TEXT APPEAL is such a charming, funny, sex-positive read! Lark works in programming and suffers from the sexist culture of tech bros who constantly harass and belittle their female coworkers. Ironically, she’s fired for harassment when someone sends unsolicited dick pics to her phone during a presentation. To make ends meet, she takes up sexting for money, which leads her to meet a seemingly nice stranger who just wants to talk right around the time that her in-real-life long time crush, Toby, also starts to show interest.

She starts dating him while also figuring out how to make a career for herself doing development on her own terms, and begins to fall for both her online and her irl bae. Lark is a wonderful, imperfect character finding her stride professionally in an industry that is not as supportive as it should be, and I love that this has both a romantic story line and a dealing with a friendship storyline with her best friend, Teagan.

Thank you to Alcove Press and Amber Roberts for sharing this absolutely delightful eARC!

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It promised some tropes I like, including friends to lovers and a two-person love triangle, but there were things about the book that made me uncomfortable from the get go.

In no particular order (and I don't think these are spoilers): the casual sexism of Lark's work; the sexual harassment she endures at work, in bars, and online; her chaotic best friend who gets her into all sorts of trouble; the fact that said friend pushes Lark into sex work despite Lark's misgivings... and a few more, which are spoilers. I could deal with a couple of these things, which are important topics and part of life. But they all piled on to make the first half of the book kind of tough for me to read. I'm all for sex-positivity, but Lark was basically forced to be a sex worker and DIDN'T LIKE IT. That's the opposite of empowering, to me.

Plus, the romance between Lark and Toby was underwhelming. They needed more time on screen together and for me, to make a two-person love triangle work, there needs to be a serious emotional investment into "both" people. Instead, the romance often felt like a side plot to the main sexting plot.

Though the resolution felt rushed, I did end up liking Lark's character arc; she finds a niche for herself that was pretty satisfying. Overall, Text Appeal was an "okay" book for me, once I got to the 50% mark. I think others might find this book fun and funnier than I did. I think I would have liked it a lot more if Lark unabashedly LOVED sexting instead of being uncomfortable for most of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a quick read at under 300 pages but not fast in pace.

Parts of it felt very repetitive, the characters we likeable but also very not? There was lots of miscommunication. One great thing was how sex positive the book was & I enjoyed the ending!

Thanks to NetGalley & Alcove Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review

OMG THIS WAS ARGHGHHH. This book was so fun and light-hearted, with engaging dialogue and characters. I absolutely enjoyed reading this book!
4/5 Stars

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC

This book fell completely flat for me. Lark had 0 self confidence and it was cringy to watch her seek approval from everyone. Also for a romance novel there was no romance - I expected spice because of the cover but I was left sourly dissapointed.

I really wanted to like this book but sadly that did not happen. All of the characters were not likeable. Her best friend was horrible and the main character could not make her own decisions to save her life. I didnt really feel any chemistry between her and Toby. I was told they were friends for a long time but she didnt even know basic information aboit his family. I liked the LGBTQ+ elements.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy to review.

This book was such a delightful and fun read. I sat down with it before bed and next thing I knew, it was 1 AM and I read the whole book. The banter was fabulous.

A wonderful debut full of sex positivity, art, and female empowerment in tech and the bedroom. Queer and friends to lovers. Loved this one!

There was so much promise to this book and I was left a little lacking. The concept was interesting. The texting and pushing of boundaries and comfort zones was very interesting, but the story dragged on. It seemed so obvious to me that the person she was texting and her best friend were the same person, but it took soooo long to get there. And her anger about it was. a little extreme. I could understand being frustrated, but completely shutting people out and reverting to bad habits was not my favourite thing.
All in all, the writing style was great. Author has a great way of sucking you in to the book, but the story itself could use a little more.

So this book had a lot of potential but turned out to be a bust for me. There was so much time spent on all the sexting Lark was doing for her new job and not a lot of time spent on showing or developing any relationship between Toby and Lark. This pair had no chemistry and I didn’t like either of them, especially as two people so completely unable to think for themselves. Teagan was also a completely terrible friend and person. She betrayed Lark so completely by revealing or giving away various pieces of private information about Lark to strangers and to Toby, which led to sexual harassment and also manipulation.

All in all, I didn’t get anything from the romance (and honestly don’t think Toby should have been forgiven at the end) and there were a lot of toxic characters in this book and not a whole lot of character/relationship development.

I received a free copy of this book. All views are my own.

Book : Text Appeal
Author : Amber Roberts
Pub Date : 08 Aug 2023

Thank you NetGalley, Alcove Press & the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I love the cover of it book!! It’s bright and fresh!!! This story is such a cute friends to lovers trope and I loved it!

The story was a little too slow of pace for me but I still really enjoyed it! Lark is such a fun character, I adored her. The build of Lark and Toby’s relationship is fun to follow along.

The spice in the books was the best little sprinkle. Sometimes my spicy meter needs just a fun little romance with a dusting. 🤌🏻

If you’re looking for a cute romcom for summer, absolutely pick this up.

The cover and premise of Text Appeal had me so hyped to read this, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me and I ended up DNFing around 20%

2.5 stars
I feel like many of the people getting paid to write blurbs these days are almost doing more harm than good. This constant need to claim “for fans of”, when the reality is that the book in question bears little comparison, is a problem. It does a disservice to the books (and their authors) and usually backfires with readers who go in expecting one thing and get something that would have been fine if marketed on its own but doesn’t match expectations because it’s not like that thing to which it was compared.
That being said, this one missed the mark for me. All of the texts & chats in the white boxes were visually difficult. The dynamics between many of the characters largely felt either contrived or forced. I didn’t really connect to the humor or romance aspects either. This might be right up GenZ’s alley though!
*Thanks to Alcove Press and NetGalley for this advance reader’s copy

Ok, not gonna lie I was pretty disappointed with this one. The premise is SO FUN. A woman in STEM (she's a programmer) deals with sexism non-stop at work, in her personal life her phone number is being passed around and she's being harassed by random men sending unsolicited pictures and come-ons, and then after a super embarrassing mishap she is unfairly fired. Her best friend convinced her to start on a s*xt-ing app to earn some income, and she ends up talking to one guy day after day, and then begin forming a sort of relationship/friendship. At the same time she's growing closer to her other best friend, Aka the guy she's been in love with for the past decade, who is finally single at the same time as her... What could go wrong?

