This is one of those "I don't want to be mean, but I need to be honest" reviews.

This was not my favorite read. While the premise held promise, the follow-through was not what I expected. I wanted to like the main characters, but they were flawed in ways that were difficult for me to reconcile with the story and what I wanted to happen.

I read this before its predecessor "For Butter or For Worse," which is fine as it could stand alone, but would have been easier to handle if I'd had some of the background.

Three stars overall. It was just okay for me.

DNF'd. This just wasn't for me - I think I just felt too old for this? It read for more of a young 20s or even younger. I really struggled with the character's actions feeling unrealistic, and the writing/plot just felt messy. The character's and their relations confused me - is everyone from a famous family? Also who knew each other before the start of the book? Overall, just not for me.

The characters are well-rounded and fascinating, and their very differences are what makes their connection so magical and touching at times. I absolutely enjoyed reading this book.

A cute love story full of family, friends, drama, and spicy scenes. Fans of the tropes like best friend's brother, mutual pining, and grumpy meets sunshine will love this book.

Sophie Lyon is struggling through writer’s block when a Tiktok of her drunk night out goes viral. Her landlord and best friend’s brother, Dash Montrose, offers to help with her new found online fame in exchange for some writing help. As they grow closer, they have to face their fears in order to make their new found love work.

I love a cute love story, and I found Dash and Sophie’s dynamic fun and flirty. It did mostly center on sexual attraction, but the romance was sweet too. On one hand, Dash’s family and his journey through sobriety added complexity in all the right ways. On the other hand, Sophie’s Tiktok interviews with all her ex partners did not work for me. The never-being-in-love angle felt more childish than endearing. It especially felt awkward seeing her fumble with each interview, and it gave the impression that Sophie was the problem. Thankfully, the family and friend’s of the couple really add to the story and make up for the social media narrative.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this ARC.

this was one of the classic easy, predictable romance reads. I struggled with how much pop culture was referenced, especially tiktok. I understand that it was central to the plot of the story, but it felt that the plot relied too heavily on the social media aspects instead of the actual love story between our main characters.

because of the lack of focus on the relationship, I felt disconnected from the characters. you never grew to understand their motivations and their personalities - leaving you to not feel as invested in them finding love.

Leave it up to this author to create yet another success, this is book 2 of the series and can be read as a standalone, we get Sophies story, who is an author on a deadline, but when her video goes viral after ranting about never being in love, her landlord Dash helps her out with suggesting she go on social and talk about it and maybe reconnect with them as to why she never fell in love. I was rooting for them from beginning to end. Dash is a childhood movie star, doesn’t care for it anymore, living the low key life, crafting and creating on the low low, a ton of family drama, I loved it all. The scenes were a right amount of steamy, these two together are EVERYTHING!!!!! Thank you netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

"Plot Twist" was a wonderful read with very believable characters who grapple with real-life issues. These characters may not be perfect, but that's precisely what makes them relatable. Throughout the story, you find yourself rooting for them, hoping they navigate their challenges and find happiness. I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this read. The author's ability to capture the essence of human imperfections and resilience is commendable, and it kept me engaged from start to finish. "Plot Twist" is a heartwarming tale that reminds us that life's imperfections can lead to the most beautiful surprises. Highly recommended!

3.5 ⭐️
This was a sweet, sexy and heartwarming romance! I loved seeing the friendships and bonds created, one thing I felt was missing though was self love. Working on themselves. I feel these people heavily relied on others to be happy or heal, maybe I took it wrong, but that’s my opinion. I wish we got to see them heal from their traumas and really feel the connection grow both on a personal level and the connections they have with other!
I did like this book, it was a very easy read! Was easy to fall into the world and just lose yourself in it! I think she portrayed the alcoholism and dysfunctional family aspects very well!

This is a super sweet, unpredictable, and a not easy put down romance with a plot that had several twists and turns and including some very steamy scenes! It’s been a fantastic read! Five stars from me!

