It was a quick, great romance book. It had loveable characters. The author did a great job with everything in the book. I liked that  there weren't any unnecessary characters or details. I really felt the attraction between Simone and Alexander. The romance didn't feel rushed and at the same time it wasn't too slow either, it was phenomenal!!!!! I enjoyed the story because I myself too want to go to law school.
I didn't like that Simona was sometimes made out to be weak. It was a bit unrealistic that who was chef in restaurant with the worse boss on the planet for 5 years would get emotional after being called our by a professor.
All in all it was a fast and greate romance book. I definitely recommend to everyone especially to those who love the Legally Blonde movie.
Rating ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Spice 🌶

This audio archived before I was able to listen to it! I plan on still reading/listening and will update review at that time.

Narrator Jasmin Walker did a great job with all the voices and the characters. Beyond the main characters there are a few promenade characters.

This was cute and easily ready. I loved how these two met and the journey and friendship existed before things got serious.

Simone Alexander has made a big life change and needs to prepare for all its trials. She made some new friends that will help guide her through that process. Silas is one of those friends and neighbours.

It was beautiful to be a part of these two figuring it out together and apart. A great later in life coming of age story

I truly enjoyed the supporting characters. They helped make Simone and Silas figure things out.

Simone walked out of a career she fought so hard to have. With no money and an owed debt to her family she relied on a magic 8 ball for her next journey. After getting accepted into Law school she realized it her journey was going to get a whole lot better. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book in exchange for my honest feed back. However, when I heard the words The End, I yelled out of frustration because I wanted more..

This slow burn was engaging from start to finish. Simone and Silas are adorable, brilliant people and I would read a whole series of books based on what they do after law school. I would also LOVE the side characters, River and Tiffany, to get their own love stories because they were both people I want to hang out with in my real life.

These characters all felt like real humans that I can imagine myself having spent time with in (not law...) school. Silas is just.... A really good guy. It was so cute how quickly he was ALL ABOUT her. Their conflicts were totally believable and resolved through adult communication.

And to top it off, the audio narrator really made this come alive. I already looked into what other books she's read!

*I received an ARC of this audiobook through Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this book. I'm not typically one for contemporary romance, but I actually liked this one! I really enjoyed listening to it as an audiobook, as the voice actor did a great job with all the voices. I especially enjoyed Simone's internal dialogue. The characters were all well thought out, and I liked this sweet story. Silas was a character that I found myself really wishing was real, and I loved the character arc of the professors in this story as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

At first Simone was an annoying character and very immature, but as the book went on she did begin to grow and mature. The romance in the novel was lackluster at points and I just didn’t feel the chemistry. This felt to be more about Simone and her growth than a romance novel, I wish there would have been more romance.

Yikes,
Setting aside my annoyance that the author knows virtually nothing about law school and gets it so very wrong (more on that below) the MC is so judgey I can't hang out with her. Worse still, the book has serious ADD.

The writing is all over the place, More like a stream of consciousness more than a story. The MC points out no less than 10 times in a few pages she's in East Lansing Michigan. She also spends an inordinate amount of time describing and judging every person and their outfit around her but no actual plot is happening. You can loosely realize she's gone to her first day of law school in between all her thoughts about peoples outfits and racial comments.

Now for the law school shiitake: MC is working at a restaurant; cooking is all she's ever wanted to do. Later we learn she went to Berkeley, so it's confusing (and not explained) why she 1) didn't go to culinary school and 2) why she went to B at all? and how did she end up in food service?

I actually liked the idea of deciding ones life via 8-ball HOWEVER... you can't just decide to go to law school and be there in 3 weeks. You have to apply, you have to get in (it's very hard to get in to all law schools) and you have to take the LSAT long before applying. Anyone who watched Legally Blonde knows this much.
Thanks netgalley for my ARC ALC

While this book is probably very unrealistic, with the FMC quitting her job and enrolling in law school based on the advice from a magic 8 ball, I still really enjoyed this read. The FMC, Simone, decides to move across the country from California to Michigan after realizing how unhappy she is in what was supposed to be her dream job (or the job that would help her get her dream job one day). Upon moving to Michigan, Simone meets a great cast of characters, including the smart and swoon-worthy Silas.
Simone was an interesting main character since she was not the most intelligent person in the class and often acted out of anger. This created a lot of room for her to grow throughout the book due to the people and situations she encounters throughout. From Silas to mean professors, Simone becomes less problematic and compulsive by the end of the book.
I recommend this book to anyone looking for a closed-door, small-town romance. This is a great debut novel and I look forward to other books by Kristen Alicia.

