Another laugh out loud hit from Sophie Kinsella! From the kale smoothies (in a to-go cup to dump please!) and Finn's dictated emails, to the noni juice and the club biscuit deliveries, the chaotic antics kept my laughing the entire time.

Sasha and Finn were so fun to follow as "the couple on the beach" as they navigated their burnout together. I absolutely adored Terry, their former surf instructor, and his words of wisdom. The final surf lesson on the beach was everything. The ride is IT and so was this book!

Sasha thought she had her dream job…until it wasn’t. Now her days are filled with endless “urgent” emails, employee joyfulness programs, and no time or energy to see her friends or even cook herself a meal. Sasha desperately needs a break from her life and decides to head to a charming seaside resort she always loved as a child.

When she arrives, however, she finds a rundown building that has clearly seen better days. Sasha decides to try to make the best of the situation but keeps bumping into the only other guest at the resort, a grumpy guy named Finn who seems to be everywhere, particularly on the beach where she wants to be. When strange messages, seemingly addressed to Finn and Sasha, start showing up on the beach, they reluctantly start to talk and realize they are both suffering from burnout and are seeking solace at a place that used to be filled with happy memories for them.

I really enjoyed watching these two characters bond and become part of each other’s journeys of personal growth. They both need to find a path forward after burnout, and I just loved how they not only worked through that together but they also had a bit of fun doing it.

Sasha and Finn had tremendous chemistry and I thoroughly enjoyed their flirty banter as they continued to get to know one another.

Even though the story explores the serious topics of burnout and setting boundaries for yourself, there are still loads of laughs, especially courtesy of the quirky resort staff. Such a hilarious group!

Kinsella is one of my go-to authors when I’m looking for a heartwarming read with plenty of humor, and she really delivers exactly that in The Burnout.

Sophie Kinsella's books are always good for a quick laugh, but this one just about put me to sleep. I would be reading along and then realize that I hadn't retained a darn thing. I'm not sure why that happened, but here we are. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have high expectations for Sophie Kinsella books, especially after enjoying her Shopaholic series so much. Her standalone books have been a hit or miss, and this one falls somewhere in between. While the chemistry between Sasha and Finn is smoldering, I feel like this kind of plot is not unique, She comes to a secluded favorite spot to find herself and escape and finds a brooding, irritating Finn. They are both annoyed by each other, surprise surprise (NOT). But they slowly start to feel open around each other.....

Kind of a been there, read that plot, so it was a wee bit predictable. Both characters have issues and pasts. Both are annoyed by each other initially but come to understand each other.... Not a suprise. I felt this was mediocre at best and I hate to say that about a favorite rom-com writer.

I hope her next book is better or there is another addition to the Shopaholic series, Cannot recommend this one.

Thanks to Netgalley, Sophie Kinsella, and Random House Publishing Group Dial Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available.

Sasha's done. BURNED OUT. She needs to escape her 100 mph life for a bit and take things slow. What better place than the seaside resort she loved as a child? But when she arrives - things are not quite as she expected.

I thought this was a cute, easy read, but nothing special. Sophie Kinsella's main characters just seem to be a bit too "nutty" for me, resulting in multiple eye-rolls while reading. I just have a hard time connecting to the main character. This book was nice, but the pacing was a bit slow for me and I just felt like there wasn't much happening. Maybe I'll have better luck with her next one.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Advanced Reader Copy Review;

I've been reading Sophie Kinsella's books since high school with the Shopaholic series, but for the past few years, I haven't had the time to read her most recent novels. The Burnout not only has Kinsella’s historically comedy humor but is also topical in this day and age of burnout and quiet quitting. The book majority takes place at a dilapidated Grand seaside resort hotel filled with a cast of characters. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this book. It accomplished precisely what I expected from a Sophie Kinsella novel. It was an amazingly hilarious ride while giving some feel-good moments. It's probably the funniest book I've read all year.

𝙀𝙣𝙟𝙤𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩. 𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩? 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙩.    
    
The Burnout might not be a spooky read in the traditional sense. There are no ghosts or monsters, but this book is definitely scary. It’s scary relatable in the way it highlights the struggle of being an ADULT 😫. What it’s like to be over worked, dealing with toxic coworkers/bosses, no time for friends, family or romance. Doing the same things day in and day out, saying you’ll get to something and never having the time or energy, no enjoyment or passion for life. It gave me the goosebumps!! I think a lot of mid 20 to mid 30 year olds will feel Sasha and Finn’s struggles on a deep and personal level. I know I sure did.   
    
