Just As You Are is a Queer, Pride and Prejudice retelling, set in NYC. Liz and her roommates work for a failing digital Queer magazine that has recently been purchased by new owners. After a bad first impression and significant changes to the work environment, Liz finds herself hating one of her new bosses, Daria Fitzgerald. Told in single POV, Kellogg expertly builds the tension between the main characters, leaving readers desperate for answers and a look into Daria’s feelings.

I really enjoyed this debut. I think it does a really nice job depicting the messiness of your twenties; between finding your rhythm in your career, exploring dating, and just wanting to feel at peace with yourself and more settled. At the same time, you may feel restricted in your choices based on economic constraints. Liz and her roommates all face unique challenges in the workplace and relationships which I think most readers will relate to.

Daria was my favorite; I loved her quiet thoughtfulness. Her secret kindness and desire to be around Liz made me SWOON. She does some really sweet things 🥹

Liz is a work in progress and the honesty in her journey was refreshing. She isn’t perfect, she is still trying to figure out where she fits and her candid inner dialogue was relatable.

Kellogg has a great writing voice and I look forward to their next book!

Read if you like:
🏙️NYC setting
📈Workplace romance
❤️‍🔥Enemies to lovers
📖Pride and Prejudice
📰Queer pop culture references

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing Group and Dial Press Trade Paperback for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

🗽🗽🗽.5/5

Just As You Are beautifully depicts queer experiences and has a wonderful cast of diverse characters!

Liz intrigued me from the very beginning. Her journey throughout this story and her struggle with gender presentation/identity is one that many young people experience today when they are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. It is super relatable and an integral aspect of queer culture, especially the depiction of anxiety that comes along with this experience. She’s real, imperfect and flawed, but just as beautiful.

The more of the story I read, the more invested I became. And JAYA is quite a page turner because it celebrates found family, queer relationships, the struggles of figuring out where your meant to be and what you’re meant to do, and the act of falling in love even against your better judgement.

One thing I was not a huge fan of was that this book was marked as a rom-com. And in my opinion, it was the exact opposite. Yes, it had romance. But it was a character driven story that was more about Liz’s experience living in NY as a queer woman who struggles with her identity and what she’s meant to do with her life, rather than her romantic feelings for a particular person. And it seemed more serious of a conversation rather than a light and fluffy lovey dovey story.

She does end up falling in love, and that final chapter between her and Daria was gorgeous and much anticipated. But to me, this book was more about her journey to get there and her journey of identity than anything else, along with the workplace struggles she was experiencing. I thought these struggles to get to her end destination were realistic and super relevant. And it was refreshing to read a contemporary book that is this powerful and meaningful to the LGBT+ community.

This book was definitely eye opening and insightful, and I HIGHLY recommend picking it up!

*** 3.5 ⭐️***

Liz and her roommates work for a queer magazine on the verge of shutting down when they’re saved at the last minute by two wealthy independent lesbians, drama and misunderstandings ensue.

The plot of this story had merit - how are the staffers going to save their jobs? - but, as the story progressed, it turned into “how many people can we screw over?”

While feeling inadequate about her writing, her looks, and her gender presentation, Liz is always acting before thinking of the consequences. She gets herself into more than a few situations that end up needing to be apologized for after the fact. This is one reason that kept me from rating this story higher - the fact that “I’m sorry” was overused to the point of beating the sentiment right out of the phrase. Liz’s character flaws became overbearing and, unfortunately, this theme also bled into the other character actions as well. It felt, as a reader, that a simple apology could right the world again with no repercussions, which was just aggravating by the end of the story.

It does also bear mentioning that, while the author was trying to point out the diversity of the staff at the magazine (describing their ethnicities, gender, pronouns), it was only made mention of at the introduction of the character; subsequently, the character’s name was used as well as their pronoun. By the end of the story, I had forgotten who was Black/White/Asian/Lainte, trans/cis, bi/lesbian/gay, etc. I do appreciate the attempt, but the distinctions didn’t feel part of the characters’ identities, just labels.

This is an enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers (…) kind of story that could have been 50 pages shorter.

This ARC was provided by the author, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

"Just as You Are" was a really solid romance read! I found out afterwards that it's a Pride & Prejudice retelling, but I've never read/watched P&P so I can't speak to how well it works as a retelling of a classic. But the story did keep me engaged throughout and overall I really enjoyed it!

