Throw me into a cold plunge pool to cool me off after this great read! Text Appeal was such a unique, delightful and overall endearingly enjoyable read.

After Lark loses her job, she turns to sexting in order to pay her bills! It gets off to a rocky start but she quickly falls into a grove that makes her enjoy the job… or is she enjoying it because she is getting close to someone who may not be such a stranger?

With the witty text banter and sex positive spin, this friends to lovers romance is a must read this year!

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

With themes like women in stem, sex positivity, friends to lovers and a messy friendship, I expected it to be a knock out for me. Unfortunately it felt like this book was trying to do two different things - which made both feel incomplete. It felt torn between being women's fiction/focusing on Lark's self exploration and the romance it is marketed as. This made the romance fall flat for me. I think with some tweaking, it could have been better marketed as women's fiction and a stronger read. Or a lot more time should have been spent on the chemistry between Lark and Toby.

Overall, a quick read with some important topics.

Text Appeal
Thank you to Netgalley, Alcove Press, and Amber Roberts for an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I was drawn to this book because it honestly screamed sugar and spice with a whole lot of fun. But the book didn’t really deliver. I’ve been loving STEM characters and I never shy away from spice. The issue was that the development was lacking. I never really connected or cared for the characters so as a result, the relationships were also just meh overall. For me personally, spice cannot save a book that lacks development and overall plot.

I will still try another Amber Roberts book in the future because I don’t think you can fairly judge anything off of one book but this just wasn’t the book for me.

I'd like to thank Netgalley and Alcove Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It's a great story line but I just didn't love Lark or Teagan. I love STEM books so I had high hopes for this. It wasn't terrible but when you aren't connected to the main characters it makes it hard to care about them. That being said it is a cute romance and I liked the love triangle between Lark, her best friend Toby, and the person on the sexting app she works at. It is a romcom but can be a little spicy.

What this book was missing throughout is heart: none of the characters felt real, the romance was flat and unbelievable, and the exploration of sexism in the tech field as well as the sex industry could have been liberating but instead was even more cringey. What we have is inert and uncomfortable story about a boring woman and her block-of-wood romance interest. Sadly, watching paint dry was infinitely more sexy than this read.

Story: Lark is underappreciated by the bro-culture at her high tech place of business and at the same time has just ended a relationship with a cheating boyfriend. When her good-meaning friend causes a situation at work, she is summarily let go and must find another means to make ends meat. Cue helpful friend who tells her about sexting aps - and she wouldn't even need to send strange men her used underwear like her friend does! It's there that she finds a really cool guy who just wants to talk to her about her interests and is happy to pay hundreds of dollars for it. Meanwhile, while she falls for this guy online she finds herself reconsidering her relationship with bestie from college Toby - why they never got together and has that opportunity really passed?

There are three themes here: sexism in the workplace, the sex industry, and the Toby romance. None really worked for me. The bro culture at her work was fairly believable but at the same time the men were painted as being so incredibly dense and stupid that it felt unrealistic and a plot device. The sex industry aspects felt like a let down since we never really saw the truly dark side of it other than some rude men objectifying women a few times. The romance was DOA - Toby was a milquetoast and at no time was there a reason why those two were attracted to each other or should even be together. We're just told that they are attracted but never really see it.

We should have felt good about Lark exploring her sexuality and being liberated through it but instead nearly every situation in the sexting showed how poorly women are treated there as well. Let's face it, there's no liberation in being objectified either in an office or in a sexting app. Situations that were meant to be amusing or comedic were uncomfortable in many ways - none of them good. I had a hard time with the book because there were too many mixed messages with too little clarity, coupled with a lot of bafflingly unpleasant or uninteresting situations.

The book just wasn't fun. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't amusing. I never got into any of the characters and the side characters were especially annoying and disenfranchising. Lark's overreaction at the big reveal at the end further ensured I had no sympathy or liking for her nor want her to actually end up with Toby. The sexting aspects were as cringe worthy as the romance. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy of text appeal. This was a cute little romance and a bit controversial. Who's the girl going to pick, her long time crush and best friend or mystery man online.

I wanted to love this book with a female tech developer taking center stage, but it just didn’t work for me. The sex positivity is wonderful and Toby is such a sweetheart. The discrimination in STEM felt very authentic (coming from a woman in STEM) and I was happy to see Lark taking a stand against it. However, I didn’t really like Lark or her supposedly best friend Teagan. They both her pretty toxic characters, from treating their other friends like nobodies and judging them, and treating each other poorly. The plot was good, but the female characters needed to be written better. 3⭐️, 3🌶

Thank You, Alcove Press and NetGalley, for this arc for an honest review!

