i tried, i really tried to enjoy this book but i just don’t think it was for me. I was super excited to read this because i’m a queer woman interested in film, but the main character just irked me, i found myself unable to get invested in the plot and the writing style wasn’t my favorite. In addition (although this is most likely my fault) i wasn’t a fan of all the pop-culture references being very in your face (again my mistake because it makes sense why they’d be included). i might come back and give this another shot later but as of right now i, unfortunately, disliked this.

Recently, I have been enjoying books set in Hollywood and was looking forward to this a lot for this reason. Even though this got me out of a reading slump, it ultimately didn't work for me.

Much of the narrative centers around Luna, who is trying to figure out both her sexuality and how to break into the industry as a cinematographer. Both of these endeavors are chaotic and we spend much of the first half of the book watching her deal with a terrible job. The plot finally ramps up when she finally quits the dead-end job and gets a break as a production assistant on an indie starring Hollywood's new it girl whom she also happens to have a major crush on.

I will say that, to its credit, this book doesn't quite follow the standard romance plotline, which was refreshing but did, unfortunately, leave the main romance rather underdeveloped and rushed. Also as other reviews have pointed out, the conversations that the characters have in this book and the internal dialogue the main character has felt like weird wordy explainers about queer and gender identity. It was as if the author just wanted to explain or interrogate certain ideas by writing how they viewed them instead of just letting this happen through actual plot or meaningful character development.

Ultimately I would give this 2.5 stars but would still be interested to see what this author writes next.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Vintage for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was so excited for Sizzle Reel not only because of the panel with Carlyn, but also because of the premise and cover. I have loved reading more and more books about the film industry and aspiring professionals. It's an industry I have no experience with, so reading Sizzle Reel is a delightful experience! At the same time, all I really needed to know was a queer story about figuring our our sexuality and also our dreams. And I finished this one in a matter of days!

A fun queer romcom. The rom in question felt a little rushed in the beginning, but developed nicely. The side characters could've been better fleshed-out, but still, fun.

I see this book is already getting mixed reviews, but I very much enjoyed this. The last book I read put me in a mild reading slump and this one dragged me back out of it.

I do understand the complaints that the characters are two-dimensional, but I found Luna's inner monologues and conflict interesting. While I do read quite a bit of queer lit, I am a straight woman, so a lot of the discussions in this book I found to be refreshing and informative. I like how frankly this book discusses sex, both as how we individually define what sex is and the consent and communication surrounding it. Because Luna <i>just</i> came out, she's still learning and questioning and figuring out everything a "baby gay" needs to figure out to be most comfortable with herself and dating. I did get annoyed a few times with her constant badgering of "real sex" having to be penetration, but she has to learn how to define that for herself.

As for the romance, we see who Luna ultimately ends up with coming a mile away. I enjoyed her romance with Valeria and would've liked to see it explored just a little more, but Valeria was a fantasy, was more of a goal than anyone she could last with.

So, yeah, I understand the criticisms, but I enjoyed it anyway.

This is a warm-hearted and often funny coming-of-age story about an aspiring cinematographer who is navigating her personal and professional futures with her best friends and a movie star that she crosses path with. With a strong narrator and a compelling set of other characters, this is an engaging story about finding your path.

Highly recommended!

Thank you Netgalley and Vintage for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately, "Sizzle Reel" by Carlyn Greenwald fell short in several areas. The plot was unoriginal and only had one significant twist. Given the abundance of sapphic Hollywood-themed books, it would be refreshing to see more original ideas in the future.

However, I must commend the author on their ability to portray the feelings of bi people accurately. This was a refreshing and well-done aspect of the story.

Despite the book's potential, most of it failed to hold my attention. The pacing was slow and could not fully captivate me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the descriptive writing style.

Although this book was not particularly to my liking, I am open to reading more from this author in the future. If you are a fan of "Gossip Girl," you may enjoy this book.

This book tried to do too much and was heavy-handed in ways that didn't serve the plot, the characters, or the reading experience. It was just okay, bordering on flat and, frankly, a little boring. I felt like my time was wasted, and all the little "foreshadowing" nuggets about who our main character ended up with was too on the nose I thought--but it also made the connection (flat as it was) to the other love interest feel forced, uninteresting, and like it was just there to kill time until the "real" love interest was revealed which did absolutely nothing for me.

I had really high hopes for this one. The premise was interesting, the promise of representation was enticing, and I loved the cover. However, like the characters and the plot, it fell flat.

I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, and I most likely won't recommend it.

