This was a super cute, easy, lighthearted read! I’m a sucker for the roommates trope so I was a huge fan of El and Ray’s love story! I was actually laughing out loud at times and I enjoyed myself throughout the book! It’s definitely a bit cheesy but I think it’s the kind of cheese you will want to indulge in! I will be checking out more from this author!

I think what I liked most about this book were the characters. They felt like people I’ve met and the dialogue and humor between them was fun to read. Honestly, I think this would make a great movie or TV series for that reason. And the growing pains of moving from city life to country life complete with chickens and a garden, as well as the colorful community of people in their new village are prime for comedy.

I was really more invested in that part of this book and the development of the main character than the underlying love story. For me, friendship, community, and personal growth were the most important themes of this book. The love story was sort of just background for me.

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I absolutely loved this book. It hooked me and kept me turning pages until I was done. Finished it in two days! The character development was strong, and the premise was unique enough that it didn't feel like anything else I've read.

Wild Things by Laura Kay was a heart-warming and sweet story laced with self discovery and all the feel good things that makes this book so perfect.
A joyful read full of likeable characters.
They are relatable in their own ways, and I found myself just wanting them to be happy.
This book is absolutely amazing. I genuinely smiled the entire time I was reading this!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You Netgalley and Vintage for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this eARC.

Wild Things portrays the messy, realistic beauty in contemporary life. (Especially for queer folks.) Friends El, Ray, Jamie, and Will go in on a house together in a village just outside of London. (A very real thought in many young adults heads these days.) The “Lavender House” commune, as it’s affectionately called, is wildest thing El has done during her year of being wild. During El’s wild journey, readers experience her dead-end job, bisexual dating life’s ups and downs, and the messy and real relationships of herself, her friends, and her family.

The characters are fun and relatable. Each character has their own quirks, flaws, emotions, and desires. While the story focuses on the core characters, the side characters that readers are treated to are no less likable and engaging. Readers only get a glimpse of some characters from the village they move into, and it would have been great to meet even more new characters and experience village life surrounding Lavender House.

Readers who appreciate the messes in the beauty of life will gravitate towards this novel.

This book was so adorable! It was a fun, easy, and quick read and it got me out of the reading slump I had been in.

Cute book that was very entertaining. The story is light and funny which makes it a perfect weekend or beach read. You will love all the characters in here as they all bring a part of the story together.

This was a solid, cute story! I enjoyed the cover and the overall themes and the characters in this book. Could see it for many book clubs!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It centers around El, a young bisexual woman working at a dead end job in London along with her two friends, Jaime and Ray. Ray is El's best friend, but El has had a massive crush on her since forever. Together with Will, Ray's roommate, they have very little money, and they lament their inability to be able to have the stability of a place of their own.

Will comes into some money and they impulsively decide to buy a dilapidated house in the country together, so that at least they won't be throwing their money away. The house needs a lot of work that none of them know how to do and they're not sure about being a group of (mostly) queer people in a quiet village, but they make it work and the book is largely about these adventures along with El's journey of figuring out how to live a life she loves rather than hates.

I did really enjoy this book, but I will say there is a LOT of drinking in the plot. It seems like the characters are either constantly getting drunk or getting over hangovers. I'm not even particularly sensitive to drinking in books, and I know the characters are meant to be in their 20s, but it just seemed excessive to me.

This was a cute fast paced book to read it was lighthearted and made me miss being a in middle school and reading Twilight and whether I was team Edward or team Jacob oh the good old days. I loved the coming of age story and character developments.

A book about found family and a few hens, I absolutely devoured this queer coming of age! Unrequited love, friendship, and the growing pains of realizing who you truly are.

This book grabbed my from the cute cover and I was so excited to be able to read it! It was a light hearted, feel good story and I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC.

I liked the light-heartedness, I liked the topics of growth and coming to yourself but this missed the mark for me. It was mostly just okay, I didn't particularly like any characters and I found myself not wanting to pick it up. I did DNF at 45% for full transparency.

This was a good book. Mostly lighthearted and a feel good story. It's about growth and leaving your comfort zone and making your own happiness. It's about getting out of ruts that pop up in life and friendships that turn into family.

There were some small things that bothered me but not once did I feel like I wanted to dnf. It was a quick read and the writing flowed very well.

Love the fact that chickens were named after Twilight characters (an obsession I had as a teen). Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read the earc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this one. Sadly, that's not what happened. When I started this, I was expecting hilarious. I never laughed. I got through 30% of this, and it was just a boring trudge. Nothing mentioned in the synopsis had actually happened, merely been hinted at. While this might've picked up, it wasn't for me. I have better things I could be reading

I thought I would love it. I liked the cover and idea. I didn’t feel like we got to know any of the characters very well and couldn’t figure out where the love and friendship was between them, besides just hanging out a lot.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It has great characters, a good sense of place, snappy dialogue, all that stuff, but I kept getting off-balance. Is the book about El's wild list, about her unrequited love, about the house in the country, about her insecurities? It would start down one path, then shift focus. Then the resolution was so fast that I wasn't 100% bought in.

One other thing, when the book describes one of the characters a brown boy in pink shorts, I'd kinda like to see that on the cover.

Probably just not the right book at the right time for me. If it sounds good to you, give it a shot.

This was a NetGalley ARC, the book will be published in May 2023.

The Most Anticipated Contemporary Romance Books of 2023

While it’s easy to recommend contemporary romances based on various combinations of shorthand tropes and archetypes, it’s equally fascinating to pick up on the common themes in a year’s crop of new romances.

In 2023 expect more than one ghostwriter falling for her client (because what’s more intimate than learning someone’s voice) and plenty of author crushes in the flesh. Yet there’s also the themes of writing ourselves into fantasy scenarios or idealized versions of ourselves—or if not writing, then taking the cannonball plunge into summer camp or other group getaways in the sunshine, when we can be freer versions of ourselves not weighed down by expectations or exes. Or if you’re looking for a sharper edge to your contemporary romance, get ready for books that amp up the archetypal enemies or rivals into witch-versus-witch-hunter or competing con artists. This list has new books from Kate Clayborn, Emily Henry, Taj McCoy, Christina Lauren, Tehlor Kay Mejia, and many many more. Truly, it was difficult to narrow down, and this is just the first half of the year.

Wild Things by Laura Kay

Release Date: May 23 from Vintage Anchor

Every few months, my pandemic pod of queer nerds jokes about leaving Brooklyn behind to build a rural commune that we lovingly refer to as Mount Gay, so I was the ideal audience for this book.

Struggling to spice up her staid life with a “wild year,” bisexual El joins gay influencer-in-the-making Jamie, token straight Will, and rakish Ray (a.k.a. her unrequited crush) in moving out of London and into a fixer-upper in a charming village. While there is a slow burn romance, the real love story is among this quartet, as they figure out how to build a home together while making space for each other’s idiosyncrasies.

I really enjoyed this book!

Eleanor is kind of stuck in a dead end job with a roommate she doesn't get along with. When her and her friends,Ray, Will and Jamie come up with a plan to buy a house and all live together, a sort of gay comune, she quickly decides to do it. Only one problem, she's in love with Ray and Ray doesn't know.

I loved all of the different characters and reading about their adventures with buying the home.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review.