This was honestly disappointing. Loved the first part and thought it was really interesting to see the main character fall for a star, but things quickly went south and I thought her relationship with the main love interest was super instalovey. Ending was super rushed. Main redeeming point was the spice.

This book had some major weaknesses, but I want to start off with the positives. The two romantic interests, Romy and Valeria, are both interesting and engaging in different ways. Romy, a nonbinary, non-male loving she/her, is also a talented play writer and long time friend of main character Luna. Romy is overly patient and explains so much about queer life to newly out Luna and tries overall to keep her from getting hurt and rush into things. Valeria is a up-and-coming queer actress and director and supportive of Luna's moving into cinematography. Relatedly, the cinematography descriptions in the book are also pretty cool, even to a layman.

Now, for the weaknesses.

This book's use of sex comes across as acephobic many times. Clearly I expect sexual encounters in a romance books and for the most part those were fine. But, because of Luna's anxiety--almost to the point of obsession--about virginity and not climaxing, the discussions of sex, it makes having sex the cornerstone of queer identity. In one scene at a Dave & Busters, a character does point out ace people exist... and it's pretty much glossed over and then never brought up again.

Luna also feels pretty flat, perhaps because she defines herself so much by those around her. The relationship between her and Valerie, which takes the bulk of the book, is thrown away in like the last 1/4 to focus on Romy and Luna. I saw this coming a mile away, but the speed at which Luna 'suddenly' understands the attraction and that she loves Romy in return is too fast. The slow pacing of the rest of the book to suddenly rush through the end was a lot.

Content Warnings for Public Outing of a Queer Character

This was a miss for me personally. While there were several elements of the story I was VERY excited by (show business, queer characters, self exploration), the conversations around a queer woman's sexuality were pretty upsetting to me as a lesbian woman. The notion that the only valid sex is penetrative is deeply worn out and problematic within the sapphic community and to hear that driven home over and over was exhausting and really took me out of everything.

That being said, I did adore the side characters. Everyone felt very fleshed out and like they stood on their own two feet.

Can’t wait to read this book with my class on YA fiction to analyze the recent turn toward romance in the genre

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC! My review for Sizzle Reel was so delayed because I finished reading and then immediately bought the audiobook. I loved the pacing of this story -we weren't thrust into either relationship or dynamic fast and without care. The Booksmart meets Devil Wears Prada comparison was spot on.

Interesting book with cool characters and engaging plots. Not my favorite but also definitely worth the read.

My Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

I had an interesting experience with this novel. On one hand, there were moments that I enjoyed the narrative, while others had me scratching my head. It’s safe to say that I simply wanted more from this novel. More development, more plot, and more reckoning with the themes Luna’s journey was presenting.

As far as writing styles go, this one was average. It was an easy read, and I never had an issue falling into Luna’s head. But what did surprise me was the lack of emotions I felt while reading the book. Despite the narrative being written in first person perspective, I felt held at arm’s length from Luna. I do believe that emotional distance was tied into the plot—or lack of subplots, rather. The plot was straightforward: Luna was discovering her identity while trying to make it as a cinematographer in Hollywood. (She also was obsessed with sex, and often felt more focused on that versus finding a romantic connection with another.) I would have loved to see more of Luna’s family involved, or greater conflicts in the workplace. For the most part, it felt like jobs and positions were handed to Luna versus her gaining them of her own merit. In an odd turn of events, I wished that Luna had faced rock bottom at least once during the novel.

(This is a side note, but I did wish there was more explanations for Hollywood terms. Constantly reading acronyms did grow confusing.)

Where this novel lacked was in reckoning with the societal themes set up from page one. In terms of the themes, Luna presented many on page. She was dealing with traits of biphobia, homophobia, and antiquated ideas about virginity. While she learned to move away from those learned societal “ideals,” it was never a smooth development throughout the plot. The themes were apparent and suddenly Luna appeared to unlearn everything she was seeing and/or saying herself. (This happened around the same time she realized she was in love with Romy, not Valerie.)

This is another smaller note, but I wish there was more backstory about Luna, Romy, and Wyatt. It would have been amazing to see full backstory scenes where the reader saw why Luna had passion for cinematography. I also wanted to see more reasons why Luna didn’t feel comfortable coming out to her parents. It is completely valid to want to explore one’s sexuality until comfortable sharing it with others, but apart from her parents being immensely interested in her career—and presenting unsolicited advice—I never saw a true reason why Luna was hesitant to share that truth. I wanted more set up to really make the subplots and themes shine.

