Ellie is Cool Now is a light and fun read that is part high school reunion and part romance. If you have a reunion coming up, you will want to read this book!

TV writer Ellie Jenkins worked her butt off to put her nerdy, outcast teen years behind her. So there’s a certain delicious irony in that she works for a hit show about popular high school kids when she was So. Not. Cool. And now she’s been offered the promotion of a lifetime—if she attends her reunion. But Ellie’s memory of High School Hell isn’t nearly as traumatic as the reality . . .

No one at the reunion is what Ellie expected. Not her ex-best friend, who still has the ability to see right through Ellie. And not her secret crush, who has only gotten hotter, sexier, and way more complicated. The only way she’s going to survive this whole weird ordeal is by fixing her bad high school karma, kissing the boy who got away, and getting the hell out of Ohio for good. But Ellie’s discovering that in real life, she can’t just rewrite the script.

Ellie Jenkins has a great life. She works on as a writer on a hit television show about high school. She’s a talented writer but she struggles with her scripts sometimes. The truth is, Ellie hated high school, so she has trouble reaching for the emotions that the showrunner wants these characters to experience. So when the writers’ assistant finds the invitation to her high school ten-year reunion in her trash can, the showrunner sees an opportunity for her.

He makes her an offer. If she goes back to Ohio for her reunion weekend, then he will promote her to co-Executive Producer, which is a big step toward running a show for herself. It’s what she’s been working so hard for, and all she has to do is go back to high school and complete a list of ten things. She is a smart, hard-working adult, and she deserves this promotion. Ellie agrees and packs her back to go home.

The list that her two best L.A. friends came up with feature the superlatives of high school. so she’ll have better hair than Best Hair and out-spirit the Most Spirited. She’ll have to grab a beer with Best All-Around, hook up with the Prom King, create a piece of art with Most Artistic, and she’ll have to enlist the help of her high school crush to help her. If she can cross all ten things off her list, then she gets the dream job.

Ellie gets back home and heads to the local grocery store to pick up fresh pastries to snack on, and that’s where she runs into him. Her high school crush, Mark Wright, is working in the bakery, and she is immediately transported back to her insecure high school self. He’s happy to see her, but she’s shocked to see him working at the local grocery store. He had been heading to medical school last she knew, even though she knew he really wanted to go to film school.

Later, she heads to the local bar to see who is still in town and who came back for the reunion. She needs to hunt down all those who are on her list, so she can complete her list and get back to California. But at the bar, she runs into her ex-best friend Roxy as well as Mark, bringing back all the feelings she’d been avoiding for ten years.

But as she reconnects with her former classmates, trying to complete the tasks on her list and dealing with her new crush on Mark, Ellie starts to realize that maybe she hated high school so much because of her actions and not anyone else’s. And as she finds herself experiencing all the things she had missed out on all those years ago, Ellie finds herself drinking and pranking and cheering the basketball team and making out with the guy she had been crushing on.

But when the reunion is over and the list is complete, Ellie has to decide to live out her fantasy life in Ohio with the crush (who is quickly becoming more serious) or go back to L.A. and the life she’s been building all those years. Will she chose the chance of love, or will she go back to her avoidant ways?

Ellie Is Cool Now is a rom com with a fun premise, having to go back and finally have those high school experiences you missed out on the first time in order to get the dream job. But there are also some deeper themes that come up, like fidelity and sobriety and sisterhood. It’s great to see Ellie grow through her experiences and to find a maturity that she had missed out on before. And as a Midwesterner myself, I loved seeing Ellie getting so excited about fall, because it is such an amazing time in this part of the country.

I really enjoyed Ellie Is Cool Now. I thought authors Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren did a good job putting this story together and coming with up interesting hoops for Ellie to jump through. I will admit that it’s not the most sophisticated romance I’ve read, but if you’re looking to read some fluffy high school reunion shenanigans, then it’s a fun story to hang out with for a while.

