3.5 rounded up to 4.

I liked this book, but I found the narration and all the job talk in the first half to be difficult to read - that's the main reason for the lower rating. Otherwise, I liked the main character's arc, and the way her internalised (and external) biphobia, and all her confusions after coming out were written.

--- ty to Netgalley for an advanced copy

Insert the queen of disaster bisexuals, Luna Roth! I adore this character and would protect her at all costs. Her queer journey is so valid and refreshing, and I think A LOT of people will relate to it and her. The rest of the cast of characters also stuck with me, from the love interest Valeria to the best friends who have such huge roles in the story (hi Romy). I also loved the "hustle" aspect of the story as Luna tries to make it in Hollywood while enduring so much BS along the way. Poof that so many of us would get eaten alive in Hollywood, but Luna prevails like a champ.

In short, this queer story is on my top shelf of favorites, and I can't wait to gift it to others when it comes out.

Such a sweet friends to romance book plus a great Hollywood setting! I love the wanna be famous story lines. It was a super sweet, quick read. I loved the back and forth between Luna wanting to be a filmmaker and wanting the love of her life. It is a sweet, love conquers all!

A big take away from me not giving it 5 stars is Luna being slightly, dumb? Her therapist warns her not to do something, she does it and it backfires, twice. I was so annoyed I was yelling LUNA NO. But overall it was a god read and I am excited to see it in a physical copy when it comes out

The story in “Sizzle Reel” is well thought out and held my interest. Every character seemed very real and human. Luna was phenomenal; she was funny, charismatic, and her inner monologue felt relatable and was enjoyable to read. Luna has great chemistry with both Romy and Valeria. I was Team Romy from page 1. Romy was just so lovely as a best friend, pining away quietly as she also walked Luna through her discovery and accepting of sex and intimacy. Friends-to-lovers is a weakness of mine AND they were roommates. I think there could have been more development with them. We see so much tension between them throughout the book and then it feels like they got together very quickly at the end. I think it’s because the book spends so much time developing Luna and Val (but I’m not sure why since they don’t end up together) that it takes away from the development we could have seen between Luna and Romy. I just wanted more of them. I also would have liked some chapters from Valeria and especially Romy’s POV. I always think rom-coms are so much better when you can get both perspectives of the people in the relationship. It makes it easier to connect with them. I also felt like the pacing was a little uncertain at times; some parts felt like we were going at breakneck speed and others felt a little slow. Thanks to NetGalley, Carlyn Greenwald, and Knopf for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! This was a great first book and I can’t wait for more from this author.

THIS BOOK IS BEYOND 5 STARS. Truly, it is one of my favorites of the year. Carlyn Greenwald is so funny. She had me laughing out loud. This was such a fast, sweet, beautiful, hilarious, etc, etc, etc read. I have nothing but good things to say about this amazing debut. This book has made her an automatic-buy author for me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher with like a million names that I forgot seconds after looking at it.

I wanted to love this one. Parts of it were good. I was just… bored. Luna reminded me of a oblivious, horny teenage kid trying to find her sexuality instead of the young adult she is. It grated.

I still intend to purchase this book when it releases.

Again, read and make up your own mind

Sizzle Reel is a well written, easy to read, fun new novel. At the start I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the descriptions of how the main character would shoot things if they were scenes in a movie but this got better as the story progressed. I really did enjoy this behind the scenes insight into a world I haven’t read or heard much about before and it was nicely incorporated into the romance. I’m glad to see a wlw romance such as this one and I hope it does well when it gets released!

This book grabbed me right away. I love any romance set in Hollywood, and I loved that the main character wanted to be a cinematographer. I thought it was a really cool setup and liked how it dealt with homophobia in Hollywood and figuring out one's sexual identity.

I gave this book a 3 star rating on Netgalley even though I did not finish it as it forced me to give a rating. In my Goodreads review, I will not be leaving a star rating.