My only real issue was that I wasn't super invested in the main pairing because I felt they spent more time being enemies than lovers. As a fan of friends to lovers, I think I prefer gentleness and slowly deepening intimacy in my romance. It was nice to see Liz and Daria learn to get past their initial judgements of each other, but sometimes I felt things moved too fast and there was a lot of back-and-forth.

Despite that, this book did a lot of things very well. I loved the queer rep, especially the discussions around gender expression and seeing a character question their identity. As well, the platonic relationships were amazing and probably my favourite part of the book. I appreciated that Liz put as much work into her relationships with Jane and her other roommates as with her romantic relationships.

Overall, I can definitely see myself recommending this book in the future, especially for fans of sapphic romance and the enemies to lovers trope.

Fun fact about me? I will love anything marketed as a Pride and Prejudice retelling. This one was particularly great because of the it is very inclusive and features a diverse range of characters. I think this could make a great tv adaption! I look forward to reading more from this author!

Pride and Prejudice, the 2005 version, is my favorite movie. If you don’t know this by now, you aren’t paying attention. Or maybe I don’t talk about it like I used to. 🤷🏻‍♀️who knows.

I am a big fan of all the Jane Austen retellings, but if it’s Pride and Prejudice?? Sign me up.

One of my favorite parts of Just As You Are by @kellogg_camille is the meeting with Moira Campbell. The way Liz was able to see herself in this person who had an equally tougher life growing up because of the lack of acceptance of being queer and how she took photos for herself and the community instead of worrying about all the fuss with the world around them…I was so enthralled. It’s absolutely beautiful when you live unperturbed by the outside world and live happily as you are. Moira says, “I didn’t want to capture our world for other people,” and to imagine a life like that, well, they certainly lived their best life.

The growing tension between Liz and Daria was perfectly paced and gave those of us who wanted a little bit more affection in the 2005 movie a moment in the kitchen that was certainly hot as hell.

This is currently my favorite book of 2023. I really, sincerely hope that everyone is able to pick this up because this could be life changing to someone who can’t see past the darkness and help them out of it.

I want to thank @kellogg_camille, @netgalley, and @randomhouse for my early advanced reader copy! I can’t wait to get my signed physical copy after release!

Out 4.25.2023

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for sending me an earc!!

wow, where do i even begin? since this is an ARC, i am gonna try (key word is try) and be short and sweet and not do a long af review. but this is a VERY negative review. proceed with caution, may contain spoilers!!! cw listed at the end!

first, i couldn't stand either mc. being in liz's head the entire book was unbearable, but i also don't think i would have liked to be in dalia's head either. liz's inner monologue was just not my favorite. she made quite a few mistakes in this book - which like i get it, she's human and "relatable" but sometimes i just wanted to shake her.

second, wtf was the reason for weston to even be in this????? I COULD NOT STAND HER AT ALL and she was in the book for waaaaaaay too damn long.

third and in that same respect, lydia belongs to the long list of characters i hate. they were a trash human being, did things with out any give-a-shit for those around them, and treated katie like absolute shit. like literally the only characters i genuinely liked were katie and jane, although jane did some stuff in the end that i didn't agree with but whatever.

fourth, the plot was boring af. i kept reading just to see if it got better and NOPE it did not.

all-in-all, i hated reading this. i was VERY excited because i love queer romances, especially ff romances and it was workplace romance?!?! but this did not deliver, and i do not recommend.

⚠️: homophobia, infidelity, toxic relationship, toxic friendship, drug use, emotional abuse

This book had me at P&P retelling and it didn't disappoint. I read it in a day and was thoroughly charmed. I liked how the story was adapted to this world and to this time while confronting serious issues. Liz was funny but ultimately hit every Elizabeth Bennett characteristic one could want!

Just as You Are comes out next week on April 25, 2023, and you can purchase HERE! I really liked this one!

For a moment, Liz was actually tempted. It would have been so easy to fall into Daria's arms and not think at all. To let herself be kissed. To. let herself be taken care of. Liz had wanted someone to feel this way about her so long. She had wanted someone to look at her, to see all the different messy parts of her, and still seem something worth loving.

But this was Daria.

While this is marketed as more of a romcom, it falls more in the retelling because it focuses way more on that aspect of it.

Netherfield Park is let at last!

Nether Fields is a magazine for queer women, non binary people and trans people. It had been struggling for a while though, and is set to be shut down.

