Enjoyed this book. Nice quick read. Introduced to Jonathan in Husband Material so nice to see more of him. On the whole Jonathan is quite an unlikable character, very grumpy and very unhappy. Sam was quite personable and a bit of a fly boy with his banter, they form an unlikely romance. Their relationship growth to romance was pretty slow, filed with lots of family drama. The book setting was around Christmas time, I usually find this off putting mid way through the year but I was able to overlook it and it will work well for the publishing date. Liked the banter and humour, as a Brit loving overseas I miss the language. Didn’t love the main characters of Jonathan and Sam as a whole, I liked Jonathan’s family. Gollum the cat was my favourite part of the book.

I couldn’t wait to read Sam and Jonathan’s story. I was hooked from the beginning I adored the Boss/employee, Enemies to Lovers aspects and the fake amnesia storyline. The fact that Sam is from Liverpool was another major benefit. However, it did fall a little flat in the middle. I didn’t necessarily think that the storyline was pushed forward and although Nana Pauline was a sassy character I didn’t see the relevance of her being introduced three quarters of the way through for her then to not contribute much. I would have preferred more snippets of Sam and Jonathan.

Surprisingly even though it was told from the perspective of Sam, I understood Jonathan, who was rather complex and broody, more than Sam. The opportunity was missed to delve into his grief over losing his parents, why he gave up the family business and his reasons behind moving the Sheffield. As someone who lives ten minutes away from Liverpool, I know the value of family to the Liverpudlian community, and I was disappointed that it was brushed over.

That being said, I really did enjoy the story and the characters were a real strength-Jonathan’s chaotic family and the many characters within the Sheffield branch of Splashes & Snuggles.

Read if you enjoy:
•Opposites Attract
•Forced Proximity
•Slow Burn
•Grumpy/ Sunshine
•Boss/ Employee

This is a tricky one to review because everything about it is... fine. It's quite funny, and quite sweet, and quite clever. But what Alexis Hall truly excels at is mental health representation, and that is markedly lacking in this book. That made this novel feel shallow and a bit lifeless compared with some of his others (Boyfriend Material, for example).

Read it if you're after a rom-com full of external complications, but if you prefer your complications more internal, then you might want to give this one a miss.

I absolutely loved this book! Jonathan and Sam make such a good pair and the banter between them was amazing. Their relationship goes from enemies to friends to lovers and I loved every single part of it

10 things that will make you want to strangle the MLs. Jokes aside I almost DNFd because I disliked the male leads so much in that first few chapters, but I'm SO grateful I didn't. The growth of the characters and the world building and just the amount of dry humor made this easily one of my top favorite reads of 2023.

I loved the conflicts that faced the characters and that they wove together and didn't feel forced. I can not get over the cat, the family dynamics and how much I could relate to certain moments throughout the book.

I also really enjoyed the LGBT+ rep that didn't feel like it was about their pain being in the community and coming out, or that it was a conflict they had to face in the plot.

Pick this up.. do it.

I'm really sorry about this but this is a DNF for me and I didn't even get that far into it. Fake dating and marriage-for-convenience tropes taunt my I'm-gonna-pass button but somehow the fake amnesia (which shouldn't have been a surprise and yet somehow was) was just too much for me. I am totally that person yelling at every screen, page, the universe when there is a situation that could be fixed with a conversation. And I get that the point is that the one character doesn't want to listen and the protagonist is faking because he's trying to protect people but it was just too much. This is possibly the longest NetGalley review I've ever written because I have LOVED Alexis Hall's books and was excited for this one and now I'm sad.

Full disclosure: I loved Boyfriend Material and couldn't wait to read this book. And it didn't disappoint me at all.

But I'm not too keen on remembering summaries after I've added a book to my TBR, so I didn't remember any of the tropes the book was going to explore of even the names of the main couple. This made read the beginning very curiously because the tropes? One of them is faked amnesia when Sam is getting fired and a shower they sell where he works hits his head. His boss Jonathan doesn't realize Sam is just joking and jumps to the conclusion the damage was so much, Sam doesn't remember who Jonathan is or why the accident happened. That's why Jonathan decides to take Sam home and make sure to take care of him for the couple of weeks someone needs to make sure the concussion won't evolve to something scarier.