This was a short and sweet romcom. The plot does sometimes jump around but I really liked the main characters, Simone and Silas. I definitely didn’t start out liking either of them and there was a moment where I wondered if i would finish the book. I'm not a fan of how Simone chose her path using a magic eight ball and how she seems very flippant about law school in the beginning. She’s obviously studying and trying her hardest but her heart is not in it. Silas is an interesting character with midwest charm. I started to like the characters and plot a lot more as they entered their second semester of law school. Everyone is more likable and the plot is more interesting. Overall I liked it but probably won’t reread it.

I wouldn't call this top tier romance but it was a quick and fun read. I'm a lawyer so the law school setting was fun for me. It felt realistic to me except that some legal concepts the main character explained as ones she struggled with are some really simple. Like basic. I understand I'm a lawyer and this was probably for the readers who don't know the law but I'm also a criminal lawyer who hasn't really dealt with contract law since graduating and it still felt remedial.

Overall, I think it was a fun one and I looked forward to playing it on my commute. It's not my favorite romance novel but it was enjoyable.

This wasn't an engaging romance at all, very low stakes, but I did like all the characters that showed up

Feeling dissatisfied with her job as a chef, Simone leaves her life in California behind to move across the country to attend law school. Nothing about Michigan or law school is what she expected. In spite of a bumpy start, Simone soon makes friends with some of her fellow students including the sometimes disagreeable but always handsome Silas. As their first year of law school progresses so does their relationship.

You’ve Been Served is a stand-alone contemporary romance. The MCs start out frenemies and develop into more. It is told from the single POV of Simone. It could have benefitted from dual POV but that is more personal preference than a necessity.

This is one of the few romances I’ve read so far this year where I genuinely liked both of the MCs. Simone is so strong and determined. Nothing will keep her from reaching her goals even when it means starting her life over. Silas is sweet and just the right amount of snarky. His loyalty to those important to him makes him a top-tier MMC.

To me, this is more of a fall book than a summer read. Any books that take place during the school year make me think “back to school” time or fall.

This is the first book that I have listened to with this narrator. Jasmin Walker does a fantastic job bringing the characters to life and I really enjoyed her style.

Overall, You’ve Been Served is a great debut novel. I hope to read or listen to many more books from Kristen Alicia in the future.

I voluntarily listened to and reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media!

RANDOM. Honestly that could be the whole review. This book was just the definition of random. I feel like a lot of the aspects and scenes in this book weren’t even related and at times i found myself confused why certain things were even happening.

The book is based on our MC using a magic 8 ball to determine her future while in law school.

While i did find it somewhat entertaining and the banter was funny. I was stuck on the fact that the characters were very surface level making it hard to connect with any of them. It felt too unrealistic and now that i’m finished it is extremely forgettable.

I did enjoy the narrator or as i hoped between digital and audio.

You’ve Been Served was a quick and fun read. It caught my attention pretty quickly and kept it through the end. The characters were fun, and the story was unique.

I will say I wanted more development and backstory from the characters, specifically the main characters. It was a good start but more building would be desired. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the Magic 8 ball premise, I felt it was a little weak and wasn’t a strong theme throughout the story.

Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend.

This was a really cute book. I loved the characters even though there were a few times I was like what is this main character doing right now. It was a light read and I would read more from this author

Loved this!! Simone was a chef who just got tired and walked out one day. The Magic 8 ball told her that she should go to law school, where she met super cute Silas. We get to watch as Simone gets acclimated to school and I loved how their relationship evolved. Not too much spice, very sweet. Excellent narration. Thank you so much to @netgalley for the chance to review this audiobook.

