I love when I feel connected to characters in a story, and Eleanor is one of those where we understand what she feels. It's a really heartwarming book.

Wild Things is a book about a young woman named El who feels like she is in a rut in life, her job is stagnant, her crush on her best friend-Ray- is stagnant, everything feels monotonous. That is, until her and her friend group decide to house-share in a countryside cottage and shake up the small town.

This book is pitched as a romance, but honestly we don't even get the romance until almost the very end of the book - and to be frank, I really REALLY didn't enjoy the romance. The characters did not feel like they had ANY chemistry for a relationship and I honestly thought she was going to end up with the bartender girl (and wish she had).

While this book does have really great friendship plotlines and an adorable shtick about chickens, it just wasn't for me.

If you enjoy unrequited love, best friends to lovers, and forced proximity and a mid-life crisis with a dash of romance, then this might be the book for you.

Wild things is a queer rom-com loosely about a group of friends that moves to the country together. We center mostly around El, who is in a rut and decides to do a year of "wild things" to awaken her wild spirit! One of the wild things happens to be moving a queer commune of sorts with her best friend Ray that she has always been in love with.

It would be hard to really truly call this a romcom as we don't see any romance until the very very end. You meet a ton of the characters, and I wish each one was more fully flushed out because I was interested in knowing more about them. I also wanted to know more about the town they moved to and all the small town/country shenanigans that the group could get into. Maybe I needed it to be a series!

Wild Things was a simple story, but don't take that as an insult. I loved this sweet narrative, that was uncomplicated in the best way. It had a cover that immediately made think it was another rom-com, but I was surprised at how the focus was really on friendship. I enjoyed the chemistry between all the characters, and found myself smiling while reading. The romance is present, but doesn't seem like a focus. I always enjoy a story about found family, and this fit the bill. It did start off slowly, and I can see folks not wanting to push through. But ultimately it was an enjoyable read.

This was such a fun, cute queen chick lit story. The book was tagged as a rom-com but the romance was more of a subplot than a main story arc. This book was a slow start for me, but I was hooked pretty quickly. I really enjoyed the character development and humor throughout the book. And I loved the whole " leave behind city life and buy a house in the country with your best friend” plot. Overall this was a cute book and I would definitely recommend.

This was such a good read I loved it and was completely hooked from the first page. Definitely recommend

I enjoyed this novel more than I thought I would. The idea of four friends (three queer, one straight) setting up a commune (Lavender House) and becoming engaged with their local community and more rural activities was fun, especially when they succeed in growing their lives as they had hoped. I also fell immediately in love with Jamie and his three chicken children, Edward, Bella, and Jacob.

However, I confess that the main character, El, is not my favorite, mostly due to her one-sided pining for Ray throughout the book. She's perfectly fine character otherwise, with enough personality and traits to feel authentic, but she is bogged down due to her fixation on Ray. Admittedly, this is a romance book. and perhaps that's to be expected. But it just got annoying after a while of her not just straight up confronting her feelings and running away when someone she's not dating kisses someone else.

If you're looking for a feel-good book about a group of friends working pooling their resources to support each other and growing into a nice home, then I think you'll like this book. But if you want a lot of heavy romance and relationship building between a couple, as opposed to a mostly one-sided pining through the bulk of the novel, then I think you'll be disappointed.

I'm so late to review this but what an adorable, sweet little sapphic slice-of-life. It's got everything I ever want from a book: found family who love each other so much, characters who feel real and look ved in with real issues, and messy queer people!

This was my first by Laura Kay and definitely not my last!

Laura Kay could teach a masterclass on the low-key, wholesome, slightly messy queer rom com, as exemplified in her third novel, Wild Things. El is stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally. Still in her dead-end job at a London newspaper, she spends most of the workday making photocopies rather than researching stories, as the job had initially promised. Meanwhile, El’s roommate leaves passive-aggressive notes on the fridge while otherwise disregarding her existence. But worst of all, El harbors a gigantic, unrequited crush on Ray, her best friend of five years and also her coworker.

In an attempt to scoop herself out of said rut, El plots to do one “wild thing” each month for a year. In January, she drinks ten shots of tequila. In February, she gets a butterfly tattoo. In March, El experiments with MDMA. In April, she has a failed threesome. (You get the idea.) But when El, Ray, and their mutual friends Will and Jamie devise a plan to move to a fixer-upper farmhouse in the countryside, El finally begins to feel alive again. The catch: El must regulate her feelings for Ray now that they live (and work) in close proximity 24/7. Will she choose to protect their years-long friendship, or risk it all by spilling her feelings for Ray?