The reason I decided not to continue was I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the way Luna, the main character, discussed the topic of virginity to herself, and how her narrative revolved solely over that. I found myself frustrated with the fixation on virginity and sex in a book that could have explored so much more.

I stopped reading around the 50-60% mark, so maybe this dissipates in the latter half of the novel, hence my lack of rating.

Thank you so much to Carlyn Greenwald and the publishing house. . I really really wanted to like this one, especially since it will be published on my birthday!

a super fun book I'd reccomend to anyone in a book slump! I loved the cast of characters, inclusivity, and general storyline! I think we need more best friends to lovers books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Vintage for the eARC!

Overall, I think this book was fine, but not spectacular.

We get an MC who is really sincere and honest but also very dumb? She literally disregards her therapist’s advice TWICE and screws everything up because of it. Of course things end up working out but if you’re paying for a therapist, maybe you should listen to them?

Also, I saw the Romy attraction from the getgo. It wasn’t shocking and it wasn’t super interesting either. It was like “well, I now how this book ends” on page like 5.

Also, the insane amount of sex talk was overwhelming in this book. It’s like there were two plots: the movie stuff and the sex talk. That’s it. The book did get better in the second half when Luna and Val started going out but honestly, I would have DNFed this if it wasn’t an ARC.

What I will say is that the smut scenes were very nicely written. I didn’t feel the need to skim or skip. So that was very nice! Did I wish there was one less? Yes. 😂

The ending was SO long and drawn out - it felt like it could have been shortened and given the same outcome. I think around 50-80% was the best portion.

So yeah, if you like a lot of discussion on sapphic relationships and movies, then you might like this more than me. But I can’t say I’d recommend this to anyone.

I'm torn. I thought the writing itself was great. Truly. But the story? I'm not sure if I liked it or not. Maybe I just need more time to process? I didn't hate it by any means and I wouldn't not recommend this book because there was a lot to like but also ?????

This was kinda just fine, I loved that it showed someone who came out a little later than the other queer people in their environment, and I think it did a good job of representing the struggles with that. However, I didn't like how stupid Luna was with Romy. That's not a criticism of the book, I was just annoyed about how many signs Luna missed. What I really didn't like was the emphasis Luna put on virginity. Her best friend was queer but she still viewed virginity in a heteronormative penetrative based way. She spent all her time worrying about her virginity (which she was way too old to care that much about it) and it made me feel like there were no actual feelings in either of her relationships. I liked the Jewish representation though.

So I gotta say that I really enjoyed the first 75% of the book and would definitely recommend this book to others. I loved the characters and it was a fun novel to read. I didn't love the ending, but overall it was a great book! Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot. It was very fun to me. I liked Luna as a main character. She had her flaws, but she was new at being out as bisexual and was trying to find her way in the world. I liked being in her head and could relate to some of the things she was going through!

I like how awkward Luna was, it was endearing, not annoying to me, and some of the things she thought made me laugh. Not at her but almost with her in sympathy.

I think my favorite character in this book was Valeria. She was so fun and cool and sexy. She had a down to earth vibe that was so nice to read about. I loved all of her and Luna’s interactions. She never treated Luna less than, even though she easily could have been stuck up.

I thought the sex scenes were really well written and steamy compared to other things I’ve read. If you look for that in your romance books, you’d really enjoy it in this book.

This would have been a 4 star book for me if it ended differently. I did debate between giving this a 2 star or a 3 star, and if I could I would maybe say give it a 2.5. Sadly the ending was what made the book not as enjoyable as it could have been.

Luna’s friends are awful I could not stand them, Her always covering for Wyatt when he said something terrible made me so mad. He had his moments when he would help Luna out with her career or relationship, but other than that he definitely wasn’t super great. Luna always thinking she was doing something wrong when it was her friends doing it to her made me so angry.

