Member Reviews
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Dell for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.
I'm definitely in the minority here, disliking this so much I didn't make it to 20%. I couldn't stand Lilah and the way she treated Shane. These characters are in their thirties?? Immature and unprofessional. No thanks.
I loved How to Fake it in Hollywood so I was so excited to get read Ava Wilder’s second book. It did not disappoint. The book is set around the last season of a ‘Supernatural’ like tv show with two leads who once upon a time had a thing before it imploded in a spectacular way. Like her debut novel, the two leads Shane and Lilah were imperfect, a little messy and complex. The story moves back and forth on the timeline of their relationship, and between the two leads, taking the reader through what went wrong and right in their past and how that impacts their tension filled reunion in the present.
The chemistry between them was excellent and despite how complicated and painful things got between them you did root for them to figure things out whether it was together or as individuals. Both Lilah and Shane had a lot of frustrating moments where it felt like they were getting in their own way but the author did a great job of showing that yearning, connection and love underlying all their hurt, anger and lashing out and the work they each had to do to get to an emotionally healthier place. Really engaging characters and a well written read. 4.5 ⭐️.
DNF.
I loved the premise of this book so much, and I will die for any enemies-to-lovers arc, but I just couldn't finish this book. I got halfway through and I never picked it up again. It felt like a chore to read. I usually empathize really well with characters but I just could not keep reading about Lilah's character. Shane was also not a male lead that I was rooting for, so this pairing was not the romance trope that I was looking for. I'm sure that this book is better for other readers, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sending me an e-copy of this book for an honest review!
This is a romance 9 years in the making. But it's also a slow burn, which you tend to forget about because both characters are so crazy about each other. I really enjoyed Ava Wilder's sophomore novel. She tends to have Hollywood as a backdrop to her books and that always makes a difference, making BTS of Hollywood as a secondary character. The growth Shane and Ava have individually is beautiful to see. I love how there is so much representation of therapy, trauma and mental health. It isn't always done in a realistic and respectful manner and I really appreciate how it was done in this book. Really loved this book and looking forward to many people reading and loving it this summer. Everyone should be going out and getting a copy when it releases!
Thanks to NetGalley for ARC copy in exchange for an honest review, as always, all words are my own.
The perfect spicy summer read! It feels a bit like fan fiction for your favorite TV procedural co-stars (I alternated between seeing them as Buffy and Angel and the stars of Castle personally) but the tension building is absolutely masterful. The reader experiences every bit of anticipation and release with the characters. Loved it!
This is closer to a 3.5 This is my first time reading a book by this author. I'm so glad I continued with this book. I did struggle in the beginning because of the two main characters relationship from the start. I wondered how their hate for each other could turn into a second chance romance. Having the flash backs to the beginning of their relationship was helpful, and so was having both POVs. The story kept me interested in how they would rekindle their romance and I enjoyed the progression of the story. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this ARC. All opinions are my own.
When you put together my two favorite things in the world—2nd chance romance and TV celebrities—I’m obviously going to like it…but this book went far beyond like. I am so crazy in love with this book!!! It’s a top read of the year for me.
Lilah and Shane are co-stars on a long running TV show and their story is told in dual timelines and dual POV as they go from lovers to enemies to lovers again. Shane is a golden retriever boy who grows up a lot and Lilah has to learn to manage her anxiety and relationship fears.
I devoured but also savored every single second! The romance, chemistry, emotion, passion, and pacing were all absolute perfection. I loved Ava Wilder’s writing in How to Fake it in Hollywood and thought this one was even better. She also writes the best endings ever!!
If you’re a TV person or a celeb watcher at all—but even if you’re not—you cannot miss this one.
Here’s my fancast plus the TV ships I couldn’t help thinking about as I read:
- Chris Evans as Shane (because every romance hero is a Chris)
- young Alicia Witt as Lilah because she’s a gorgeous redhead and a great actress
- Lucifer as Tangible (the show they’re on)
- Outlander for the photo shoot scene and the crazy shippers
- Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher (plus that older woman he dates ) as IRL Lilah and Shane
Thank you to NetGalley and Dell publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
While I wouldn't label this a romantic comedy, as a contemporary romance with a friends to lovers to enemies to lovers vibe, Will They or Won't They takes you behind the scenes of what makes and breaks a Hollywood couple, the ups and downs of making it big, and how getting everything you wish for may be more of a curse than a blessing.
You never know where life will take you. At least that is what Lilah contemplates as she returns to the set of the show she left behind in a blaze of glory. Never in a million years did she expect to find herself back on the set of "Intangible". When she left at the end of season five, her future was in front of her and the mistakes of the past were on the other side of the bridge burned in retaliation to a heated goodbye with her former flame Shane. Now returning, humbled by her lack of options, humiliated by career failures, she has no idea how to find her place amongst the people she thought she could do without, including a costar that can’t stand the sight of her. It wasn’t always this way, once upon a time Lilah and Shane were a team, partners, as well as lovers. Passionate and all in with everything they do, an overreaction lead to a series of petty paybacks that ripped them further apart. That was then, this is now and the probability of making amends is looking less and less possible. As the last season of the show moves forward, tempers are high, hostility is front and center, and the only way to get this last project over with is to resolve the issues of the past, putting the ghost to rest once and for all.