Sasha once loved her marketing job for travel app Zoose. When she first started she felt lucky to work there and now all she feels is dread and a lot of anxiety. She can’t take it anymore and one day decides the only way to get out is to join the convent. Yup, she’s going to be a Nun, only problem they reject her and rat her out to HR. When HR comes to pick her up she runs right into a wall knocking herself out. It’s official, she needs a break, so she heads to the seaside resort she loved as a child. But it’s the off season, the hotel is in a dilapidated shambles, and she has to share the beach with the only other occupant: a grumpy guy named Finn, who seems as stressed as Sasha. When curious messages, seemingly addressed to Sasha and Finn, begin to appear on the beach, the two are forced to talk—about everything. How did they get so burned out? Can either of them remember something they used to love? And they do with the help of an old and very wise surf instructor.  
    
This book has a lot of heart and self discovery. It’s filled to the brim with witty banter and laugh our loud scenes. I’m telling you I almost peed myself when Sasha decided it was better to become a Nun then just quit her job! It’s a true romantic comedy and an absolute must read for those of us that need a little break.
    
Read if you like:  
- Vacation romance  
- Quirky side characters   
- Forced proximity  
- Close door romance  
- Character growth 
- Opposites attract

The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella gave me feelings of being burned out reading the book at times. I have always been a huge fan of Sophie Kinsella, some of her stories have given me my best book laughs, but this one fell short. I struggled to connect with the characters and found a few situations to be utterly ridiculous. There were some cute plights toward the beginning, but I think with trying to make a mystery out of the story with an uninteresting storyline, it all fell a bit flat.

This is cute, and I always appreciate Sophie Kinsella’s willingness to stick to very low-stakes plot lines.

Some degree of professional burnout is pretty relatable to most people, and as someone who really hates the emotional manipulation common to this genre of fiction rooted in tragic backstories for nearly all of its protagonists, I’m always relieved to read about someone whose entire story isn’t predicated on past damage.

That said, this isn’t as funny as a lot of Kinsella’s previous novels. It’s missing a lot of the zany, madcap stuff that makes her books so fun to read, and thus it’s a bit boring. While I appreciate that there’s less going on here in terms of deep-seated trauma than in most women’s fiction, there’s a slight problem in that there just isn’t much going on at all.

It’s a story that I can’t imagine anyone will hate reading. It’s cute and feel-good without being too heavy and it has a few clever twists and turns. But mostly it’s just mid, as the kids say, and makes me worry a bit that Kinsella has run out of material.

This is a sweet and funny romance about a woman named Sasha whose job is getting to her. What started out as a new company with a charismatic leader has turned very corporate now that his brother took over. Sasha takes a leave and goes to the Cornwall beach town she loved to surf at as a young adult on vacation. It’s also the last place she had her father.

While she’s there, she meets Finn, another corporate burnout with his pown surfing memories of the same beach. The two of them don’t go into a lot of details about their struggles but have a wonderful time surfing together.

I’ve always loved Sophie Kinsella’s books for the way she mixes humor and serious topics, with an excellent love story underpinning the plot.
This is no exception, I highly recommend this book. 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

I read a lot of Sophie Kinsella’s earlier novels and then stopped a few years back because I felt like I grew up and outgrew the antics of the younger characters she portrayed. In The Burnout, her characters have also grown up. Gone are the silly antics; they’ve been replaced by thought-provoking situations and real-life issues for those who have been in the workforce for a few years (and have a strong work ethic). While I don’t have this type of job anymore, I could relate to Sasha and her work crisis (although I never have that much vacation time accumulated; I use it all!). I enjoyed getting to know her and the various characters in the sleepy seaside town and watching her grow into the more assertive and confident person she needed to be.

Sometimes a book tells a story that way too many people can relate with, and this book is one of them. Sasha is burned out. She is doing the work of three people and that means she's getting nothing done. Her boss doesn't seem to care. Her human resources rep is a butt kisser. And her personal life is suffering because of it. So, what does a person do under those conditions? Sasha has a meltdown. And so begins her journey of self-discovery and healing.