I feel like this book was perhaps the Turducken of RomComs. It tried to do so much and included so many different things and types of rep, cramming it all into one book. However, I think for all its trying, it failed. Now, I loved having a Bi MC going through her whole Bi awakening, but some parts and conversations just got so repetitive. I also loved seeing a nonbinary character who preferred to use traditionally gendered pronouns instead of just they/them, which is something that you don't see a lot of even though its a perfectly valid choice many people use. But everything else just felt like it was crammed in rather inelegantly for the sake of having it present. It probably didn't help that I felt little to no connection with any of the characters and the plot itself felt a little flat and, quite frankly, boring. I will say I am happy with how the story ended and who the final love interest ended up being, but having roughly first 2/3 of the book focussed on a different romance made that whole first bit feel a little useless and like filler thrown in to keep readers mildly entrained until the real story started.

So, yeah, overall, I wasn't; a huge fan of this book and really had to push myself to finish it. It wasn't really bad, per se, and there were definitely a few moments I enjoyed. It just wasn't the book for me, but I can see how it could be a perfect book for someone else.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for this copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I wish I could say I enjoyed this one, but unfortunately it wasn’t great. I didn’t connect with the main character and I wasn’t a huge fan of the way queer sexuality was portrayed. It appears as though it’s being described by someone who doesn’t not identify as queer, and doesn’t quite know much about it.

This novel was much more Young Adult than I was expecting for a 24 year old MC. Perhaps I would have felt differently about it if I would have realized this going in.

I was actually really excited about this book because of the bisexual representation as well as the fact that it is set in Hollywood because I love a good Hollywood romance Unfortunately, it didn't work out for me.

The writing style was not something I was jiving with. I found myself having to reread sentences two and three times because the sentence construction did not make sense. There was no flow. The dialogue was also incredibly unnatural along with the internal dialogue.

There were also statements made that felt a little problematic and incorrect to me.

Overall I didn't like the way this book approached certain topics and it really did not make me feel good.

I really enjoyed this. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but it was still great. I loved the characters and its nice to see a book that deals with someone who come out later in life where it wasn't exactly a plot point. (I explained that poorly) I also loved the movie and film production aspect of this book as a major film nerd. I can't wait to recommend this book and make all my friends read it.

I wasn’t very happy how some of the LGBTQ+ terms were used in this book and I wonder if a proof reader was utilized. Otherwise, it’s a cute and fun story that has its own special charm to it.

I did not love this. I feel like it very awkwardly was stumbling around about not even bisexuality but sexuality in general. I suppose the ideas of the mc are not something I can relate to, her obsession with what sex really is and more importantly... has she actually had it? I think the author did a good job on describing the confusion a person can have about their sexuality but I just personally couldn't get behind this character so much. I think I was just really annoyed by her the whole time.

When I first started this book I was thinking I would give it 3 stars, then 2, but the last half the book pissed me off enough to give it only one star.

Let's start with the MC Luna. She's a 20 something who's newly out as bi and trying to find her footing. She meets a Hollywood actress and falls into deep lust for her and actively pursues her. They go on dates and Luna keeps obsessing over her definition of sex and says that she hasn't lost her virginity because penetration didn't take place. It was exhausting to keep hearing her say the same thing over and over despite her friends correcting her.

Then her and Valeria get involved and she doesn't feel comfortable with penetration so that ends. Then her best friend/roommate kisses her and all of a sudden she realizes she's in love with her. Oh and now she's comfortable doing all the things she couldn't do with Valeria.

This book was one giant eye roll and I speed read at the end just to finish it.

I really wanted to like this book. It seemed so interesting and I was so optimistic and then it just... wasn't good.

So, here's what excited me about this book: the main character is a bisexual Jewish woman who is trying to make it as a cinematographer in Hollywood. Cool, right? That's what I thought. And a love interest who's a famous actress of undetermined sexuality? With a fun, cool, queer friend group? Sign me up.

And then everything that had so much potential just fell short. Luna is a bisexual Jewish woman whose bisexuality is somehow not complete yet because she hasn't slept with a woman, and whose Judaism is only occasionally mentioned when it's convenient to the plot, but never has any substantive meaning to her character. She's trying to make it as a cinematographer, but her boss is a total caricature of a terrible Hollywood manager. Her family lives nearby, but the only one who we ever really get to see is her younger brother, who has no character other than being a dudebro.

Valeria as a love interest wasn't great, although I did love her character. She was so supportive of Luna and such a good friend to everyone around her. and I almost want a book focused on her because she is the kind of character that I just want more time with.