3.5, rounded up to 4.

I had no idea his pairing was Jonathan until this happened. And I was probably just like Sam, asking, "For real??" that Jonathan would care for him. Alexis Hall was a genius showing us how terrible of a human being Jonathan was, so I confess I was excited to see how that would be deconstructed to become a romance.

Their interactions were so funny, and then add to that Jonathan's loud family, and Sam's weird cat who immediately trades him for Jonathan, and you have a book that will give a great time. I'm not even sure in what moment we stop seeing Jonathan as a cold-heart monster and start cheering for them, but it was interesting that we grow to realize Sam also has his faults and issues he needs to work on.

As for problems with the book, there wasn't anything too much. Maybe I didn't close it entirely convinced Jonathan got that much better after meeting Sam, or if him being so rich and with such a nice family was what weighed more there (weighed in my opinion, Sam sure convinces us he likes him). A lot of the dialogs, and I love funny dialogs, were just there to be funny, which led the book to be unnecessarily long. It's a light read, of course, but sometimes I'd wonder why this or that didn't get the axe during revision, did they really have to make jokes every page? The dynamic grew repetitive, as in "Okay, I get it, they like being funny with each other." But the book kept showing me again and again. Sometimes we just want to know what will happen next, as much as we love the characters. Because that took so many pages, the serious part of the plot also seemed short in comparison. Why would you have so much depth planned for your character and not give it the highlight it deserves?

Still, this book is worth your time. It's funny, not so predictable even if in the end it doesn't go too far from the formula, so it's still a good comfort read. I'm not a fan of hot scenes, so for me it is a plus, but it could be a deal breaker to some—this didn't have much if any really. They're explicit enough that it's not a book for younger ages but it's like what you'd expect from a PG-13 movie, I think.

As I said, I'd been looking forward to this and now I can't wait for the next release.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

This book was a WILD ride! Overall, it was laugh out loud funny, charming, and had that silliness that we expect from an Alexis Hall read. Honestly, the amnesia was a bit of a ride, especially since the stakes kept getting raised and the lie kept escalating. I also don’t really feel like Jonathan did the self-work I would have liked to have seen in order to be a productive part of a relationship. He was a REAL asshole, and suddenly we see him as this softer dude, but not really, but kinda? I do wish we’d had more development there.
Still and all, I really enjoyed this read!

What's a guy to do when their boss threatens to nor only fire him but all of his employees? Fake amnesia, of course!

Set in the same universe as Boyfriend Material, 10 Things That Never Happened follows Sam and Jonathan.

I really liked this one. Sam is an easy to root for protagonist, who gets himself into quite the pickle when he accidentally implies he has amnesia after his boss yells at him and Sam gets a concussion. Soon Sam finds himself in too deep and seeing a side of Jonathan that he didn't think existed.

I adore Jonathan's family in this, too! Especially how they lowkey adopt Sam.

If you like 90's/00's romcoms, Alexis Hall, etc, add this to your tbr!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC!

Alexis Hall just hands down writes good funny stories. I can't say enough good things about this book. It had me laughing out loud, reveling in the Lord of the Rings references, crying and tearing up again and again.
This book has all the wonderful moments you get with Hall's books: humor, witticisms, three dimensional characters, relatable situations, social commentary, heaps of romance, the many facets of love, emotionally resonant communication, and the reality that love makes things better, but it doesn't magically fix everything and doesn't need to. Hall gives us characters with flaws, with their own issues and pasts, characters who grow and progress as the story progresses but who aren't magically fixed by love, or another person, or a new situation. They remain themselves, flawed and unique and relatable, and with a deeper understanding of themselves and each other. With someone at their sides who gets them for who they are and how they are and has compassion and understanding and takes them as they are. This book gave me all the feels I laughed and even cried and when it was over it was a good ending.