Sasha was pretty relatable. She knows her life is spinning out of control but doesn't have the time or energy to put into fixing it. Some of the situations are kind of funny and some are painful but all of them lead to Sasha making real and lasting changes in her life. In other words, Sasha has a HUGE learning curve. It was nice that the author gave Sasha a fast burn part to her story and then a slower part that would allow Sasha to really embrace all of the changes she made. Finn was a great addition to the story. Yes, he's a romantic partner for Sasha but he is also one of the ways that Sasha rediscovers herself. The author chose to let the relationship develop naturally and slowly. It was really nice. Finn had his own issues that he needed to work through but I'm glad the author chose to keep the main focus on Sasha. The entire staff of the Rilston Hotel is like a comedy sketch but they all play critical roles in helping Sasha to heal. Even the people around town and Sasha's family helped to drive the story to the end. I will admit that I found the ending to be a touch abrupt. I know everything was said and done that needed to be done but it like having a door slammed in my face when it happened.

This is a contemporary romance that takes place in London and Rilston Bay. The two main characters are both in their 30s and have demanding careers. I will definitely read more from this author in the future.

Sophie Kinsella sure knows how to connect to the reader to make you fully immerse into the story and feel like you are there with the characters. I laughed through out the book. I really enjoyed this story!
I hope this gets made into a tv show/series.
Thank you for the advanced copy Netgalley!

Sasha Worth has hit the wall. Literally.

After months of doing the work of three people at the startup Zoose, she had finally had enough and ran out of the building. There were weeks and weeks of urgent emails that needed to be answered immediately if not sooner, ignored appeals to hire more help, interrupted sleep, no hint of a personal life, and no compassion from management other than telling her to post to their “wellness” mood board. And when a stranger talked to Sasha like a person, hit on her even, she realized she needed to change her life. So she ran out of the building. And as she realized she was being chased by the Zoose’s company “joyfulness” official, Sasha stopped paying attention to where she was going and ran face-first into a brick wall.

At the hospital, they told her she was okay, but she needed to take three weeks of rest. Her mother, wanting to help, booked her in to the hotel at the seaside resort she’d loved as a child. Her family had gone every year, every summer, until her father had died suddenly twenty years ago. Sasha, her mother, and her sister had never gone back. Her mother also found her an app to help Sasha, with twenty wellness steps she can take to heal her life. Sasha’s mother sees her off at the train with a wealth of supplies—a hula hoop, a painting kit—and called ahead to the hotel, claiming to be Sasha’s PA and ordering her organic kale for healthy green smoothies and noni juice.

When Sasha was a kid, the Rilston Hotel was the fanciest place in the town. Her family would go there once each trip to have drinks in the elegant lobby, but her father wouldn’t even pay for dinner there. Now, Sasha was finally staying there in all its opulence. So she’s a little surprised when she gets there. Twenty years is a long time, and the Rilston hasn’t held up all that well. The velvet sofas in the lobby have been replaced by antiques that are on sale. And while it is the off-season for swimming and surfing, it appears that Sasha is the only guest in the entire hotel. Her beachfront room has large windows that open up to wooden slats (for the ongoing remodel), and the luxury lodges on the beach are falling apart.

But it’s okay. Sasha has a plan. The app gives her twenty things she can do to recover from her burnout. There is yoga on the beach, meditation, her bullet journal, communing with nature. And the hotel is on board for her healthy diet, offering herbal tea and a morning melon plate instead of, say, coffee, eggs, bacon, and pancakes. They give her green smoothies and offer no alcohol.

She is miserable. All Sasha wants is junk food and gossip magazines. She wants to drink wine and sleep all afternoon. She hates kale and yoga and spends a lot of time venting about her job in her bullet journal. And she wants sex. I mean, she’s so exhausted she doesn’t, but she wants to want it. She tries to manifest it. And that’s when she meets Finn.

Finn is also exhausted at work and on a mandatory rest. He also had come to the seaside as a kid with his family. He also hadn’t been back in twenty years. He and Sasha immediately are at odds with each other. He avoids her, thinking she’s a spoiled brat who has to have her pushy PA take care of everything for her. And she thinks that he is obnoxious, self-involved, and unkind to children and wait staff. And he can eat all the pancakes he wants without the staff trying to give him green juice.

But eventually they start talking, and they find that they have more in common than they realized. They talk about their time at work. They talk about the times they visited as kids. And Sasha finds that maybe her libido isn’t completely dead after all. But she still has a lot of problems to deal with, she still finds herself in a toxic work environment, and while a fling may be fun, it won’t fix her life. Will she find the answers she needs to create the life she dreams of, or will she just return to London and fall back into her old habits?