TO THE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER:
I’m assuming it’s due to the eARC, but I want to be sure to let you know that it didn’t have chapter breaks on my kindle version. It only read “beginning,” “cover,” “start,” and “end.” So at the table of contents it was impossible to go back to other chapters, etc. It also made reading it more difficult because I couldn’t tell how much was left within a chapter and I constantly found myself stopping in the middle only to realize I only had 2 pages left. I hope this makes sense? If not feel free to reach out to me to explain more!

✨RATING: 5⭐️

✨REVIEW: Thank you NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
Romance author, Sophie, has writers block to finish her most recent romance and goes viral on TikTok after a drunken outburst that love isn’t real and she has never been in love. To try to salvage it, she goes back to all her exes to see what may have caused their breakup and if it can help her writing.
This was probably the easiest, fastest romance I think I’ve ever read! If it weren’t for kids, I would have easily read it in one sitting! I loved all the tropes and reading ABOUT those tropes from an authors POV. This one also discussed some heavy topics with alcoholism, recovery/relapse, meetings, and all the emotions with telling family and friends. Not being in that situation, I felt as though it did a great job to make me understand the hardships without being overwhelming. However, I put that in here because if this is a sensitive topic for you, I urge you to proceed with caution. Overall, I felt connected with the characters and easy to follow the story and kept cheering for them the whole way. I highly recommend this one!

✨PROS: single bed trope, best friends brother trope, celebrity family drama, changing up the smut scenery 😝

🚨WARNING: Potential triggers include smut (duh), alcoholism, recovery/relapse, family abuse/drama

(4.5 out of 5 stars)
This was SO cute!! I loved the storyline and I also loved that I didn’t find it too slow in the beginning while it was setting everything up.

I thought this was a phenomenally accurate portrayal of romance and dating today, and maybe what some of us have felt after a breakup. It was cute, it was funny, it was raw, and it was real!

Aside from the romance, I loved the journey both our FMC and our MMC went on, both together and separately. She’s trying to figure out why she can’t say those three little words and why her past relationships failed, and he’s a recovering addict trying to break the cycle and make a better life for himself.

I really really enjoyed this rom-com and would absolutely recommend to anyone who loves:
Best friend’s brother, slow burn, LGBTQIA+ rep, forbidden romance, tattooed MMC, and spice!

Book Review
Plot Twist by Erin La Rosa

Tropes
Best friends brother
Recovering alcoholic
Disability rep
Influencer/Booktok
Hollywood
Never been in love

Thoughts
📚I Loved all the references to bookstagrammers, current authors, book marketing etc
📚I found the storyline predictable- the whole checking in with your exes for personal growth and then posting - I have read it a lot lately…
📚 A romance author whos never been in love, an author facing a writers block with a timeline to publish- also an overdone trope 🙄

📚Overall a solid read that just fell flat for me


Thanks to @netgalley and @harlequin
For my digital ARC in return for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own.

Spice: 2.5🌶️
Rating: 3.5 ⭐️

This book was cute, but not groundbreaking. The romance writer who has never been in love trope seems to be a hit right now, and they are all too much the same. Did anyone else notice too that Sophie would tell her friends she loved them? That is also love to me - I know it's not the same as being in love, but the whole premise of the book was that she'd never told anyone ever those three words but she did a few times....

The writing was good, and unlike a few books recently the characters were indeed mature enough for their age. They fit the ambiguous 30s age range and didn't act like teenagers which was nice.

Albeit predictable, this was a good book! I will certainly keep the author in my back pocket for another new release!

