her she wasn’t worthy (namely her dad and her sh**ty bf). I absolutely loved seeing her character development through every time loop, even if i would have lost it if i had to explain the same things to people everyday (i’ve not been blessed with patience).

Max is such a dream guy, i just wished that he had overcome his fears a little earlier without wasting time, but i guess that both Laureen and him had should have trusted each other better and sooner💖
Also i loved when Laureen refused to wear gloves so that Max would warm her cold hands with his own😂😂she’s a total simp🤓

P.s. those chapters where Laureen was learning how to cook all those pastries made me wanna break my diet😖😖😖

Read this if you like:
-short chapters (😍😍😍)
-“50 First Dates” movie
-sweet mmc
-friends to lovers trope

I didn't like the FMC very much. She was hard to like because she's in love with this one guy but has a boyfriend that she's been dating for a while. I did love the concept though and want more of it right away. Anybody whose writing a book with the same day happening over and over again hit me up.

i'm always down for a groundhog day/timeloop story, but the problem with that topic is that it often needs quite some time to set up. with this book only being a novella, it really felt like the author bit off more than she could chew. in the table of contents, i was immediately shocked to discover that our main character spends six months in the time loop. six months!! the toll that would take on someone's mental state is literally insane, and that is something i couldn't stop thinking about while reading.

all in all it's a fun, quick read and i really liked the development of the main character and the way she decided to use the time loop. but with the enormous implications of the time loop and the limited amount of pages, it was really lacking in some development of the characters' backgrounds and the depth of the relationship.

Midnight, Repeated was an easy and fun read. The premise for the story, the main character Lauree being stuck in a New Years' Eve time loop, sounded great and was quite a bit of fun.

What I liked about this story was that while Lauree was stuck in an unending loop of the same day, she took it as an opportunity to figure herself out. She stopped listening to all the people in her life telling her she should have her shit together by now and started exploring what she wanted her life to look like.

I wanted to know more about Lauree’s backstory, her friends, and her family. They don’t get much of a mention in this story; I would have also liked to know more about Max and his choices for not pursuing Lauree in all the time they’d known each other. His reasoning was vague, and I would have liked to have gone into their relationship in more depth, but considering each day was new for Max while Lauree was able to keep her memories and learn from them, Max was pretty much blindsided every time.

As I said, Midnight, Repeated was an easy read, but it was also very quick, meaning there wasn’t much backstory or room for a lot of depth, which I would have liked. But overall, it was an enjoyable read.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Set the Moos Publishing and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


A friends to lovers romance fans of the gemre are sure to enjoy.