Egalleys for Ellie Is Cool Now were provided by Forever through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I had high hopes for this book, but it didn’t work for me. It read like a YA novel with drinking. All her time in LA seemed like she learned it from Instagram. I was honestly shocked to find out the authors lived in LA. The idea of the list of things was fun, but I don’t think it worked in execution.

Thank you to @readforeverpub for the ARC.

This is a fun read that I really enjoyed. Ellie is a writer for one of the hot young adult shows on TV. It’s set in a high school.
Her boss finds out that her 10th HS reunion is approaching, and tells her she has to go. He dangles a promotion in front of her to make sure she goes, but Ellie would rather forget her memories of high school. She wasn’t one of the cool girls in her class, and she had an unrequited crush on guy named Mark. Her ex best friend, Roxy, might be there and they have a lot to say to each other.
It’s an entertaining look at what happens when we go back to HS!
I enjoyed this second chance, friends to lovers romance. 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC! So I love Faith and Victoria and this was such a fun book! I feel like a lot of people can relate to not loving high school and not being excited about going back to your hometown for your high school reunion. Did I love that Ellie's boss assigned her this challenge and that was the only way she would get a promotion? No. But I did like seeing her friendship with Roxy evolve and how things went with Mark. I laughed a lot, especially to the early aughts references.

I loved the concept of this one, Ellie goes back to her hometown for her 10 year reunion to complete a challenge, facing her ex-best friend, high school crush and all the people she left behind to pursue her dream job.

But overall, I had a hard time connecting with the characters. Ellie is incredibly immature, I had a hard time believing she was returning for her 10 year reunion. I also didn't love how the first or second chance went down and there was not much really memorable here for me as a reader.

I also had a hard time keeping track of "the list." I would've loved to see it referenced again in full maybe everytime she checked one off because I couldn't remember who was who (characters to superlatives) or what was left to complete.

I would definitely read what's next for Victoria Fulton & Faith McClaren, I think there were definitely some funny spots!

Thank you to Net Galley and Forever for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

Ellie is forced to attend her high school reunion with a list of tasks to complete in order to get the promotion she's been craving to Executive Produce her own show. I thought this was a cute premise and I liked how Ellie got a chance to fix some of the regrets and relationships she had about high school but overall this was a bit too dramatic and just wasn't my thing. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Ellie Is Cool Now by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren is a movie in the making. In a high school reunion-themed rom-com, Ellie goes back to Ohio from L.A. for her 10 year high school reunion where she has a run in with her estranged best friend Roxy and former crush Mark. It feels like a Romy and Michelle High School reunion remake and if you loved that movie as much as I did, you'll LOVE this book! Highly recommend!

This is the story of Ellie who is working as a writer for a teen show in LA and is challenged by her boss to go to her high school 10 year reunion to gain some "perspective" and maybe get a promotion. With the challenge and the list her two best friends put together Ellie heads to Ohio for a weekend back home and shenanigans ensue.

What I liked:
Mark, Ellie's high school crush who seems to be a good guy who made some mistakes but wants to get to a better place
Ellie's friends, Vic and Tina seem to be a fun pair to be around and are pushing Ellie outside her comfort zone when she refuses to. Not to mention they seem super supportive and sometimes know what is best for Ellie better than she does
The List, Vic and Tina create an "Ellie is Cool Now" list and if I ever go to one of my high school reunions I might try to check off a few of the items since they seemed like fun
Diffusion Tactic, Ellie gets herself in a lot of odd spots throughout her time back in Ohio and I really enjoy that her being a writer for a popular show seems to diffuse every situation she seems to be herself into

I would give this one a 3.5 out of 5 stars, I think the concept was there but some of it just missed the mark for me. I didn't like the subplot with Mark since it ruined the romance for me and how Ellie treated her childhood friend was really frustrating and made her more unlikeable than I think she should have been.