2.75 stars

This book started out strong and I was excited to see where the relationship between Sophie and Dash. While it wasn’t the best first meeting on Sophie’s part, they had chemistry. And that chemistry was definitely there in the sexier scenes, which were also good. But beyond that I didn’t get into their relationship. I feel like there were more scenes of them apart than together, yet I was expected to believe they were falling in love. As a romance book, I wanted more of Sophie and Dash together. I wanted to be see them fall in love together. But instead it was just several pages of their thoughts of the other before there was another scene of them actually together. If they spent more time and scenes together I probably would’ve enjoyed it more.
I also would’ve rated 3 stars, but there was a scene at the end that was too cringey for me and I just could not look last that lowered it to 2.75.

Overall, this isn’t a romance I liked, but give it a shot if you want more individual than couple scenes.

Read if you like…
•best friend’s brother
•celebrity life
•dual pov
•🌶️🌶️

I am a sucker for former teen heartthrob characters, and jumped right into this book. It was a hard read, and the writing kind of was all over the place and didn't make me fall in love with the characters as much as I wanted to for Sophie and Dash. I had high hopes and it just fell flat or forced in many ways.

Unfortunately, this title was not for me. It was very tropey and all of the TikTok talk turned me off. I am a big fan of tiktok, but I felt like every other thing mentioned was tiktok…much like my review now. I wanted to love this book. The cover was super cute, and the synopsis really drew me to want to read it, but after a few chapters the MFC really just began to annoy me and I couldn't get over my annoyance.

This book was, if a little simple, pretty cute! I love a novel with a writer as a main character, and I also love pop culture references/stories set in the entertainment world, and the combination of the two here worked well I thought. I really liked how Sophie's personal journey flowed with the development of her romance with Dash. I also appreciated Dash's storyline, the portrayal of addiction felt real, if a little too simple at times.

PLOT TWIST, a sweet and steamy, contemporary romcom, is utterly satisfying in all of the best ways. I laughed at the sparkling banter, got teary over the rocky bits, and cheered on Sophie and Dash from the get-go.

This had some of my favorite tropes:
Opposites attract
Hurt comfort
But there’s only one bed
Grand romantic gesture
BFF’s sibling

Erin La Rosa also dealt with mental and emotional health issues in a real and sensitive way. Her handling of Dash’s family dynamics felt very real.

Shoutout for writing a pansexual FMC!

I recently read another book with a similar plot, Amy Lea's delightful Ex's and O's, so I thought I might enjoy Plot Twist. Unfortunately, the writing is clunky and the author does a lot of telling rather than showing.
The blurb didn't prepare me for the ways alcohol and alcoholism would be featured in the story, either. In the opening scene, the sober MMC has to take care of the FMC who is wildly hung over. There's a viral video documenting her meltdown and everything. I grew up with an alcoholic parent and the portrayal here is harmful. People don't just decide to get sober for someone else. They have to do it for themselves. Our MMC has been sober for a while when the book starts, but the FMC apparently has no idea what that means. Being in a situation where a drunk person vomits on them... This was just not the book for me.
Overall, Plot Twist gave me some pretty strong Bridget Jones's Diary vibes, so if that's a book you like you might dig this. I recommend checking out the sample first, though. See if the writing style works for you.

TW alcoholism, on page relapse

PLOT TWIST follows Sophie, a pansexual romance author who has never been in love, falling for her landlord, former teen heartthrob Dash Montrose, who also happens to be her best friends brother. After a TikTok of her drunk and crying admitting to never being in love goes viral, Dash encourages her to make a response video and Sophie shares her journey of meeting up with all of her exes to see where it all went wrong. Meanwhile, Dash is struggling with alcoholism and his very dysfunction, very famous family. He has a secret TikTok account where he shares his love of crafts without showing his face.

Sophie and Dash have a very sweet connection that I think Dash especially needed. He’s very closed off from his family and hides parts of himself from everyone that knows him. I appreciated that his struggle with alcoholism wasn’t a pretty one. I felt that it shows there is hope even in recovery. Despite the heavy topic of addiction, this book has the sweet and funny moments that I was looking for.

3.5 stars, PLOT TWIST by Erin La Rosa is available November 14! Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing and Netgalley for the eARC.