I loved the premise of this book especially being a former soccer player and a Ted Lasso lover. The book took me awhile to get into. I liked the style, in that the author sprinkled articles and tidbits about characters throughout the book. This allowed the reader to learn about characters from a third person perspective. I did find the book to drag a bit. A solid 3 star for me. I didn't hate it but wouldn't call my book besties and let them know they need to read as soon a possible.

The banter took this book from fun to cringe quick. It wasn’t witty or fun, it often came across as overbearing and disjointed. The conversations became hard to follow and I found myself rereading portions to attempt to figure out what’s missing.

The tropes also felt like a lot, I couldn’t figure out which didn’t work. It’s grumpy sunshine, forced proximity, opposites attract, and fake dating. As a fake dating lover, the whole book didn’t flow, and I wasn’t cackling or invested. This book was a chore for me.
Thanks NetGalley for this novel, my main takeaway is must love dialogue

I really struggled with this one! I wanted to DNF so many times but I pushed through. The writing felt a bit clunky so it was so hard for me to get into. The romance was okay but it didn’t really do much for me. This was one of my most anticipated releases so I’m bummed that I didn’t love it!

Ok. I love angst. And I love the grump/sunshine trope. This had both of them!!! He is the ultimate grump and if am a little honest, a little mean. She over hears him say something mean about her and that's were the goodness starts. Great book!

This was a cute rom com that I can see quite a few people really enjoying. With that being said, I don’t think I clicked with the characters or humor style in this book. While I did enjoy the overall story, I had a hard time getting into the book as I found the dialogue somewhat difficult to follow at times due to the formatting. Its seemed to kind of jump around and sometimes it was hard to tell what was internal dialogue and what was actually being said. The characters are British and with that came different discourse than I am used to, as well as quite a few words I had to look up as they weren’t ones I had heard used before. Overall still a cute read and so glad I was given the opportunity.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

Slow burn. Grumpy/Sunshine (obv - title). A cute read. Was not my absolute favorite romance of all time but was still enjoyable.

DNF 35%.

I tried really hard to get into this story and I just can’t. The writing is repetitive, choppy, and clunky, making it hard to connect with the story and the main characters. I understand this is an uncorrected ARC and there are bound to be things that are edited and corrected in the final copy, so I am hopeful that the published copy will be a smoother read. There’s far too many incomplete sentences for my liking, making the reading experience feel like I’m listening to someone’s chaotic and unpolished thoughts.

I like that the chapters have witty and humorous titles. I like the grumpy/sunshine trope and I was really hoping to love this story as I was so excited to read it. At the 35% mark, I felt I hadn’t really connected with the Alfie or Mabel. The banter shared between them, while I assume is supposed to be sassy and flirtatious, felt dry and pointedly rude. I wasn’t sure if they hated each other or if this was supposed to be fun…

<i>I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, of this advanced digital copy for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an honest review! All opinions expressed are my own.</i>

The premise of this book and the cover drew me in and I was so excited to read it but unfortunately it just didn’t work for me. This book did have some of my favorite tropes so I loved the fake dating, forced proximity and grumpy/sunshine aspects of the book. I just felt like the book was all dialogue and the dialogue was all banter. I love me some good banter but it just seemed a little much. And the writing felt a bit choppy to me as well. It didn’t work for me but I’ll still recommend it.

DNF; Read 30%

In When Grumpy Met Sunshine, we have a sunshine ghostwriter Mabel Willicker and grumpy retired footballer Alfie Harding. They must work together to write Alfie's long awaited memoir. The premise itself sounds good. I really wanted to like this book, but after 100 pages in, I couldn't get into it. It was too slow burn for me. That doesn't mean other readers will not enjoy it. I might give it another read some time in the future.

Well, that was freaking adorable! I absolutely flew through this, it’s a breeze of a read. The pacing was perfect—no slow, slogged down parts but doesn’t feel like it’s TOO fast either. It’s mostly light-hearted, really cute and funny (I literally laughed out loud SO many times), with what I’d say was mid-level spice (the spicy scenes are plenty spicy, but there’s only a small handful of scenes so it doesn’t overwhelm the story). I just loved Mabel and Alfie, the ease and naturalness of their interactions, their banter and just total sweetness together…it made for a fully enjoyable read and I will def be keeping an eye out for future books from Charlotte!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. I loved the banter between the two characters and the curvy representation by the FMC. That's about all I liked though. The story was lacking for me. Not a ton happened overall and it was just boring. Plus i'm not a huge spice fan so just wasn't my cup of tea.

First of thank you so much to @netgalley and @saintmartinspress for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

This book was a cross between a hug from a loved one and a cup of hot chocolate. I ate this story up and was laughing the whole time. The banter was top notch and absolutely hilarious. Also the spice was so unexpected. I had to put the book down a few times to collect myself!