I wouldn't say this was a terrible book, but overall I am not sure if I would recommend it to all of my reader friends. There are definitely a group that I know would love it and I will absolutely tell them about it but for me this is not a recommend for all type of read.

This book was like a mix of Never Been Kissed and that episode of 30 Rock where Tina Fey goes to her high school reunion - and I was here for it!

After a terrible high school experience as a nerd, Ellie escaped her small Ohio town and now lives in LA, working in TV on a hit show about popular teens. She has no interest in going home for her high school reunion. But her boss thinks it’s the perfect opportunity for Ellie to shake off her cynicism and reframe her high school experience - and offers the promotion of Ellie’s dreams if she attends. Armed with a list of tasks to complete based on yearbook superlatives, Ellie goes back home to encounter her past, including the popular kids, her estranged rebel best friend, and the boy who got away.

I enjoyed this! Ellie was super relatable; right off the bat, I was giggling at Ellie’s internal monologue, and loving her cynicism and judgmental nature. The whole book had a nostalgic feel, and read like all my favourite 90s/00s movies - complete with an overtly unprofessional work assignment, hilarious side characters (including the ultra supportive best friends), a lesson resulting in personal growth, and a romantic grand gesture at the end.

This was an interesting reading experience because the book had some elements that I typically don’t love, but in the context of the story, they worked. For example, many of the side characters didn’t have a whole lot of depth, effectively defined by one character trait - but in context of the superlative-framed plot, this made sense. The same lack of depth characterized the romance for me, but again, this fit with the “one that got away” framing, particularly where it primarily served to exemplify Ellie’s own misperceptions and personal shift in perspective. It’s possible I’m reading too much into some of this, but for me, the character development fit well with the purpose and structure of the plot.

Basically, if you miss the height of the Drew Barrymore rom com era (which I definitely do), this could be for you!

Thank you to Forever & NetGalley for the free advance copy of this book! Opinions are all my own.

Ellie is Cool Now takes me right back to high school. The ups, the many downs and all the in between. As I was reading, I felt like Ellie’s emotional maturity got stunted in high school. I found her to be a fun, if not mature character. There were laugh out loud moments, which I appreciated. If the tropes you enjoy are friends to lovers and small towns, this light hearted story, will be for you.

This was such a cute read! I absolutely loved the story and the updates from the Wattpad version. I can't wait to read more from this duo, and would love to read more stories in this world too!

Ellie is a successful almost co-exec producer in LA and her boss wants her to go to get HS reunion so she can get in touch with her HS roots, since her show is based on HS storyline.
Her besties made a list of items she needed to complete which her boss intercepted in her work email. The only problem is her crush and her ex best friend might be there. And she left and never looked back cause of what happened.
This was such a funny, sweet, sad and crazy adventure. I could totally see this happening to my HS class so much drama. No matter how old you are you sometimes revert back to hs like muscle memory with a group of hs people. But there were lessons learned in hindsight and hearing others stories. I was an eclectic high schooler which means I was a weirdo but somehow popular cause as much as I paid attention I acted like I didn't gaf.

Thank you foreverpub for the gifted copy

In need of inspiration to write her TV drama about high schoolers (since she hated high school), Ellie has been asked to attend her class reunion. As incentive, her producer suggests she will get a promotion if everything goes well. Her friends compile an "Ellie is Cool Now" list for her to complete.

This was a lighthearted story about the awkwardness of our teenage years and having to relive moments we'd rather forget..

This book made me laugh. Ellie was so relatable and awkward. She tackled her 𝘌𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘊𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘕𝘰𝘸 list in so many creative and entertaining ways, and I ate it up!

Poor Ellie started as an insecure 18 year old in a 28 year old’s body. Her indecisiveness and inability to talk to her high school crush was so hard to watch, but I loved watching her confidence and maturity develop throughout the book.

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐
SPICE: 🔥🔥

Ellie really needs her high school reunion to work out. Her promotion in LA as a show writer depends on whether she can complete a list of tasks while she attends the reunion. It is too bad that she is still holding on to trauma from that awful, awful time.