Text appeal is about Lark (fmc), who isn't happy with her job. She is qualified but works in tech with all these men that think that she's below them because she's a woman. She ends up losing her job because of a picture and turns to 'sexting' to make money at the suggestion of her best friend Teagan. Her other best friend, Toby (mmc), just broke up with his girlfriend, who didn't allow Lark and Toby to be friends when they were together.

This book had some ups and a lot of downs. It started out okay but became very tedious to read after the 30 percent mark. My main issue has that I didn't feel like the characters had much chemistry, and at times I didn't know why they liked each other. The will they won't they tension was grating, and the third act breakup after a long slow burn didn't help.

Overall I didn’t like it as much but if you like best friends to lovers, women in tech, romcoms, 'will they won't they' tension, then this may just be for you!

This one was a fun read on a totally bizarre way. Buttoned up prude friend loses job and uses friends to successfully build online sexting site didn't seem like it'd be my jam but it was funny. By the end I was cheering her on but the growth to get there was necessary.

#arc
#netgalley
#textAppeal

Very light and adorable it was definitely worth the read. Had a very cute romance and connection and loved every second of it.

2 ⭐️


I’m always going to love women in STEM rep but this one wasn’t for me. There was absolutely no chemistry between the two leads and I couldn’t get myself to care about Lark.

This book wasn’t for me but if you like a dirty rom-com centered around sexting you might like it. I am trying to keep this review PG-13 but there was nothing PG-13 about this book. The plot didn’t seem to flow well to me and was somewhat chunky and seemed solely focused on mentioning sex as much as possible.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

This is a debut novel, and as such there were good and not-so-good parts to it.
Things I liked: the friendship between Lark and Toby (once it got going), the sex positivity which was part of the story without being hammered home, Lark’s narrative voice which was honest and wryly funny.
Things I wasn’t so sure about: the pacing and balance of the story. It felt like there was too much early emphasis on the woman-in-STEM thing, which also came across as a little clunky. The whole Lark and Toby friendship was slow to get going and the story flowed much better when they were both on the page. And then there was Teagan, who I found very annoying and maybe she’s supposed to be, but she took up far too much of the story and actively put me off whenever she appeared. Just a matter of getting the balance right, and in this case it didn’t quite work for me.

This book was just meh…Is it spicy? Yes. But not in a good way. It was too much in your face of the sexting and not enough of the character to character romance. Not the worst book I ever read, but definitely not one I’ll be recommending to anyone.

This is a very lighthearted fun read overall. I did enjoy it there were some parts that dragged. I do love the women in stem representation I love that it was very sex positive.

Text Appeal by Amber Roberts is a fun and spicy friends to lovers rom-com full of sexting and secrets.

A sex-positive novel with women in STEM representation.

Lark is working in tech, and as many women in STEM, she’s underappreciated, passed up for promotions and barely listened to during meetings. Toby’s just broke up with his girlfriend, who made him abandon his friendship with Lark. Now that they’re trying to get their friendship back to what it used to be, old feelings and curiosity are coming back up. When an incident at work gets Lark fired, Teagan suggest that Lark could get into sex work -and most specifically, into an app where people can sext for money.

I feel like this would’ve been better categorized as women’s fiction rather than a romance. What this book did well was the overall sex-positive message and the Women in STEM representation in our protagonist Lark. This was a very interesting premise and I have to say the cute cover really drew me in. I do recommend it if you are looking for a lighthearted and funny read.

This book starts off really strong but by about halfway through it just felt very lacking and it dragged on.

The premise of this book sounded amazing. It was very sex positive, strong female and male characters. And it had great representation and the female main character was a woman in STEM. I was here for all of that.

Lark starts off very meek and mild but when she's forced for financial reasons to start s*xting people professionally seems to become very empowered very quickly.

Toby is kind of lacking as a character for me. But I did enjoy seeing his friendship with Lark and how he's really trying to grow that friendship to what it used to be.

There are certain aspects of this book that were not great. Some of the friendships I don't think needed to be repaired at the end of the book because they were just not healthy.

All in all I would say this was an average read because it definitely had some great moments in it but it also didn't hit the mark for me completely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This had such potential but with unlikable characters, and a lot of slow areas with absolutely nothing going on, the story fell flat. It wasn't your usual likeable romcom and the immaturity was unnerving.

I really wanted to love this one, it had all the qualities I look for in a romcom, but it just didn't hit my expectations.