The friend group just fell terribly short. I liked Romy for about ten seconds, then got pretty sick of how clear it was that Luna was interested in her without realizing it and how mean Romy was in regards to her feelings for Luna. If Romy had been the character that she was in the last 15% throughout the book, I would have liked her (and the ending) a lot more. And Wyatt? Come on. Why the hell did Romy and Luna stay friends with him? He was awful! Zero redeeming qualities!

The last 15% of this book was somewhat okay. If I had just read the first few pages and then that last part, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more. But the characters just weren't likable and the plot was just frustrating. So although I was so hopeful, this book really missed the mark and I was really disappointed.

Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for sending me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was so intrigued by Sizzle Reel's description (and that cover is gorgeous!). However it was a hard read for me, I felt a lot of secondhand embarrassment for the characters and the love tangle she ends up in is so messy!!! But Sizzle Reel still certainly has it's place in the New Adult genre. I think I thought it was going to be less YA and more Adult Fiction than it ended up being and so I had the wrong expectations for the storyline and character development from the get-go. I think fans of the YA/NA genre will still really love it!

This is definitely a queer coming of age novel. Luna is a 24 year old Jewish bisexual woman who has just come out as bi and she’s navigating what it means to be queer and bi and navigating acting on her attraction to women. Luna is also a personal assistant who wants nothing more than to be a cinematographer one day.

Luna lucks out when after she loses her job in a rather embarrassing manner, a very attractive famous actress, Valeria Sullivan, who Luna has previously interviewed to be an assistant for (and has more than a small crush on) offers her a PA job on the set of her directorial debut. Soon after Luna and Val enter into a situation-ship of sorts.

Luna is MESSY, as one would expect of someone who has been navigating the world through the lens of heteronormativity until now. She’s insecure and unsure about sex, particularly queer/wlw sex and is often word-vomiting to her best friend, Romy (who is a non-binary lesbian), about her outdated or misunderstood ideals whilst trying to get a grasp on what different things mean (and honestly, we live in such a sex-obsessed, heteronormative world it’s not hard to understand why she has so many questions). There is clear friction between Romy and Luna whilst Luna is continually asking for Romy’s advice, insight and opinions that it’s easy to see where the narrative may be going.

The romance between Luna and Val is a little awkward and I wish the author would’ve done more showing as to why they were into each other beyond they were two queer women in the same vicinity who were attracted to one another. I also wish that the author would’ve sped up the pacing to have the big conflict closer to the halfway point than the sixty percent mark. I also believe a lot of the repetitive conversations about wlw sex could’ve been removed, as the narrative went on you could predict what Luna was going to say. Finally, I wish there would’ve been more scenes, maybe even flashbacks, showing the growth and progression of Luna and Romy’s friendship over the years to what it is now.

Luna says a lot of things throughout the narrative that come off as misinformed/as if parroting things she’s heard other queer people say that aren’t always necessarily accurate or sensitive. I would’ve liked to see more character growth in this aspect of her understanding what she’s saying and righting/learning more about her misconceptions.

3.5 stars

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️✨

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

SIZZLE REEL is a celebrity romance, a coming-of-age tale, and a coming-out story all rolled up into one package (with a gorgeous cover)! Nothing is really going Luna Roth's way. She dreams of becoming a cinematographer, but she's currently stuck working as an assistant with a not-so-great boss. She's just recently come out to herself as bisexual, but she still doesn't feel quite ready to come out to most of the people in her life, and feels insecure about her lack of experience. When she meets A-list actress Valeria Sullivan one day at work, Luna believes she's found the solution to all her problems. Can she score her dream job as a PA on the set of Valeria's directorial debut—and, after she and Valeria grow closer, her dream girl?

SIZZLE REEL does a great job of giving each character their own distinct voice, and I enjoyed the lighthearted feel and writing style. The film industry setting was especially well-developed (especially given that this book started as a screenplay), and it was fascinating to learn about all of those different aspects! I loved the Jewish rep as well, and finding out a little about Luna's connection to her Judaism as it relates to her sexuality, her relationships with her family, etc. I would have liked to see even more of those topics. I also think the nature of Luna's personal journey felt true to her character—she isn't always likable, but she does feel very real, from her triumphs to her messier moments. However, I do feel like this story fell flat in terms of the romance. Valeria was a great character—a book about her and her story would have also been such an awesome read. She and Luna's connection was built up all throughout the book, getting readers invested, only for Luna to end up with someone else, who (in my opinion) was less likable and had less chemistry with Luna. As a result, I feel like neither the celebrity romance nor the friends-to-lovers romance aspect of the book was entirely well-developed, which was disappointing. Overall, I think SIZZLE REEL had a super interesting premise and there were some great aspects to the book, but others could have used more development in certain areas. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!