For starters, this was basically a closed door romance. Which is of course totally fine! Just kind of weird for the premise and being pitched as steamy and flirty? Then there's the fact that her and the guy friend had like ZERO chemistry. And as they spent more and more together they kept being surprised by details about each other that they should know by now? For example after to years of friendship she didn't know that he knew how to sail because he grew up sailing his entire childhood? You've been "best friends" for two years and don't know that? And omg, her best friend don't get me started. Her best friend is a little extra, and she makes her living as a sex coach/selling sex toys, and is painted as super promiscuous and sexual in a bad way, and then they LITERALLY paint her to be a villain when she meddles? And sure, it wasn't great what she did but to make her the villain? And there's this whole heartfelt confession about her being not only being lesbian, but also ARO and that's why she doesn't settle down, and that the MC always defends her being lesbian but is the first to judge her for not ever going beyond a first date, with the friend ending in tears over the fact that our MC STILL isn't showing respect for that, and she never even apologizes? It's supposed to be good queer rep, and the bi/lesbian rep is good but the disrespect shown to her ARO best friend left a bad taste in my mouth.

And the whole big reveal and reasoning behind it was so awful, which baffles me because in the middle of it all there was the PERFECT scenario the author could have done instead? Basically the MC was just really bad to root for because she's extremely judge mental of other people and all of her friends' sex positive attitudes but then inserts herself into that world without ever acknowledging that her past views on it were harmful. It's almost like the author started to make the MC on the ace spectrum but the way she did it was like sex positive while also looking down on being sexual? Kind of putting ACE against ARO almost and I just really didn't like it.

And then there's all the just plot and writing stuff in general that I didn't love. Just needs a lot more editing and maybe some ARO and ACE sensitivity readers? Overall, a premise that should have been great but flopped instead.

Lark, the only woman programmer in her company, is thrilled when she is chosen to lead a big project. That is, until an unsolicited steamy picture is accidentally projected to the group during her presentation leading to her being fired.

When her best friend suggests she sext for money until she gets another job, Lark is hesitant, but desperate enough to go for it. After a rough start, she gets the hang of it, especially once she connects with one particular client, which is a potential problem for her. She's has a long standing crush on one of her best friends Toby, and she doesn't want to tell him what she's doing for money. As they grow closer and move from friends to more than friends, Lark has to figure out what to tell Toby as well as the client on the other end of the sexting app she also has developed feelings for.

It's smart, it's funny, steamy and extremely sex positive. Lark and Toby are adorable with great chemistry. And I love a good friends to lovers romance. I mean, what more could you ask for?

TEXT APPEAL comes out August 8th, so make sure to get Amber's book!! And thanks to Netgalley and Alcove Press for my arc!

Sadly, I was unable to read this book because the text message were too small.

I'm sure this layout is going to be great in the physical books but it just doesn't work in the ebook

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Text Appeal is a fun RomCom centered around Lark, a self conscious, insecure coder turned sex worker, navigating love in Burlington VT.

This was a quick read that had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Even though I found the story very predictable, (I had the ending pegged by the halfway mark) I still enjoyed the process getting there.

Throw this in your beach bag if your looking for a feel good book, that explores sex positivity, friendship, and love.

Thank you NetGalley and Alcove Press for this free advanced copy of Text Appeal. All opinions are of my own.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I was disappointed with this one! The cover is adorable and the premise sounded great. I enjoyed the representation of women in tech/STEAM positions and that was great to see and the use of text messages was fun but the story itself and the characters missed the mark for me.

You are supposed to root for your main characters to get together but I couldn’t do that as there was barely any chemistry on the page. It was hard to get into it.

Unfortunately, not for me!

𝕋𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝔸𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕝

➖ friends to lovers
➖women in STEM
➖slow burn
➖sex positive message

Pros:
This was the first book I’ve read that relied heavily on ‘texts’ as part of the writing and I actually really enjoyed it! The texts were clever and spaced out enough that I didn’t feel overwhelmed by them.

Cons:
This book had all the pieces needed for an entertaining and edgy romance book but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me😣 I didn’t really find the characters relatable or likeable and the romance wasn’t there for me. There was no spark or chemistry between Lark and Toby which made their relationship fall flat for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review. This book releases on August 8th.

I mean, the cover is cute?

All apologies to this author (because I think she had a fun idea here), but this book was just a miss for me. While there are some good aspects (fabulous LGBTQ+ representation, accurate depictions of the struggle women face in STEM careers, sex-positivity), they only just balance out the problems.

There were two things I really took issue with:
1) we are meant to be rooting for Lark and Toby, and want them to get together, but they have ABSOLUTELY NO CHEMISTRY on the page. All we see is Lark's unrequited feelings for Toby, with nothing indicative of interest from him at all. Yes, they have chemistry through text, but that does not translate over to face-to-face ever. I had a really hard time getting invested in them as a couple because it just didn't seem like they should be one.
2) Teagan. I wanted to throw the book across the room every time this character appeared in a scene. She's obnoxious and juvenile, and completely rude. Frankly, it made me question Lark's judgment that she not only was friends with Teagan, but also took her advice.

Overall, this one just wasn't for me.