You should read You've Been Served if Legally Blonde is your absolute favorite movie. You've Been Served is Legally Blonde if Elle Woods was a down on her luck black woman, rather than a bimbo trying to get her man back. I really liked what You've Been Served brought to the table. A lot of academia centered books can be unrealistic. They are mostly about the school itself, or the coursework. You can get bogged down with details. You've Been Served had just the right ratio of understanding what goes on in law school, but was nicely balanced with real adult stuff. The characters let loose on the weekends, but it's not portrayed as stupid frat party stuff. They all sleep around, but it's not over the top changing guys like underwear. It was just a really entertaining, and quick read perfect for summer. It was nice to see someone in their 20's going through a change in career. I think many of us millennials find ourselves in a similar situation, working at careers that we thought were our dream and are now stuck. Simone takes the bull by the horns, quits her restaurant job, and takes the LSAT. There was incredibly interested commentary on race and about colorism as a problem within the black community. It doesn't always look like darker skinned people being shunned by the community. It works both ways. The main character finds herself in two sticky situations where she assumed the whiteness of people, just based on the color of their skin. She assumed that they couldn't understand her because they aren't what in her mind counted as black. She learns quickly that everyone has inherent biases that they need to work on. Skin color is only scratching the surface of all of those intricacies. You will also very much appreciate the arc Simone's contracts class takes. It shows the real deal struggle that so many students go through. There can be an apathy you go through once you start to do poorly in a class that is incredibly relatable. Oh and she goes through all of this with an incredibly sexy and smart boy she's lusting after. One thing of note is that there wasn't the typical third act break up, which I absolutely loved. I suggest you pick this one up to see how Simone pulls her seemingly screwed up life back together!

If you love the story of the underdog that takes a leap of faith and comes out on top, then this is the book for you. I loved the way this book reminded me Legally Blonde, but with more flavor and less "following my ex to college." I listened to this book on audiobook and loved the narration.

This book started off pretty strong. I liked the writing and the humour, so I thought I was going to love this. But frankly, it ended up being too boring.

In the book we follow Simone. In her frustration about her current carreer and just having quit her job at a fancy restaurant as a cook, she takes matters into the hands of a magic 8-ball. She asks this ball: "should I go to law school?" and when the magic 8-ball answers in the affirmative, on Simone goes to law school. (Yeah, I don't know why either.) We follow Simone in her first year of law school where she meets a bunch of friends, including Silas. He's a hot, but a bit scruffy looking dude, who's not really her type. But they quickly become friends and maybe more. (It's a romance book, so of course it's the latter.)

Like I said, pretty much nothing really happened in this book. It gets compared to Legally Blonde, but besides the actual references to that film and the fact that our MC goes to law school, there aren't any similarities. We follow Simone through her first year as a law student, but that's about it. There's nothing really exciting about it all. With Legally Blonde, we see Elle taking on an exciting case with her fellow students, but there's nothing of the sort within this book. I feel like this book needed something like this, a bit of plot in order to keep me entertained.

The characters also fell a bit flat to me. There was a lot of telling, not showing, which irritated me to no end. I have yet to see Simone be the strong, smart and capable woman other characters in the book describe her to be. The same was the case with Silas. He had about two personality traits, and oh yeah, he was hot. That's it. That's the character. He was just overall very below average and didn't really have a lot going for him, in my eyes.

Overall, the author wasn't really able to convince me that these characters where a) real, b) likeable and c) in love with each other. I just didn't buy it, unfortunately.

I did love seeing a talented Black woman (multiple POCs btw) thriving within higher education though. And I feel like this story will make a lot of (law) students feel seen, because that representation was very accurate I think: the work load, the self doubt, the insane study sessions, etc.

I feel like this author has potential to write some great contemporary romances. Unfortunately I feel like this story needed a bit more time and thought.

Thanks to NetGalley, RB Media and Entangled for giving me this (audio) ARC in exchange for an honest review.