I really struggled with this, and I so wanted to love it. The dialogue was driving me a little nuts and it seemed so forced. I love the body positivity angle and Mabel is adorably clumsy, but I just couldn’t get into their banter. I think it was the writing style that wasn’t for me, which is totally a me problem

Tropes: grumpy x sunshine, opposites attract, fake dating, forced proximity, plus-size rep!

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I thought I was going to like this book a lot more than I did. While it was so cute and silly and joyous, I had a really hard time connecting with it.
However, the characters were so much fun. Mabel was so sweet and Alfie reminded me of a burly Roy Kent which was a treat!
Unfortunately, there was just a weird pace. It was almost too slow but not enough information- despite the never-ending internal monologues- so it felt more fast-paced. It took a long time for me to get through the book. The banter really dragged on and usually I'd love it but it felt a little to forced. The CONSTANT miscommunication was also really frustrating.
This book just wasn't for me.

As much as I wanted to get into this book I just couldn’t. Started out rough with our sunshine meeting grumpy and immediately starting with the fat shaming but from the sunshine and not the male character like she thought he was doing.

3.25/5 stars.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Netgalley, and Charlotte Stein for providing me with this ebook in exchange for an honest review! I had an absolute blast reading When Grumpy Met Sunshine! I had a hard time getting through the first few chapters, but I was hooked once the tension between them started! I do feel there could have been a few additional chapters between the last one and the year apart. I also definitely imagined the main character Alfie as Roy Kent, down to the scruffy beard and his general grumpiness. Overall, a very enjoyable book for all fans of the grumpy x sunshine trope!

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read this book! I loved the story concept. I unfortunately couldn’t really connect with the characters. There were areas that were to lengthy and choppy which made it hard to follow.

This was the first book I have read by this author, and I was surprised by how much I loved it! I was not expecting to adore Alfie and Mabel so much. While this book kept me laughing, it also had parts that tugged on my heart strings and made me want to cry. I loved how Alfie and Mabel were both adorably awkward, weird and quirky. Grumpy Alfie was the best. I enjoyed watching Alfie and Mabel meet and learn to trust and open up to each other and learn about the things they shared in common and fall in love in the process. Their chemistry was palpable from their first meeting. This is a steamy, heartfelt and humorous romance that you do not want to miss out on!

This book was so cute! Here we meet Alfie, an ex football player (soccer). He wants a ghostwriter to write his memoirs. Mabel Willicker is a ghostwriter. He’s grumpy and she’s a curvy, cheery, ball of sunshine. Alfie doesn’t like opening up to people, but Mabel has a way of getting people to open up to her. But during their meetings, they bicker and banter. The paparazzi catch Mabel leaving his house and they assume there is a budding romance between the two. They decide to pretend to be in a relationship for the public; their chemistry is hot. But is it all just pretend?

I struggled getting into this book a bit, but it does get better. I think that this book needed more dialogue in the beginning and it also would have been better to get alternating chapters in first person point of view from Mabel and Alfie. This book was told in third person point of view, and I never felt like I was able to get in either of their heads. I did feel like I knew Mabel a little more, but I really wanted to know what was inside Alfie’s mind.

I did like the banter. And there were definitely some laugh out loud moments. My kids saw my reading and they asked me why I was smiling and laughing. I really do enjoy a book that can make me do that.

This book had more spice than I expected. However, the ending. Oh the ending. It was everything I needed from this book. I think I literally melted reading it.

Unfortunately this one was not for me and I ended up DNFing. The dialogue was extremely cringey and I just couldn't get into it. Both MC's seemed immature and the MMC was almost too rude and standoffish.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader.

This was a really loveable story. I loved our two main MCs and their growth/opening up together. Them both having doubts about themselves was uncomfortable but only because its such a real feeling in a relationship. You question everything you do and say in those beginning stages.

I loved When Grumpy Met Sunshine. Loved it. It was funny, sexy, sweet, uplifting, endearing, smart, and did I mention funny? I laughed out loud enough to make my husband notice. The banter is great (and reminded me of my own relationship, if I am honest.) Mabel and Alfie are endearing in their awkwardness and their enamored states.

It is body positive but realistic in how a lot of society treats a plus-sized woman. The skewering of social media and the toxic side of fandom is spot on. The intimate scenes are quite explicit and open in the characters’ enjoyment of each other’s bodies.

This is a very British book, which viewpoint and attitude I enjoyed a lot. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and the author for the advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

This is a pretty light-hearted book full of banter and playful vibes between a sunshine ghost writer and a secretly-soft soccer player! What I truly loved was how silly they got to be together and how they both came out of their shells together.

Mable is a sunshiney ghostwriter tasked to work with the grumpy ex-soccer player, Alfie, on his memoir. After a less-than-ideal meeting, the two are able to work around their differences and put the effort in to make this process as painless as possible. Unfortunately for them, their relationship gets misconstrued as a romantic one, and since they can’t disclose the true nature of their meetings, they’re forced to go with it. The more time they spend together, the more this stops feeling fake for both of them.

I genuinely had some moments where I laughed out loud at their banter, it was off-the-charts funny. The start of their fake relationship was also so genuinely awkward and lovely all at the same time, and it made me like these characters even more. They’re real and raw and beautifully flawed. The miscommunication was not ideal, but either way, this story was full of joy and becoming your true self.

The thing that made me drop this down to a 4-star-read was actually how much banter was in this, and how rambly it felt. It was just a little hard to follow and could have benefited from some breaks in the blocky text. I’m not sure if this is just a formatting issue for the ARC, but I hope it’s not the same for the finished edition for better reader comprehension.