The other romance came out of nowhere in my opinion, except for a few thoughts from Luna about how attractive she looked in a few scenes. Even then she didn’t hold onto those thoughts for very long. It was such an immediate shift from the love interest we got for most of the novel. If it was hinted at more that Luna was always having these feelings, I maybe would have liked the other love interest more, but it wasn’t so I didn’t root for them to be together at all.

There will be spoilers for the last part of this review because I can’t talk about my issues with the book without it, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t continue reading from here:

Romy was sabotaging Luna’s feelings and relationship with Valeria the whole entire time because she couldn’t say her feelings for Luna. I’m not saying it’s easy to tell someone how you feel, but that doesn’t mean you can be a terrible friend just so she doesn’t end up with someone else. She was not being a good friend or future love interest by being terrible to Luna the whole book, and the fact that Luna doesn’t care about all that, and ends up with Romy at the end blew my mind. Like I said before it really came out of nowhere. If she stayed with Valeria the whole time I would have really liked this book. I understand that the author was trying to show that Valeria was someone for Luna to test things out, but she ended up not feeling totally comfortable with her, so it was best for them not to work out. She felt comfortable with Romy so they worked, but it came so out of the blue there was no way for me to root for them to be together. Especially after Romy was a terrible friend to Luna through the whole book.

One minute Luna is all in for Valeria, the next they are breaking up and Luna immediately knows she’s in love with Romy…what? She never mentioned once she might have feels for Romy or maybe wanted more throughout the whole book but suddenly by the end she’s always been thinking about her? That was my biggest issue with the book, and sadly since they were endgame, it was hard for me to rate this higher than a three star.

I liked that Valeria and Luna communicated with each other in the end in a healthy way, but their break up didn’t make any sense to me. They had so much chemistry, and we spent the whole book with the two of them, only for Luna to end up with someone I couldn’t stand.

From the beginning, the author invites the reader to accompany Luna, the main character of the book, on her journey of self discovery and acceptance while she tries to make her way in the world as a cinematographer.
What is Sizzle Reel about? The plot revolves around Luna, who is an aspiring cinematographer in the process of coming to terms with her sexuality and had just come out to her best friends as bisexual. Little does she know that developing a crush on famous actress she met at work will change the dynamic of one of Luna's friendships.
What makes this novel stand out from the others is the way the author captures the character's insecurities and flaws. Rarely do readers stumble upon stories that emphasizes not only the humanity of the main character but also the consequences of their actions and I think Greenwald made a great job with that.
Whilst Carlyn does a great job portraying Luna's emotions throughout the book, I couldn't help but feel that the secondary characters' background stories were neglected. As a consequence, I found it difficult to connect with them.
Despite this, I believe this was a great debut novel for those who are looking for a lightweight book to unwind.

The book started out strong with at least some colorful friends and a toxic workplace to create some tension in the story.

Then the love interest showed up, and while it was obvious what she’d turnout to be, she also got rid of the interesting tension for the story and honestly the main character wasn’t interesting enough to watch her journey to being dense, so I wished I hadn’t figured out all the imports twists.

This is a fun queer coming of age story. It's a lovely quick read and it was beautiful to slowly see the characters grow into their own shoes through out the story. Would totally recommend!

Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was super excited to get approved for this but it ended up not being my cup of tea. The main character, Luna (totes love the name though) is a complete disaster in terms of main characters.

There were multiple representations of religion and sexuality, which was nice seeing such diversity without being overly done.

Like some have also noted it was hard to get into the love triangle and I had no idea who I was supposed to be rooting for.

I had a hard time with this book. The love triangle was hard to get invested in. I didn't know which relationship I was supposed to root for and ended up not really caring who Luna ended up with. Also, Luna's focus on losing her virginity and thinking that only meant penetrative sex was a frustrating storyline. I think the author wanted to get across the point that sex doesn't have to be penetrative, but it was confusing that Luna brought it up so often and wouldn't listen to others.