Will They or Won't They is thought provoking, insightful, detailed, and evolving. Jumping from past to present, you get the full picture of what happened. As each incident is rehashed, you find yourself shifting from taking one person's side to the other until you realize both were equal to blame.
While the book itself felt extremely drawn out, the main characters kept you intrigued as you didn’t know which moment was going to be THE moment. It was like watching a game of chicken, waiting to see who caved first.
There was a lot of passion and heat in this book. From the flashback, to the almost moments in the present, pushing buttons to get to one another, there was so much sexual tension but when the Ava actually allowed the characters to connect, to come together - there was an explosion of emotion, so much unsaid that the intensity of those pages were some of the best parts of the books - not because of the steam but because of the rawness and vulnerability of the characters.
Will They or Won't They will capture your attention and keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. If you thought Ross and Rachel were complicated, Lilah and Shane will blow your mind.
Hollywood on-and-off-again romance.... this was quite tricky to get through.
Let me start by pointing at what I liked:
- dual timelines.
- realistic struggle stories behind Hollywood life.
- ending.
What I didn't:
- very uninteresting MCs.
- Shane came across as a jerk. Every time.
- lots of drama.
- too much going back & forth scenarios.
- childish behavior by the MCs.
- not sure of what they want but blame the other for suggesting otherwise.
- revengful thinking (?)
- miscommunication. Loads and loads of it.
Sorry to say but this wasn't for me.
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
A steamy slow burn, dual POV, second chance celebrity romance featuring two former television co-stars who are reunited for the final season of their hit show. Perfect for fans of books like The reunion by Kayla Olsen, Built to last by Erin Hahn or Twice in a blue moon by Christina Lauren and good on audio narrated by Kristen DiMercurio and Jay Aaseng. Many thanks to NetGalley and @prhaudio for the early digital and audio copies in exchange for my honest review!
WOOOOOOOOWWWW! I am obsessed. Once I started reading Will They or Won't They, I couldn't put it down. There are so many things about this book that I love that I want to share to get everyone excited to read this.
I really enjoyed Shane and Lilah's character development, both separately and as a pair. Shane was discovered while waiting tables and ended up landing a job as a main character in a show that spanned for many years. Lilah knew from high school that she wanted to be an actress. The chemistry between the two were immediate and it was so believable. I could feel the pull between the two characters and I was so invested. From friends to lovers to enemies to lovers, their story is told so beautifully.
The book tells their current story and has flashbacks of when they were together. I think the flashbacks added so much to the story and it never felt disruptive to the flow of the overall novel.
Throughout reading, you get to know about their families, which adds character. You also get an insight into both Shane and Lilah's minds about how they feel about their situation. It's told in third person, which is different because most romance novels do POV, but I really enjoyed the way that Ava wrote their story.
Tropes in this book:
- Friends to lovers to enemies to lovers
- Celebrity Romance
- He falls first
My favorite quote:
"As he looked into her eyes, he knew without a doubt, down to the marrow of his bones, that he wasn't just in trouble. He was completely fucking in love with her."
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the gifted ARC!
Last year I got an ARC of Ava Wilder’s debut novel How to Fake it in Hollywood and was completely amazed! It was spicy, emotional, and realistic in the best ways possible and rightfully earned 4.5 stars from me.
So as soon as I saw Ava had another book coming out, it immediately went on the TBR list and the ARC request went in to NetGalley. I was already sold on this was going to be a fantastic book!
So how did this one compare?
In short, this was not as good as I was expecting. I assumed with another Hollywood romance we would get a similar chemistry and dynamic, some parts I would cry over and more parts I would laugh over, but this one was a little too dramatic for me. I typically have no problem with dramatics (hello! How to Fake it in Hollywood was chalked full of it!), but that’s with the caveat that we get a good amount of happy moments. I felt like too much of this book was centered on them down right hating each other (and not in the typical spicy enemies-to-lovers way), and not enough of their good moments were shone on. For heavens sake, the ending would have been perfect, if I wasn’t for sure convinced the book was going to end without an HEA because of their past interactions.
The side characters were also nothing to write home about. I felt the side characters in Wilder’s debut novel were so rich and offered so much to the story, but the ones in this one were really there for small cameos more than anything else.
Overall, the enemies-to-lovers fell short for me and I didn’t feel the right amount of emotional oscillation that I like to feel with emotional romances.
Final Thoughts:
I really enjoyed Wilder’s debut novel but I wasn’t as big of a fan of this one. I still have faith in her and will read her next book hoping for something new (outside Hollywood) or a return to the right emotional journey for me.
Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Dell, and Ava Wilder for the opportunity to read this book. The review expressed above is honest and my own.
This was a cute and entertaining romance read with both an enemies to lovers and second-chance romance trope! I really enjoyed that this read was a dual pov and the fact that it didn’t shy away from spice. I have to admit that I didn’t find the lead female character Lilah very likable. I felt that she could be pretty rude to Shane at times which made me feel for him especially since he was such a sweetheart. 🥹 All in all I liked this read but unfortunately didn’t love it.
Thank you Ballantine and Netgalley for the ARC!
It is not surprising at all that I LOVED this book. Ava Wilder earned a place in my heart with How to Fake It in Hollywood and she definitely solidified that spot with Will They or Won’t They. I love how Ava wrote so much tension between the characters, both emotionally and physically, that you feel it in your gut. This story draws you in with the drama and squeezes your heart with the simple yet powerful words exchanged between the MCs. This was absolutely a winner for me!
I loved this story! Lilah & Shane have such a tenderhearted, bittersweet, emotional, lovely story! I loved seeing theirs as a second chance love story, but not written half-and-half, mostly present time & a few flashback moments.
Lilah is a sweetheart who who is so scared of losing the life she’s worked & loved for for so many years that she doesn’t know how to handle her relationship with Shane once upon a time. and poor Shane, he’s so immature & young in the early years, but he’s grown up so much & he now loves Lilah in a way that is mature & lovely & wonderful (by the end I mean…they have the whole book to work this out).
I also love the side characters in this book (except for the self-serving ones), but their friends are kind & funny! not to mention the wonderful, glamorous world of Hollywood that Ava Wilder so uniquely explores in her works that make her stories so unique and lovely.
overall, a truly wonderful, heartfelt love story with two imperfect people dealing with a unique, very public situation, who absolutely deserve their happily ever after :)
thank you for the ARC!!!we
𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙭𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙫𝙚
𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙚 𝙈𝙘𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙇𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙝 𝙃𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩!
The ’ship the Karrison-verse just can’t get enough of. After a nine year stint, the pair were caught holding hands and kissing, having seemingly confirmed their relationship at the end of Shane's 𝘓𝘕𝘓 debut. See, even their romance offscreen has just as much chemistry oscreen, the Karrisons have no reason to believe the headlines stating the behind-the-scenes hatred between the two... 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?
- ~ -
The way I fall in love with Wilder's storywriting is undeniable and inevitable. How she creates characters that feel like coming home is simply enchanting.
Shane and Lilah were in love nine years ago despite them not being ready for it.
They messed up five years ago. They're still furious at each other but they're also very much in love.
𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦?
"𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘯𝘰𝘵?"
As I said i̶̶t̶ they were undeniably inevitable.
The story was pure healing and beautiful vintages of them being once in love and now again... amidst some death threats - ensued by one another ofcourse.
- ~ -
As usual the writing style was well polished and the plot was stunningly carried out. Overall good character development.
Mark your calendars, it's out 6/27!
4.31 / 5✩
𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘐 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘥. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.
I loved How to Fake it in Hollywood and was very excited for Wilder's new book. Ultimately this one fell short for me. The characters were just too unlikeable.
Will they or won't they? That is literally the question you ask yourself over and over and over again as you read this unconventional romance novel by Ava Wilder. For Lilah and Shane it has always been their connection, chemistry, and adoration for one another. Until it's not. Until it's vengeful and deceitful. And even years later, when Lilah comes back to be in the final season of the show that made them who they are in Hollywood, the two can't seem to figure out the push and pull of their undeniable attraction to one another. Hashing out their past helps them move past the anger, but does it move them close enough to fall for one another? Will they, or won't they?
I enjoyed this novel a lot. Wilder is original in her writing, cultivating a romance novel that slightly strays from the typical romance novel structure in that you are literally thinking you aren't sure there is a way these two can end up together in the end. I wasn't sure whether it was going to be a happy ending at the end or not, but I sure had a lot of fun reading it to find out.
Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for this advanced readers copy of Will They or Won't They? in exchange for my honest opinion. My review will be available on Goodreads immediately (link below).
Well it’s official! Ava Wilder is my new favorite auto-buy author! I read this beauty in a day and was having flashbacks to my 90210 era. Anyone else LOVE 90210 and wonder if Luke Perry and Shannon Doherty hated/loved each other in real life? Just me?
Will They or Won’t They had all the angst, the banter, the TENSION (!!) and the character development that makes for a perfect beach read! I loved Shane and Lilah’s story! I thought the mental health representation was done well and the ending was everything!
Wilder has perfected the perfect messy celebrity love story and just like How to Fake it In Hollywood, this is a book you're DEFINITELY going to want to snag!
4.25 stars
Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for the early copy
Grab your copy out 6/27!
Thank you for the best entertainment always @avawilderwrites!
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I enjoyed reading this book, but didn't end up loving it. I can understand the hype and why others would like it but it just wasn't for me.