The four coworkers - who are also tight friends and roommates - are just about to throw a ‘farewell to employment’ dinner when they get the news that instead of being shut down the magazine has just been sold and now they *might* not all end up jobless.
Liz had hoped for a chance at a new start, but can’t deny that continuing employment for them all is a relief.

It’s not the easy save they all hoped for though. With budgetary changes, promotion and an attempt to get grants the magazine’s finances improve but it still can’t manage to pull a profit. Between the new employers, and friends both new old, the drama ratchets up with everything from hookups and heartaches.

I was pleasantly surprised how well this sapphic pride and prejudice update worked. There was all the drama, miscommunication and grand gestures of the original but tweaked just enough to shine in the modern setting.
Liz and Daria were an excellent Elizabeth and Darcy, you have to be pulling for Jane and Bailey and Weston was perfectly villainous. Navigating ‘class politics’ is still a strong issue.
What you wouldn’t get with the original P&P though - thoughts about gender expression and characters trying to find a place in the space where they feel they fit - is so well done and what makes this so more than ‘just another update’

Thanks to netgalley and thedialpress for the ARC!

**4.5/5**

In Just As You Are we follow Liz who works at a queer magazine called Nether Fields. The failing magazine is bought by two lesbians who have $$$. However Liz has a bad first impression of Daria due to her very strict ways of managing the budget. As time goes on, Liz and Daria spend more time together and Liz starts to realize her attraction to Daria.

I loved how Liz went back and forth between the butch and femme gender perspective, It was interesting how we were able to see Liz's reasonings for choosing how she chose to present herself that day. I apricated the unique way the author decided to include the uncomfy feelings that Liz felt while trying to fit herself into a box of either "butch" or "femme" showing us that it doesn't have to be one or the other. I wish there was more of that included with the plot.
I did not feel like this was a "rom-com" It felt more like a contemporary romance. The romance in this book did not seem like the main plot/what I expected when going into this. However, I really enjoyed reading about these characters and would absolutely recommend!

“It was time to be brave. To focus on what could go right. To focus on possibility, instead of fear.”

I’m a little bit obsessed with JUST AS YOU ARE, a sapphic romcom about a young lesbian writer trying to save a dying queer magazine while falling for the magazine’s new owner. It’s a Pride and Prejudice retelling set in present New York City and absolutely inundated with contemporary queer culture (Hayley Kiyoko! Autostraddle! TomboyX! The annual “is scissoring a thing” article! I could go on). The lead, Liz Baker, is an extremely relatable character: trying to figure out her career as a broke twenty-something in the big city, clinging tightly to her beautiful queer found family, and just a smidge self-obsessed and impulsive. Her love interest, Daria Fitzgerald, is such a perfect Darcy parallel: a hot, rich butch who’s shy but comes off cocky and rude. Their push-and-pull was my favorite part of the novel, the perfect nod to Kellogg’s source material while also feeling completely original. I especially loved their conversations about gender presentation: the pressures they feel from outside of and within the queer community, the difficulty of figuring out who you are in a world that’s always trying to decide for you, the joy of looking in the mirror and seeing someone you recognize. Liz’s internal struggles about her presentation - from feeling the need to be thinner in order to be effectively androgynous to the challenges of affording masc-looking button downs (*ahem* Wild Fang) - ring so true. I do wish some of the side characters felt a bit more fleshed out; Jane, for example, is a Black trans woman and felt a bit flat, more static representation than three-dimensional person. Nevertheless, this is a smart, funny, sexy novel about queer women, by a queer woman, and unabashedly for queer women. Thanks to Dial Press for the eARC! This novel is out 4/25.

Content warnings: family rejection, homophobia, toxic relationship

This was very much a 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲 & 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗷𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗲 with a very inclusive cast of characters from all aspects of the LGBTQIA+ community represented. Add in a splash of 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲 tv show and trying to save an entire magazine. The newest owners Bailey and Daria are trying their best to navigate Liz and her coworkers into reviving the magazine. But Liz and her boss Daria but heads often. True enemies to lovers, very 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲 & 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗷𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗲.

This book had some funny moments and a lot, a lot of characters. The number of characters challenged me because I was reading two books at once (like I always do) and I sometimes had to flip back to the first few chapters to remember who was who.

There are some books that have been redone over and over. Pride and Prejudice is one of those. Whether it’s been reimagined as a book, movie, tv show, web series, etc… you usually know roughly how the story is going to go. Not every adaptation is good but the ones that stand out to me are the ones that don’t follow the plot beat for beat. This book was one of those.