While this was a decent addition to the LGBTQ+ genre, I can’t help but wish the novel had a little more to offer. More reckoning with themes and more learning for Luna. I also wished for a better build up of romance between Luna and Romy—that development felt like it came from left field. But this novel did well in terms of easy-to-read writing style, and one could tell the author had fun playing with a Hollywood setting.

Thank you to Vintage and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the open communication about virginity and fighting against the archaic definitions that have been instilled in us. Luna was the babiest of baby gays and a messy gay at that, but I really loved this insight into someone super fresh into her sexuality and being taken along for the learning curve. Luna was just a bit cringey here and there and the relationship dynamics were strange.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for the eGalley I was initially reading for this review. I ended up running out of time for the download and finishing by checking the book out from another library.

If I could give half stars, I'd give this one a 3.5 but since it did well discussing some serious topics, I rounded up to 4 stars. I did enjoy it! It just had some issues.

The main issue being this is a book that will be immediately dated by its constant references to Luna being from Gen Z along with all the references to current media in the 2020's. For that, I cannot say it will end up being a timeless novel (one day it'll be considered historical fiction for how blatant it is with its dated references) but at least it can connect with other Gen Z queer folk at the moment? As a (queer/sapphic) millennial myself, I found myself connecting more with Valeria and Romy than Luna. Luna is in her 20-somethings and is realizing her queerness for the first time, so this novel was very clearly meant to be for a very specific audience and that's fine! I just worry that it won't be as relevant just a few years from now.

Another issue I had was that while we got so much interesting information about the film industry, movie history, and some major Californian cities, there was so much that wasn't explained and readers are left scrambling to Google just what the heck some of the acronyms and terms even mean. I absolutely love the nerdiness in this book, but I'm not that well-versed in industry lingo. Authors need to literally spell these things out for people interested in the story but not familiar with the setting. It was frustrating having to search for context clues and putting the book down just to pick up my phone and look up what some things mentioned were. This happened a *lot* with the industry lingo, particularly the different positions on a film crew. Only a couple were spelled out in full before being abbreviated. It wasn't consistent.

My final issue is the obsession with sex being Luna's endgame. Sex isn't the only validation for queerness and while Luna eventually figured this out, it was still her main motivator and it was mostly all because she didn't want to feel left out of conversations with her friends and colleagues. Which... fine. I know how that can feel. And I do appreciate that near the end some sense is talked into her about how her bisexuality doesn't need to be validated by having sex with someone who isn't a man and certainly doesn't need to have penetrative sex of any kind. I really do appreciate that it's a look at how stereotypes of us bisexuals can be damaging to ourselves and our relationships. I genuinely appreciate that Luna and Valeria realized they had pursued their relationship for different performances they felt they needed to put on or take off for other people and that they both amicably decided that that wasn't healthy and they would be better as friends and colleagues. I just wish the bulk of the story didn't revolve around Luna's desperate need to figure out how queer sex works. I know how it serves the story and the "lesson" learned at the end, but I just can't shake the bad taste it's left in my mouth.

This whole story is full of disaster queers, though, that's for sure. If you're looking for drama, you'll absolutely get it with this story. It's messy and everyone's either oblivious or repressed and it's definitely, well, queer for that. I loved the sincere commentary on social issues it provides (my favorite comment Luna has is how she doesn't want to be a lesson for her parents, which--wow, that's a powerful sentiment I didn't realize I had ever shared until I read it) and Luna's public, non-consensual outing was very uncomfortable to read because it was so real. Some of the drama felt a little manufactured, but for the most part it all felt very realistic and relatable. Romy being a nonbinary character was also refreshing. And the debate about whether Luna and Valeria's relationship would be considered unethical because of their positions is definitely one worth having.

So could it have been better? Certainly. Was it worth at least the one read? I think so. Would I recommend it to anyone but Gen Z? Probably not. But it was good for what it was and I absolutely came out of it learning a heckuva lot more about the film industry at the very least.

A quick, fun read. Sizzle Reel was a relatable (sometimes uncomfortably so) look into navigating your first conscious queer attraction. There was a time when I thought I wanted to go into movie-making, and now I satisfy that part of myself by reading Hollywood-set stories.