I had high hopes for this book based on the cover and title. Grumpy/sunshine is one of my favorite tropes but I could not connect with this book. Books written in 3rd POV to me are just so impersonal and make reading a story hard to connect with. I did like Mabel, she is fun and bubbly. Alfie gives off Roy Kent vibes which I'm all about. However, the dialogues kept going on and on which just slowed down the book. If this book was rewritten as a duel 1st POV, it would turn it around and make it a fun rom-com.

In solidarity with the SMP Boycott I will be withholding my review for this title (which I was given prior to the boycott) until SMP acts on the following:

1. Address and denounce the Islamophobic and racist remarks from their employee.
2. Offer tangible steps for how they are going to mitigate the harm this employee caused.
3. Address how, moving forward, they will support and protect their Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian influencers, authors and readers, in addition to supporting their BIPOC influencers, authors, and readers.

This is not a reflection of the author personally, nor is it a call to boycott buying this particular book. And this star rating (3.25) is a reflection of how much I enjoyed the book.

I love grumpy/sunshine tropes. I love banter. I love fake dating. I love forced proximity. I love a curvy FMC. I love Roy Kent vibes. Sadly, this book tried to be all of the things I loved but it just didn't do it well enough. I really really wanted to like it but I just didn't.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the gifted review copy.

This book was super cute and had me laughing out loud. While the book does handle some serious topics, I think overall it was a really sweet read. I was rooting for the couple the whole time and I laughed through all the blatant misunderstandings in the beginning of the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my digital ARC

2.5 stars I went into this book because I love a grumpy sunshine trope and thought this would really hit it for me with a plus size character. But I disliked the way she talked about herself the whole book and the lack of communication about how they were feeling really started to get to me. The book follows Alfie a famous ex-footballer (European) and Mabel who is hired to ghost write his memoir. After some pics are taken of them they end up having to fake date. I really wish that they would have just been honest with each other but I know then we wouldn’t have a book. Overall just a disappointment.

I received this as an arc and all opinions are my own.

Grumpy x Sunshine is one of my favorite tropes, so of course I had to read this book, even if I thought the title was a little too on the nose. But I'm so glad I overlooked a basic title to get to the story in these pages, because Alfie and Mabel are so endearing and so much fun. This book even packed an emotional punch I wasn't expecting, watching a gruff ex-footballer and his ghostwriter fall, first into true friendship and then into much, much more.

Alfie will fill the Roy Kent-shaped hole in your heart now that Ted Lasso is over. He's stoic and grumpy on the surface, but with so much emotion running underneath. He's thoughtful, respectful, weird, endearing, and more interesting than his football career. He's constantly at 100%, trying too hard because he doesn't know another way to be. And he stole my heart early on in this book. And his banter with Mabel? The way she softens all his sharp edges and brings out the best in him? It's true romance hidden in the guise of silly rom-com hijinx.

Mabel's self consciousness when the fake dating starts is all too relatable. She doesn't look or act like the typical WAG, and I really enjoyed that we were seeing this all through her eyes. Every moment where she had to set Alfie straight on how all of this would seem outside their little bubble had me cheering for her. Because she never held back or was anything but her true, weird self with him, and that's something we should all aspire to.

Read for unexpected warmth and all the feels, for the perfect balance of swoony and steamy, and for banter that is flirty, fun, and sometimes delightfully unhinged. Alfie and Mabel are both just so endearingly weird that it's impossible not to love them or maybe even feel seen in all their idiosyncrasies.

I was really looking forward to this British rom-com. A grumpy sunshine romance with fake dating between Alfie, an ex footballer, and his ghost writer Mabel. Plus it had such a cute cover. Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.

I liked the beginning of the book and some of the banter. However with the miscommunication and inner monologues it started to go downhill. I don't mind swear words and open door scenes in my books but this got to be so repetitive that I was skipping pages. There wasn't much relationship building at that point. While the resolution of the third act break up came too late for me, I did like the way it played out in the last few pages.

Thank you to the publisher for my e-copy of this book.

Thank you NetGalley, Griffin Publishing, and C. Stein for this digital ARC! I really enjoyed this sports romance with the ghost writer being your “not-so’-average” FMC with the gorgeous looks or the perfect body. It was very playful and the banter was spot on. It was truly a grumpy-sunshine trope! For me, the job of being a ghost writer quickly fell off the side to focus on the romance piece of the story. I do understand how it’s a romance read, but then I feel like the job itself wasn’t picked up until 90% into the story again. Some romance pieces were a little choppy & lots of open door scenes. Overall I enjoyed and I think with the right audience - I would recommend!

I was quite looking forward to this storyline - but it wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping… it was about a 3.5 star (rounded up to 4). I found I was left wanting for so much more as I read and listened, but it was ok.

I liked it well enough but did not love Mabel and Alfie’s story about a ghost writer who was forced into writing the autobiography about a reclusive, grumpy former footballer… seen together and forced into a public relationship so that her role in his life as the author wasn’t found out. As a plus sized woman, her character and image were torn apart online and in the media - which really rubbed me the wrong way.

She started out sunshine and he was very grumpy and their relationship made them both more neutral, until the writing relationship (and friendship) just ended…. Unsatisfying as a reader when the “miscommunication” is just completely cutting ties like this to pick up way down the road.

I received an advance copy from NetGalley, St. Martin's Press (St. Martin's Griffin) and Macmillan Audio, and this is my honest feedback.