It follows the story of ex footballer Alfie Harding and his ghostwriter Mabel Willicker. I absolutely loved both of their awkward ramblings and saw so much of myself in both characters! Alfie was so endearing and reminded me of a grumpy but misunderstood old man. Mabel was just such a ray of sunshine and the title was so well played out. The Grumpy x Sunshine trope is my all time favorite and the author lived up to my expectations and exceeded them!

The ending of the book especially the Epilogue had me absolutely sobbing! I annotated so much of the last chapter!

If you are looking for a quirky and endearing contemporary romance book then When Grumpy Met Sunshine is the book for you!

Pick this up if you like:
⚽️ fake dating
⚽️ grumpy x sunshine
⚽️ plus size rep
⚽️ celebrity romance
⚽️ trauma rep
⚽️ banter

This book comes out on February 6, 2024! Preorder now at all major retailers!

Oh, this was such an amazing romance. It’s sweet, and it’s slow-burn spicy! There are so many adorably embarrassing moments. They were so funny and outrageous. The bickering back and forth was fun, flirty, and had me laughing. It comes off as such an easy and comfortable action. The relationship progression felt natural and relaxed. There were also little tweets, notes, or articles at the end of the chapters that did really well at giving you a different kind of insight on what was going on. It worked really well with the story. I was super close to making this a 5-star read, but the ending was a little lackluster. I liked the general direction it went, but it was a lot and kind of dragged on. I would read another book from this author.

I was looking forward to fun rom-com and this book had it to a point. The fun banter was definitely there BUT I felt that Mabel/Sunshine was irritating at times. Neither Grumpy or Sunshine could get to a point of a conversation. She is a ghost writer helping him tell his football story. They fall for each other and declare their love in the book, but the book just ends even after they spent time apart.

This book was annoying and I was disappointed. Cannot recommend. Thanks to Netgalley, Charlotte Stein and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available

Overall, this book was enjoyable, but would’ve been much better if it was shorter. There was too much of Mabel’s thoughts and just anything that crossed her brain thrown on the pages and a bit more filtered out would’ve been less distracting. It was really slow to start, probably because Mabel’s stream of thoughts, and I would’ve appreciated some of the banter and fun earlier on. The dialogue was fantastic and I loved how witty it was. I pictured Alfie as Roy Kent the entire time I read this book but Alfie had a few more romance character traits to him than Roy. I hated the third act breakup and the time jump because it didn’t feel necessary. It was rather abrupt way of concluding and I think it could’ve been better. The spice was very concentrated once ~70% mark hit, and I wasn’t quite expecting it to continue at the high level of spice until ~90% when the third act breakup happened. Overall, the banter and dialogue are the best parts of this book and I just wish it had been edited a bit more. 3.5⭐️, 3🌶

DNF at 47%. When I finally decided I couldn't read this anymore, the MMC is adjusting the FMC's shoe, and there are two full phone-screens of internal monologue regarding the ten-second shoe adjustment. Not to mention a full screen of them talking about the shoe adjustment. And this is how everything in the book happens: a ton of FMC rumination, a lot of back-and-forth dialogue, sparse and vaguely-described action.

I did like the premise. The title is a bit of a misnomer; this is really a fake-relationship love story between two people who have survived harsh childhoods via very different coping mechanisms. I enjoyed seeing the characters open up to each other and I was rooting for them to get over their issues and be together. But the quirky narration style was just not for me.

While it had some good moments, overall this book was not a favorite for me. I almost stopped reading but decided to give it until about thirty percent to see if it hooked me. Luckily, it did around then and I’m glad I stuck with it because I did get a bit more invested in the story. One thing that threw me off about this book was the lengthy dialogue. The conversations would go on and on beyond what felt necessary for the scene. I did enjoy the characters’ chemistry and the steamy parts, but the characters themselves fell a bit flat for me. I think they could have been developed more outside of the relationship. For example, the fact that Mabel had two best friends seemed to be thrown in as an afterthought. I did enjoy the inclusion of gossip columns, emails, and other snippets in between chapters. The ending felt rushed and like a bit of a letdown for these characters.

It was an enjoyable story with witty and fun characters. It was too wordy for my tastes. There were so many internal thoughts it slowed the plot down. Enjoyable read.

This was a quick and fun read! It did take me a little bit to get into it but once I did I couldn’t put it down. Alfie is such a grump and I loved him! Mabel was funny and full of sunshine. I loved the banter between these two and the slow burn build of their relationship. There were a few things that I didn’t care for, such as the miscommunication between them, the storyline lagged in some places, and I wish that we would have had an epilogue or a little more story in the end. Overall this was an enjoyable read for anyone that likes the grumpy sunshine trope and lots of banter (which I love).

Unfortunately, When Grumpy Met Sunshine wasn’t for me. I was really excited about the premise because grumpy sunshine is one of my favorite tropes. However the writing never grabbed me through the first handful of chapters, and the vibes coming from Mabel concerned me more than made me want to keep reading.

Additionally the sentence structure (the way a majority of the sentences started with ‘but’, ‘and’, ‘:so’, and “because”) and the layout of the story + articles was difficult to follow in the ebook format. Maybe this would have been better as an audio or in physical format.