Our story starts with Luna, a brutal talent-manger's assistant, just coming out as bisexual. Her best friend and roommate, Romy (a non-binary lesbian) is thrilled and super supportive, even when it feels like no one else in Luna's life is. At the talent-manger's office, her ex and friend Wyatt also works for another talent-manger, who's new client is none other than Valeria Sullivan- Luna's famous new girl crush. Luna and Valeria quickly form a friendship, and when Valeria is looking for a "diverse hire" for her new production assistant, Wyatt is quick to out Luna to their entire office to get her the job. Luna doesn't land the job and her work gets more difficult under her incredibly demanding boss before things finally pile up too high and cause her to quit in a dramatic scene in front of the entire office, and Valeria. After witnessing the explosion that lead to Luna quitting, Valeria offers her the chance to come work with her on her next movie, which Luna quickly jumps at the opportunity. Valeria and Luna then begin growing even closer, spending lots of personal time together on and off set, and Luna begins to wonder if Valeria is queer herself. DNF 51%

At this point in the story I had to stop reading. The exposition of our story, the set up to the entire thing, was so freaking boring. There was too much movie/ film/ production speak that I tuned out most of it and skimmed those parts because as someone completely uninterested in the film industry I do not care (I'm sure if you convinced a movie buff to read this they would've loved this though). So already started out hating the underlying plot line of Luna's work was not a great way to start this story. But I was excited to see what happened with the romance and that's the only thing that kept me reading. But even the romance quickly fizzled for me and I soon lost interest. When Luna met Valeria and formed this rather quick girl crush on her, I figured okay cool fine, this is the equivalent of me having a crush on Zac Efron, but no, she kept forcing herself to be around Valeria and force conversations and friendship. Like okay fine, it's creepy and obsessive but fine. You know the guy that you hate that is "in the friend zone" and every time you see him goes "where's my hug???" until you cave in? Creepy, obsessed with you, doesn't understand that you just want to be friends and nothing more? That's what Luna turns into before knowing if Valeria is even remotely queer (which at my point of DNF she still doesn't know, so I as a reader have no idea if all these efforts were for not). Luna is obsessed with Valeria, she constantly talks about Valeria, follows her, thinks about her, if the Bechtel test counted towards books this one would absolutely not pass because every freaking conversation Luna has with another female character (mostly Romy) is about Valeria. Speaking of Romy, what the actual flip. On like page one THEY share THEY are nonbinary but slightly more femme and at multi points throughout our story (or at least the 50% I did read), Romy gets visibly upset when people do not respect their pronouns or refer to them as "grandchild", "child", or "nibling". Yet Luna, Romy's best friend, roommate, person closest to them CANNOT RESPECT THEIR PRONOUNS and exclusively uses she/her pronouns when referring to Romy. Like are you kidding me. I almost DNF'd the book on page one because of that. And I get it, a person will know their pronouns and what they want to be called better than any other person ever would know for them, but if they are getting viscerally upset over OTHER people misgendering them and refusing to use gender neutral terms when referring to them, I simply do not see how they are okay with their best friend ignoring their gender preferences. And further on Romy- they are clearly in love with Luna, and Luna them, but Luna is all "teehee I could never be in a relationship with Romy" as if both of them haven't at multiple points (again even just in the first 50%) said "I would totally date other person"?????

I wanted to like this book so much. The cover is beautiful, the premise is intriguing. But execution flopped. I tried for so long to get through this book, but inevitably I read the first 50% in one sitting and then dreaded ever having to pick this up again.

This book wasn't what I expected it to be and I usually will be okay with that. However, Sizzle Reel just felt like it was missing something for me.

I'm always here for bi-rep, but this book wasn't life changing by any means.

Sizzle Reel just didn't work for me. I found myself skimming through it despite loving books set in Hollywood culture and film making. The characters just didn't connect for me.

Okay, first, the pros: I LOVE the representation in this. Bisexual, non-binary, I love that. I also love that she had a not-often-written-about job (though I am seeing an uptick in Hollywood books lately). I LOVE that they referenced Hot Ones! I loved the tour of LA. I thought that was so fun. I LOVE seeing characters in therapy. It helps normalize it.

However…

Her being Jewish felt like an afterthought. The side characters beyond the two women in the love triangle felt unnecessary and underdeveloped. I saw a lot of what was going to happen way early on. The third act felt forced. Her family didn’t need to be in it at all, especially since her brother was so one dimensional in his scenes and then at the end there’s all of this enthusiasm? It was weird. Her neuroticism almost made it difficult to keep reading at points. Especially since multiple characters would explain something to her and she would write it off as “too easy/simple.” Life doesn’t need to be that difficult!

I LIKED it, but I didn’t love it.

Updating my review as I’ve thought more about the book and found more issue with it that’s I initially did. Some of the interactions have heavy acephobia, claiming that there’s no point in having a romantic relationship if you’re not having sex. Plus, as I mention below, the MC having an obsession with having a relationship only if it means also having sex. We don’t want bi rep if it means tearing down aro/ace people; we don’t need to diminish or erase one member of the LGBTQIA community in order to uplift others.

Original thoughts:
I thought it was a cute and funny story at the beginning but it started to drag a little bit and I found myself getting bored (and a tiny bit annoyed with the MC). I did enjoy the bi and anxiety rep plus it was interesting to learn about Luna’s Cinematography work!