Wild Things is a friends-to-lovers romance, yes, but also a heartwarming exploration of found family. Kay breathes life into the book’s characters, all of whom are flawed and lovable and distinctly themselves. Ray, the effortlessly cool lesbian love interest, is spunky and enters every DIY farmhouse project with infectious enthusiasm. Will is the group’s token straight man, a sensitive soul leaning hard on his friends following a breakup with the woman who was supposed to have escaped to the countryside with him. Jamie is a Thai, biracial gay man who drags his friends to karaoke nights and forges a bond with the commune’s four chickens. It is impossible not to feel the love between this motley crew of friends, who simultaneously lift each other up and call each other out on their bullshit. Even minor characters (El’s queer mentee Rozália, the local townspeople, etc.) feel fully realized and essential to the plot, driving home the notion that family extends far beyond blood relations, that everyone has a place to belong.

Recommended for fans of droll British humor, readers of In at the Deep End and Queenie, and watchers of Fleabag and Feel Good.

Content warnings: absent/distant parents, cheating (not related to main character)

https://lesbrary.com/wild-things-by-laura-kay/

Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me and was a DNF but I am sure other readers will feel differently! Thank you for the ARC!

Wild Things” by Laura Kay is a cute, sweet, fun, queer chick-lit novel. I wouldn't call it a traditional romance or rom-com though there are aspects of both in the novel. Ms. Kay has written a set of quirky, charismatic, fun characters who are great friends and that is what makes a wonderful storyline.

Eleanor (El) has been stuck in a boring, dead end job where she is struggling financially. She has a roommate she isn't fond of, no love life to speak of and a crush on her BFF, Ray. With all of this, type A El has decided she needs a change so she is going to do one "wild" thing a month for a year. One of her wild things includes buying a house with her best friends Ray, Jamie, and Will.

Each of these wild things brings a new challenge for El and while she doesn't finish the wild things she does make some remarkable changes and steps out of her comfort zone.

“Wild Things” has a bit of a slow start but once things picked up I truly enjoyed it and I am a fan of the dryer British humor. I loved the diversity and subplots throughout the novel. I appreciated that each character had their own story, regardless of how small. And now I feel like I must seek out more of Laura Kay's novels.

This might be one of my favorite books this year. I was enthralled from the beginning. I felt like I was reading about the life of my dreams. I have recommended this to everyone, and will continue doing so.

What a lovely story about found family and the power of friendship! So rarely do we read stories with friendship at the center, and while there is romance in this book, the core story is the relationship between this group of friends and how they navigate buying a home together.

Thanks to Vintage and NetGalley for this ARC to read and review.

I was looking forward to this concept - I like books where characters are at a turning point. But this fell a bit flat to me. I feel like the concept of having a "wild year" was abandoned halfway through. The eventual romance felt so one -sided and then when they eventually got together, was a bit rushed.

I think I may have enjoyed the book itself if the focus was four friends moving to the countryside. These parts were my favorite part, but they felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the book.

It was enjoyable enough, but I really just wanted more out of it.

Cute, light read. The pining was annoying and I didn’t really like Ray. I was hoping El would realize she deserved better and ended up with Rachel. Love the idea of four friends from a city moving into the country together in a fixer upper. Jamie and the chickens were the stars of this book. Will seemed so sweet. Honestly. The side characters were better than the main ones.

A type A gal decides to break out of her mold with a year of "wild" moments each month, pushing her outside of her comfort zone. This leads to her and her friends moving out of London into a house they buy in the English countryside and all the silliness that comes with DIYing with your best friends. Quirky, charming, whimsical and cute. There's LGBTQ rep, a sapphic romance, and the FMC learning to find joy in her life. I wasn't super into the romance because the FMC was very obsessed with her best friend/love interest and I just didn't find her enticing in any way. It also felt like she was hiding her genuine self but the story panned out in a way that fixed this. I loved the side characters, the sibling relationship and the overall message of finding what brings you happiness.

El has been in love with her best friend Ray for years, so when the opportunity arises for them to buy a house with their two other best friends, it feels like the start of something big.

A fun queer rom-com.

This was an easy read! It seemed like a lot happened, but then also not much happened. The romance was a sloooow burn. The found family part is always my favorite, so I feel like the book didn't need any romance. I too have a dream moving to the countryside with my friends.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC

“Wild Things” is a fun, funny, and lovingly written Queer romcom. The characters and there relationships shine
and I appreciate Kay's style. The distinctly British flavour provides just the right amount of flavour without overwhelming the story or characters and before I knew it I was invested. I will definitely be checking out the rest of Laura Kay's books for fun summer reads!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for providing me with an eARC of Wild Things in exchange for my honest review!

While I didn't find Wild Things to be particularly remarkable, that doesn't take away from the fun I had gliding through its lightheartedly queer tale. It's very much the sort of book that's low on plot and high on breezy vibes, which is all right, considering how likable the ensemble of characters is here. I'll admit, though, that this did grip me a little more when it entered the third act and amped up the stakes. And as someone who can be iffy towards the friends-to-lovers trope, I found it to be charmingly executed here (but perhaps I'm being more lenient toward the trope as someone who's currently in a real-life friends-to-lovers relationship).

All in all, I'm officially rating Wild Things 3.25 out of 5 stars. I'm happy I checked it out, and I'll keep an eye out for more of Laura Kay's work in the future.