I've heard of the amnesia plot, but I don't think I've ever heard of the fake-amnesia plot. Which made this book so much better and different than I thought it was going to be. After falling into a glass shower and getting a concussion at work, Sam ends up having to live with his boss, Jonathan who is under the impression that he has amnesia. When he doesn't.
This book is very different than anything I have ever read before and I absolutely loved it. It did have a lot 0f deep topics, don't get me wrong, but there was a good mix of deep topics and humor.
All in all, this book is definitely one of Alexis Hall's better books and I'm so very excited to see how they improve over time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an eARC of this book.

This is the third book I've read by this author, and third book I adore. I love the stories she creates and how she manages to make you happy while reading. She has a way of captivating you in her pages and making you think only of continuing reading. This is something that I have felt very few times.

Maybe this shouldn't be emphasized, but I like that the book doesn't play around the fact that the homosexual relationship is in fact homosexual. In a sense that this book really normalizes it by not making a big deal out of it. Recently i’ve read some books where the central axis was like "you couldn't tell that this type of relationship exists", so reading this story for me was also refreshing.

It is true that the central core of the book is a lie, so of course there are people who will like it and others who doesn’t. But the truth is that I enjoyed the story a lot, I didn't care about the things that could be more "questionable" and from this moment I want to protect Sam and Jonathan from any evil so they can be completely happy.

Also we cannot forget about the clichés that this book has, because amnesia is obviously important, but we have an enemies to lovers, it's a grumpy/sunshine, although Sam is not so adorable either, but Jonathan is grumpy less for his sunshine when he wants to (you know what I mean), they are boss and employee... what more can we ask for? I don't know, but this book is wonderful. You’re gonna love it.

Of course, I can't wait to see what the second book of the saga has in store for us. I don't know if the author has already said anything about whether the second book will continue with this couple or with a different one, but whatever it is, I'll be here to read it.

I've read a lot of Alexis Hall books -- I think he's one of the best contemporary romance writers today. However, a handful of his recent books haven't necessarily been hitting the mark for me like his earlier works did. I love Boyfriend Material, of course, but I also love Glitterland and For Real and Pansies and the Ardy trilogy. And I absolutely LOVED 10 Things!
It had all the wit and joy that have become hallmarks of Hall's writing, and I found myself laughing along with the jokes and situations that Sam and Jonathan were in. I loved watching the characters grow, while also remaining ridiculously stubborn and REAL. This is my favorite sort of AJH book, and I can't wait for it to be out in October!

I loved the books I read previously by Alexis Hall. Like those, 10 Things That Never Happened is full of snarky banter and delightful Britishisms. Perhaps I'm too impatient, but slow burn romance should still have romantic tension. That's why I love the enemies to lovers trope, This wasn't my favorite but others may still find it entertaining.

I think it's more a 3.5. This is the third book I read of this author and I can say it has his signature: it's funny, easy to read, and it's entertaining. But I do have to say it has some things that didn't convince me.

What I really like about Alexis Hall's books is that they are pretty easy to go through and it's really hard to put them down. I read this book in a day, and that's something that I've not been doing for a pretty long time. I felt the pacing was good, especially once you passed the first few chapters, since that's when things start to get more complicated.

And what can I say about the amnesia thing? I felt Sam made a pretty stupid decision, but it was actually really funny seeing him having to pretend, and how he arrived to the conclusion that it was his best plan of action to resolve his problems, like come on, it's ridiculous, but at least not in a bad way because I was really enjoying the mess he had gotten himself into.

I liked how the relationship between Sam and Jonathan developed, and how they are both people with a lot of grey zones instead of simply being bad or good, I think it was refreshing seeing characters so flawed, especially in a romance book. But I have to admit in some moments I found them quite immature for their ages.

My favorite parts where when Jonathan's family was around, they were great, and I liked the subplot of Jonathan's relationship with his father and what it meant to him as a character.

Now, I didn't like that much how the conflict was resolved, it felt rushed, and I don't think it was a good way to resolve things, considering all the lying and that, it was too quick for my liking. I also felt it was kind of out of character for Jonathan to get over it that fast.