Good bi rep especially showing both the struggles of coming out/being a baby gay while also showing lots of queer joy! At times I related to Luna because some of her thoughts on coming out reflected how I felt when I came out, and was trying to figure out what that meant for me (plus like Luna, I also came out in my mid twenties!)

The conflict in the third act was well done, it made sense for the relationship and characters; plus most important of all it didn’t involve miscommunication! These characters are all 24+ so for once they communicated like their age (take note other romance authors).

One of the biggest issues I had with the book is Luna’s obsession over losing her virginity and what “real sex” was, which got annoying quickly. At times it felt almost like she was invalidating Romy’s experiences and explanations because Luna kept insisting that penetration needed to happen for it to “count.” There was so much emphasis on sex defining your sexuality. She has queer friends and uses terms like comphet or allosexual-terms I wouldn’t think someone who’s got a lack of LGBTQ+ knowledge would know and use so often-Luna has a surprisingly narrow minded view on sex!

The dialogue and inner monologues are kinda disjointed and felt like someone who is not Gen Z thinking that’s how Gen Z talks (and I say this as a millennial- it’s painfully obvious and not how any Gen Z person I know sounds). The slang and terms thrown around just felt forced and at times cringey.

Lastly, the pacing is all over the place-it started off well but by 35% it slowed down quite a bit, and then had a rushed/abrupt ending. The idea was there but the execution fell flat and I started slowly losing interest by the second half. I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would, especially since this was one of my most anticipated sapphic releases for 2023 😞

Rep: anxiety, Jewish MC and side character, bi MC, non-binary lesbian side character (uses she/her pronouns), lesbian side character

Tropes: Friends to lovers, celebrity, slow burn

(ARC from NetGalley) I'm happy that we're at the point that the gays can have flawed characters in fiction but I think we drove past that and arrived at fully unlikeable. I think the main flaw was in the marketing and the cover-- this is more lit fic than rom com. DNF at 40%

Read from April 7th, 2023 to May 27th, 2023. Written on July 6th, 2023.

~3.5~

I'm not going to drag on to much. I had some expectations for this book and they were not all met, and the ones that I thought did ended up disappointing me.

I loved the film portions of the book; as someone who wants to follow a cinematography career, I enjoyed reading about the scenes where the main character is in a movie set or something cinematographic happens, it was fun. Though I think that for the readers who are not familiar with technical talk on movies, some things may be hard to comprehend.

I love a good queer story, but I felt like most of the book was chasing down the love interest and, when something finally happens, it doesn't really. So that was a BIG downer for me. I felt like I was rooting for something that ended up not being what the story was leading up to.

I also felt like the chapters were a bit too big, maybe that's just from the ePUB version, no idea.

Do I recommend it? Sure, why not? Everyone has different reading experiences. Would I read again? Mm...maybe not. It just kinda let me down, to be honest. Maybe that's why I also struggled to read it; because I really did struggle.

(Free ARC from NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Vintage that I chose to review after reading)

I’ll start with the fact that I hated the writing style. Very dialog and quip heavy. So much so that I had trouble remembering where they were for any given scene because I feel like there was absolutely no exposition.

I love a good Hollywood romance story but this was written from such a narrow perspective that it make me wonder if the author just assumed everyone reading it was from/obsessed with Hollywood. I just could not follow along with the lingo. Which from my perspective limits this book to only being relevant for couple years; akin to when authors put a lot of modern pop culture references in their books.

I did like that they explored a sexuality beyond gay or straight. But that is about the only positive note I have for this book.

ARC generously provided by NetGalley and publisher in exchange for fair and honest review.

CW: Biphobia PUBLIC OUTING, (seriously why did none of the other reviews have this as a CW)

I am struggling with my rating on this one...

On one hand, I remember being a baby queer. Sometimes you over correct while deconstructing the hetero-normative narrative that we've all been taught. But at the same time, I think that some of this was harmful and not challenged enough.

So much of the main character's queer identity hinged on "having gay sex" as if she couldn't be bi unless she had sex with a girl.

There seemed to be a lot of righteous anger in this book, and while I get it, this book was probably cathartic to write, a lot of this should've been unpacked in therapy, not in a book for the world to read.

The Main Character is publicly outed early on in the book, and while it's talked about and she calls out the person, it's later glossed over and forgiven way too easily just to further the plot. That was unexpected and triggering, so please be safe.

This thing was a mess. From the plot to the characterization. It felt like a walking twitter keyboard warrior trope and a straight cis woman making a characterization on who she thinks queer people are. Frankly, it was annoying and slightly offensive.