I loved that pretty much every character fell somewhere on the lgbtq+ spectrum. There were characters questioning their gender. It was a refreshing take on the source material. I look forward to reading more from this author!

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love LGBTQIA+ books especially FF romance. As a bisexual woman who spent many years not wanting to admit she was bisexual, I could’ve used having books growing up that featured femme relationships and I’m glad the younger generation has that. This is marketed as a romance but really, it’s more of a contemporary fiction with romance in it but not the main part of the plot. There are multiple different queer characters; femme presenting lesbian, masc presenting lesbian, androgynous non-binary, bisexual, and trans. So much representation in one book and I love it. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it. Loved Liz and I especially love Daria 😉

The romance genre is jam-packed with Jane Austen retellings, and I'm a sucker for them. When I saw that this was a queer, sapphic retelling of Pride and Prejudice, I knew I needed to read it - and I'm so grateful to have received this advance copy!

The novel focuses on Liz Baker and her colleagues at Nether Fields, a queer magazine on the precipice of shutting down. At the last minute, the magazine is rescued by outside investors Bailey and Daria, who have a good cop / bad cop dynamic. Bailey wants to get to know the staff and is optimistic about the magazine's chances; Daria is the realist who sees that the problems are far-reaching and sets out to reduce expenses. Liz, as the magazine's designated advice columnist, quiz-and-lists writer, and reviewer of sex toys, immediately clashes with Daria - she overhears Daria criticizing her work, and immediately sours on her new boss. Over time, however, Liz and Daria become closer, and a hesitant trust begins to form between them.

If you've read Pride and Prejudice, you know where this is going, so I won't summarize any further. Yes, you know how things are going to turn out, but isn't that one of the joys of a retelling? I really loved following along as Camille Kellogg shifted the classic story to tell it from a queer perspective, and it was refreshing to see such well-drawn queer representation across these beloved characters. Liz wrestles with her own gender presentation throughout the book, which I found to be a really smart way to modernize the character. Elizabeth Bennet, in the original work, says "I am resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any other person wholly unconnected with me." Liz is trying to figure out what will bring her the most happiness, but struggles not to focus on how others are perceiving her, or to adapt her presentation based on the person she's interacting with at the moment. I found her introspective moments to be some of the strongest writing in the book, and it definitely helped to set this apart from other P&P retellings.

I received a copy from NetGalley for review.

Just As You Are is the perfect cross between The Bold Type and Pride and Prejudice but so much more sapphic, and I absolutely adored it. I loved it so much that upon finishing it at 1230 at night I immediately pre-ordered a copy. So, I definitely didn't realize that this was a Pride and prejudice retelling at first (not going to lie it took me 25% of the book to realize it)., but once it dawned on me I was like "yes, I'm dumb" but also this is excellent. The characterization of Liz and Daria as Elizabeth and Darcy was spot on and just about all of the other characters made an appearance too! I really enjoyed that Lydia and Weston were ultimately the villains of the story (but even less redeemable) and that Katie in the end stands up for herself. I also appreciated that we got more of the internal happenings of Jane and Bailey's relationship (comparatively to the original). It makes you feel those characters deeper.

The one comment that I have about the book as a whole is that I wish we got to witness Liz actually have the interview with Moira and not just hear a recap of it later on. I think it would have just enhanced some of the messaging that was portrayed in the story.

I wish this would have been marketed differently - didn't really feel like a rom com to me! The romance / love interest wasn't believable and there were too many characters and too many pop culture references. Unfortunately this book didnt work for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader.

Liz has worked at Nether Fields, a queer women of color, owned magazine, since she moved to New York after college. Working at the magazine has helped Liz to find herself and also bc the way she has made some great friends. The magazine is on the verge of closing when it is bought by two rich, lesbians, Bailey and Daria. Bailey is excited for the adventure of owning the magazine while Daria is hesitant. The employees of the magazine are excited for their second chance but will they able to save the magazine?

I enjoyed the self-discovery/self-love journey of the main character, Liz. She is still figuring out her place in this world and it was really nice to see her progress through the book.

The romance was ok to me. There was some insta-love romance and then a slower burn romance. I struggled with the connection between the characters.

I also struggled with some of the friendships within the book. Some of the characters were horrible and catty. However, there were a couple of true friendships in the book.

This book is also very inclusive which was nice to see.

Overall it was an ok read for me but if you are interested in a self-love journey with some sapphic romance, you should check it out.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This was so sweet and so heartfelt! I really enjoy it!