Now she is back in Ohio, and she is learning quickly that life cannot be scripted.

I had high expectations for this read. The description was giving me updated vibes for Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. What I got did not quite hit the mark.

The premise was enjoyable, and I liked the lightness and pacing of the read. There were some fun comedic elements nicely balanced with more serious themes like self-acceptance and moving on.

The downside is that I could not relate to any of the characters. I get high school trauma. I was totally Ellie at high school, but just like we advise people who peaked in high school and refused to let go, people who equally hold on to that trauma need to let go also. Her crush Mark was not very charismatic, and how he approaches relationships (more like dalliances) leaves much to be desired. Her ex-best friend Roxy is not a very good friend. What had me cheering for Ellie to go back home and find some closure quickly had me hoping she just goes back to LA and finds some closure there.

** I am voluntarily reviewing an advance copy of this book. Thank you to Victoria Fulton, Faith McClaren, Forever Publishing, and NetGalley for providing an ARC. **

Ellie didn't have a great high school experience, so writing scripts for a tv show set in a high school is a bit of a challenge for her. She's up for a promotion, but her boss wants her to get over her disdain and come back fresh and less jaded. Luckily, her ten-year reunion is coming up and the perfect time to reconnect with her former peers.

I can understand not having fond memories of high school, but Ellie's wasn't really so terrible and I felt like she blew it way out of proportion. She wasn't popular, but also didn't make attempts to make friends other than her bff Roxy. Ellie was bullied, just more of a background player. She had a crush, but instead of talking to Mark, she was pretty mean to him and ran away. What did you expect then??

I also thought Ellie was a terrible friend to Roxy. She was clearly struggling with abuse at home and turning to drinking, drugs, and sex as coping mechanisms. Ellie just distanced herself instead of trying to be there for Roxy or asking an adult for help. Then ten years later, Ellie still treats Roxy like crap. Did you learn anything?

The idea of the story wasn't bad and I like crossing off the list of superlatives, but Ellie was too unlikeable for me, down to the very end I thought she was selfish and cowardly. Not my cup of tea.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Forever Publishing and NetGalley for the copy.

A contemporary romance full of funny moments with a lighthearted tone!

Ellie Jenkins is a TV producer in LA and when her boss dangles a promotion in front of her she’s ecstatic. However, there’s a catch, she has to attend her 10 year high school reunion back in her small hometown in Ohio. Ellie most certainly didn’t peak in high school and now that she’s faced with the collision of her past and present, will she be able to right the wrongs of the past and move forward with her new life in LA?

Ellie’s disdain for high school was ultimately so relatable for me. Like Ellie, I certainly didn’t peak in high school, and found her banter around the reunion hilarious. I thought the book was paced really well and had a really fun and unique premise. My favorite thing about this book, though, was that it kept things lighthearted throughout yet still was able to discuss some really heavy issues. The romance was fun (I do love a good second chance!) and the message really hit home for me. Overall, this was an excellent read and I will certainly recommend it to those who are looking for a fun, quick read!

Thank you to Forever for an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This one was giving me “Never Been Kissed” movie vibes. I loved the read overall it was quick, quirky, and fun.

If you’re a fan of second Chance romances, and one where the once geeky girl gets the guy, you’ll want to pick this up.

It’s a perfect beach read!

I loved the premise of Ellie Is Cool Now. I didn’t enjoy high school so I thought I’d be able to relate with Ellie but I didn’t.

Ellie and all of her classmates seemed really immature for being 28. Sure, maybe they were just acting that way because of the class reunion but it didn’t come across that way.

The book felt like a YA book just with a lot of swearing and sex.

I couldn’t get over Ellie’s boss sending her to her high school reunion with a list of tasks to complete in order to get a promotion.

The storyline wasn’t awful and I really wanted to like it more than I did. This one just fell flat for me.