The Burnout is the latest novel from perennial bestseller Sophie Kinsella, and from page one you can understand why. This is a tale of modern toxic work environments and how to battle them, but it’s also just a story about a smart, funny woman who has lost her way and is trying to find a way back to her true self.

As someone who has known burnout in her life (read: these days right here) and is struggling to find solutions that work better than kale and hula-hooping, I wanted this book as soon as I saw it. I loved it. It felt genuine and honest, but more than that it was fun and transportive and restoring to my soul. There were times I just stopped to laugh, and I loved how the story line of what happened as kids was woven in to the story line of Sasha and Finn as adults. This is such a heart-warming story. I can’t recommend it enough. All I need now is three weeks by the seaside, chocolate and crisps, and a boss who can follow the wisdom of a surfing teacher.

Egalleys for The Burnout were provided by Random House The Dial Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Becky Bloomwood made me fall in love with reading, and that similar style and tone appears in The Burnout as well.

The Burnout is at times funny, while occasionally being a little dramatic, and a little bit poignant.

Sasha is burned out from her life and job, and breaks down from the stress and pressure.

I enjoyed the way this story played out, and quickly fell in love with Sasha.

A delightful enemies-to-lovers romance with real heart and compassion for the stress and strain young career women often struggle with.

The Burnout was an overall great book! I really enjoyed it.

I loved just how relatable the characters were, especially Sasha. The banter and witty comments also had me chuckling in some parts of the book.

I do love a good slow burn and this delivered.

Sophie Kinsella does it again! The Burnout is a love letter to strung out workaholics who have pushed themselves too hard and a much needed reminder for all that theirs always time to find the next wave.

After Sasha loses it at work she’s sent on a mandated leave of absence to basically get it together so her mom convinces her to sort herself out at the seaside resort they used to spend her childhood holidays at I nly when she arrives after an awful train ride where she runs into a rude man (hellllo MMC love interest!) she discovers the opulent resort has fallen on dilapidated times.

With a wellness app and a dream, Sasha marches on with her goal of putting herself back together despite less than ideal surroundings. But when the rude stranger checks in too a couple days later the empty resort isn’t big enough for the both of them.

But first impressions aren’t what they seem and their fiery clashes turn into different sparks!

I really loved this one and highly recommend it to anyone going through a burnout themselves!

Tried and True Author - Sophie Kinsella

Ahhhh, the perfect author after a heavy read. I have loved her books since I read Confessions of a Shopaholic. It’s the first book that I remember laughing out loud. In fact, I remember reading it as my husband and I drove to Savannah light years ago. I started reading some of the lines out loud to him because I was laughing so hard.

She has a gift for creating flawed characters you care about, root for and grow attached to. Sasha is an overworked and under appreciated marketing director at a start-up company. She gets to a point that she starts to lose it and is granted time off to find her equilibrium again. She heads to the beach- a place that holds so many childhood memories. Ones where her Dad is still alive. Sounds like it could be a sad read- and there are definitely moments-but Kinsella breaks the tension with levity and humor throughout. I’m not a romance reader- but give me a funny rom-com and I’m so happy.

This story explores expectations, first impressions, memories and self preservation. As Sasha returns to the place that holds so many wonderful memories, she real is reminded that things never stay the same. As she works to find her footing, she meets several wonderful side characters and of course a love interest.

I loved these characters and this story. Definitely recommend❤️ Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for this ARC to read and review.

Our main character, Sasha, is a character I 100% related to and in today's fast-paced work environments, I feel like many readers would feel the same way.  This book was a quick, easy, fun read with quirky and likeable characters in a whimsical setting --- and it had a message that is so important for us all to remember; the importance of self-care.  Self-care is a buzz-word that is often dismissed as being overly-indulgent but it's so important to look after ourselves in the basic arenas of sleep, companionship, nutrition, joy, sex, and boundaries on our time.  This important message was delivered within Kinsella's trademark writing style of swoony romance, charming storyline, and laugh-out-loud moments.  

I recommend this for fans of: 
* entertaining rom-coms
* vacation romance
* childhood nostalgia
* stories that discuss self-care and self-discovery
* forced proximity
* enemies-to-lovers
* closed-door/fade-to-black

I received a review copy from the publishers. All opinions are my own.