I really wanted to like this, and there are aspects I did, but Luna felt kind of predatory when it came to her crush on Valeria. It felt unrealistic and I could tell who was going to endgame from the get go. Valeria is amazing and I want her to have her own book, but wasn't loving Luna's story.

For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she's found her solution. But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble--straining her relationship with her best friend Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she's destined to end up on the cutting room floor.

I love that this coming-of-age love story is set in the entertainment, a world that is so familiar to me. I appreciated the rep in this story and the journey that the main character goes through to find her HEA.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was drawn to Sizzle Reel for its gorgeous cover and while it didn't completely blow me away, I was really impressed by how relatable Luna's coming out journey was. Yes, she was a bit chaotic, but that is a huge milestone in any Queer persons life and I feel like Carlyn Greenwald did a phenomenal job with that aspect. I love a coming of age story and this one gave me exactly what I needed.

This may be a wrong-timing thing, but I am not feeling this lead character. She's anxiety personified and it's making me nervous just reading her! I'm stopping for my sanity, but if a nervous mess of a person doesn't stress you out to read, this is probably a great book in every other way!

**Thank you NetGallley and Vintage for the eARC**

This was a DNF for me and I am so sad. First of all the cover is beautiful. That was what initially had me wanting to pick this one up. Also, the synopsis of Luna coming out as bisexual at 24. I couldn’t wait to read it. I just can’t get over the fixation of the virginity of the main character. Even though she wasn’t a virgin really. Also who cares?! Why is this such a big deal. I overlooked that bit. However, the character goes on a journey to try and have “gay sex.” And also so much biphobia and just overall not good. Nope.

I had very high expectations from all the hype, but I will be honest it missed the mark for me. While the story is like every other rom-com, I felt like the banter and spark just was not there for me. Such a bummer..

A great coming of age set in Hollywood. This book explores who you truly are, sexuality and relationships with others. If offers a unique perspective with Hollywood as the backdrop.
Thank you #vintage and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

I really enjoyed my time reading this book! Thanks to the author for the copy. I really liked and related to the FMC and of course liked he queer rep

You wouldn't think you could read a "coming-of-age" rom-com about a twenty-four-year-old, but Luna is embarking on an entirely new journey for her while coming out as bisexual. Luna is determined to have her first intimate encounter with a woman, and she just so happens to work with Hollywood actors. As her Hollywood crush walks through the doors, she daydreams about a scenario where she could hook up with her. But what happens if this dream keeps inching closer and closer to reality?

This book felt like pure, queer joy to me. I felt every bit of anxiety Luna felt, and she was relatable and easy to process her whole story with. The other characters are also lovable and funny, and they made the story well-rounded.

This book was written for you if:
1) You're looking for a queer coming-of-age rom-com
2) You want to read about love and life in Hollywood
3) You are on that side of Tiktok where people share all the pictures of them and their girl best friends before they get together and just keep saying "and we were JUST FRIENDS"

I did not like this book at all. Took me ages to decide to dnf but I just can’t deal with this anymore especially after reading some of the other reviews. Don’t want to put myself through that.

Thank you NetGalley, Publishers, and Carlyn Greenwald for gifting me a copy of Sizzle Reel in return for my honest review.

3/5 stars
For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her--but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that's-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway.

When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she's found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut--and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy's help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life--impress Valeria's DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.

But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble--straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she's destined to end up on the cutting room floor.

I wanted to like this book so much and if Luna wasn't so whiny and annoying I probably would have liked it more. The characters also didn't have much depth to them, they had one thing that defined them and it was that the whole book. We have Valeria the famous one, Romy the level-headed one and Luna the obnoxious, annoying one.

I will say that other then the characters, this is a well-written book. But it felt like more of a YA novel then I was expecting. While there were a lot of good moments there weren't enough for me to really like this book. For me it was just ok.

Sadly this book didn’t really do it for me. Something about the story just felt off and it made me kinda sad because looking at the cover and blurb the book sounded like it would be a fun read. Maybe I’ll enjoy other books the author writes in the future!

I‘m so sorry but I couldn’t bring myself to finish this. The style of writing is just so exhausting to read. These meter long sentences I had to read several times to understand were just not doing anything for my flow of reading.
Also the characters seemed to terribly stereotypical.
I loved the premise of this and I’m sure it’s for other people, but this is not for me.

This was a great coming of age story with a happy ending. I did not love the power dynamic between Luna and Val, however. This was a quick read that I enjoyed on a plane ride, but is not at the top of my list. I would read more from Carlyn Greenwald given the chance. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Well wasn't this just a big bag of relatability wrapped up neatly. Look, this wont be everyone's experience- and I think that needs to be strongly noted because I think at times the 'bisexual awakening' or 'I didn't know I liked women" can get made fun of as cliche or overdramatic in ways which just further aids in the stigma surrounding bisexuality or realizing later in life your sexuality isn't what you originally thought. OK, off the soapbox and onto the good stuff.

These characters are charming, hilarious, relatable, and quite frankly romanticizes the journey of early adulthood and exploring relationships in a really beautiful way. Carlyn Greenwald has crafted these fabulous characters that all offer such unique experiences and perspectives which in turn means there's almost certainly a story you can see your own in. This was such a quick and indulging read, I couldn't put it down because it balances the drama and tension with the mundane everday life events so perfectly.

More reads need to explore early adulthood exploration of sexuality. The concepts of virgin, what counts as sex, how to know your 'label', coming out- these are all such important and thought provoking topics that need to be brought to light and ditch the taboo. This is an author that I'm now keeping tabs on and am curious what else is brought to the table.

This was just ok to me. It felt underdeveloped and the characters could have been more fleshed out and dynamic. 3 stars

omg sapphic love with a hollywood vibe! this has so many great aspects and i definitely can't wait to read more from this author! thank you so much for the arc!

Sadly, I had to DNF this one after struggling with it for a long time.
I really, really wanted to like this and the premise of the book sounded like a great sapphic contemporary read.
Unfortunately it was anything but that. The MC was incredibly annoying, but I could have gotten over that and kept on reading, were it not for the thousand clichés and stereotypes this book showed. It read like someone googled “what are bisexuals” and then included every single cliché they could find within the first few chapters. The same goes for other queer identities. It’s fine to include stereotypes, of course, but maybe not make them the only thing about the characters?
Especially annoying was that the book fell into the trap of “bisexual women must be attracted to every single woman ever”, this rhetoric is actually harmful and ultimately was the final reason for me to DNF this book.
In general this book tries to be super progressive and queer, but fails in that as it reads like a conservative saying “I’m not homophobic, but…”, so it’s a hard no from me, sadly.

A very sweet and earnest friends-to-lovers romance that charts the ups and downs of coming out, but gets a bit bogged down as it tries to educate the reader rather than engage.