The other thing that didn't convince me was how ridiculous the situation with Sam's coworkers was most of the time.

But, overall I enjoyed the book, I think that, out of all the books I've read from this author, this one is my favorite. I would recommend it if you want something easy to read, if you like the grumpy/sunshine trope and if you are looking for a book to enjoy without having to think too much.

I just loved Sam and Jonathan so much. I'm so pleasantly surprised by how funny yet genuinely emotional this book was. It was a great book with surprisingly relatable characters, and I couldn't be happier about that. Sure some characters were rather meant to be a caricature of certain types of people but they were executed well. And then there's the romance: messy and raw and real and oh, I simply adored it! The sexual tension is great also. You get to see these two characters with their quirks, insecurities, charm, and flaws come together to build each other up and to tell anyone who wants to tear them down to fuck right off. I want to be friends with both of them. I want to live in this book forever. It’s a very safe, kind, adorable and compassionate place.
Overall this was the book I didn’t know I needed. It made me swoon, made me sigh....and made me smile. Unapologetically British with lots of heart and charm. Loved this book so very much! Fun, OTT rom-com at its best. Funny, touching, and has characters I just wanted to hug and cook dinner for.
HUGE Recommend.

3.5 rounded down for this one.

I think this is the first book I read from this author, and I thank Netgalley for having this so I could try it out without having to pay $$$ for her(?) books, which has thus far prevented me from trying.

I like British writers. They have a distinctly different style than Americans. And Aussie writers also different. Sense of humor and language being the most obvious differences, but also how character development is written, the amount of sex and the descriptions (or lack thereof).

But this style didn't entirely suit me. Lots of banter, quirky humor, sympathetic main character, etc. but I had to skip many sections because they just went ON! and on and on! The level of intensity of feeling is missing (which might be great for some readers, but I like very intense emotions. Passion, etc.).

So there's nothing really wrong with the book. There was no unnecessary drama. It was very slow burn, no sex on page. But it's just not the type of romance I prefer to read.

Alexis hall has done it again I have loved every book I have read by him and this one is no exception! The characters were fun to get to know and I quite enjoyed the way this plot played out. Can’t wait to read more by this author

A warm thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca for granting me access to a digital ARC of this book on NetGalley.

I'll be honest — I was kind of apprehensive going into this book. Having come off Husband Material feeling let down, and failing to even get halfway through Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble, I was worried that I was chasing a high from Boyfriend Material that I'd never get again. Perhaps Alexis Hall has just lost his touch, I thought. But I was so, so wrong.

10 Things That Never Happened is a truly commendable rom-com that I'll think fondly of for years to come. You get the classic wisecracks and standout voice I've come to expect from Alexis Hall, with an ensemble of hilarious, affable characters that had me giggling like a kid the whole time. And the romance is absolutely outstanding. I'm a huge fan of the grumpy-sunshine dynamic, and it's executed so rewardingly here. I just about screamed at every small gain that Sam made on Jonathan's softer side.

This book is hysterical and absorbing and at times profound. I'm fully renewed in my faith to Alexis Hall's writing — we're so back, y'all. Let's hope he can finally let go of that "I loved this book!" blurb and start getting his actual flowers again. I eagerly await the next Material World book!

I’m a massive fan of Alexis Hall’s writing. I own/have read more of his books than I have any other singular author. So obviously, when I received a digital arc yesterday, I had to speed-read through it in 24 hours. Naturally.

The 24 hour thing should clue you in on the fact that I enjoyed it. Hall is just so, so good at creating a lovable protagonist and making you feel so immediately immersed in their world. Those are the top 2 qualities I look for in a book, and he nails it every time.

One thing about me: I’m a sucker for the amnesia trope. I can’t help that. And this is such a fun twist on it.

I did have my personal issues with the love interest (I thought that he crossed the line into verbally abusive a few times) and a few of the tropey plot points (I think the third-act-breakup is incredibly tired), But I think (for the most part) he ended up turning things on their head in a refreshing way in the end.

I will, obviously, continue reading anything that Alexis Hall puts out into the universe :)