A well written, relevant book. I enjoyed this second chance romance story that also told the struggles of racism, sexism and socio-economic stereotypes. The characters were relatable and the relationships believable. Thanks #NetGalley #AlcovePress

Such a good book that I alternated between reading and listening to the audio. I recommend this book.

Thank you to the author, Alcove Press and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay in posting this review, I had a bit too much going on.

This story of a young journalist trying to get a toehold the career ladder is a quick and engrossing read. There is a romance in the book, but it's so much more than that and the romance is not at the center of the story. Instead, we dive into the protagonist's workplace and her hopes and dreams for her career and gain insight into the exhausting battles the protagonist has to fight because she is dealing with a toxic work environment, constant racial micro-aggressions and bullying by horrible coworkers. I am very white so cannot pretend to know what being "the only black girl in the room" feels like - but this book gave me more understanding about how far we are from being alright. Not that I was under any illusions on that topic, but I loved the trajectory of the protagonist's ambitions and how she worked to move forward on that.

I really enjoyed this book, it is a great debut and I will definitely be looking for more from Alex Travis. The characters are all well rounded, the plot moves and is interesting, I was really invested in the story line and the main characters. I love a will they won't they story line.

Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Reader Copy!!

This was a quick read, that made me feel extremely seen and heard as my experiences as often the only Black girl in the room. This debut novel about Gen, an ambitious and well-qualified reporter and her experiences both with romance and racism at her job. This book has all the things, dynamic and fun characters, loveable friendships, interracial dating, coming of age, figuring out your life, and taking control of the narrative that you tell about yourself. Without giving away too much, this book starts off very fast paced (in my opinion) with Gen and Jude’s break up, then fast forwards to Gen’s life after that as an underutilized, but very talented writer. I feel like this book has a good balance of romance and contemporary/women’s fiction vibes to fit in either category. As a romance girlie, I wanted a touch more romance and maybe to get to know Jude a bit more. I enjoyed Jude and Gen’s banter a lot and might have me believing that all second chance romances are not terrible. I

Now, as someone who studies, researches, and experiences racism, this book is spot on with the microaggressions and overt forms of racism. I feel like as someone who is very attuned to these things, I wish the book went a little deeper into those experiences and perhaps more of the emotional frustration and/or compartmentalizing that Black women have to do at work to survive. However, I feel like it is a great first look at racism and workplace discrimination that Black women specifically experience, especially if you have never had a Black woman share her experiences with you.

Overall, I enjoyed this book alot and I cannot wait to see what Alex will write next!

THANK YOU FOR THIS ARC! Although this book is a romance I think it is also a great work of literary fiction. I liked how this book showed different situations Black women have to go through in the workplace. I think this is such an important topic in this book and was so grateful to be able to read it and see myself in this story.

4/5 ⭐
0/5 🌶️

This book does have romance, but it is so much more than that. It shows racism in the workplace and how those micro aggressions and stereotypes negatively effect people.

Gen, a reporter, is only being given copy editing and sensitivity reads instead of being able to use her skills and experience as a journalist. That is until she's the last resort for a story. This story leads to her running into her ex (who proposed to her at a cemetery during a funeral 😳), who also happens to be a CEO. When her ex requests that only she is allowed to do his story, those at her work do not take it well, and soon Gen has to make some tough decisions.

I appreciate how the author took on the topic of racism in the workplace and showed Gen's journey through different situations. I believe I was expecting a bit more of a light romance read, but what I got was a thought provoking story with a cute romance as well! Definitely a great debut novel, and I'm interested to see what the author writes next!

📰 Second chance romance
📰 20-something coming of age
📰 Interracial relationship

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC copy of this book.

I will never grow tired of good reads that also enlighten. This book was a great look into a topic I have no experience with but also romance that we can all relate to. I look forward to reading more.

This book was a romantic, funny, heart wrenching, rage inducing women’s fiction book. I had a really great time reading this. I loved Gen as a main character and I really enjoyed the scenes with her friend group. I didn’t super love Jude as a love interest but I did like him as a character. I thought his overall arc and character development was pretty on par for that of a white man who grew up in wealth and privilege. That being said, Gen deserved way better than him. By the end of the book, he was still making decisions without talking with her, when those decisions affected her more than him. I think at 21 years old and having gone to college, he should have been more aware and vocal for how his family treated Gen. It shouldn’t have taken 4 years to speak up. But alas… a white man in a white man

I hated the Fates, which is exactly how the reader should have felt. The rage I felt for Gen in every single scene of her in the workplace had me putting this book down multiple times. The author wrote this book so well and I highly recommend

While this book offers some insightful and introspective thoughts on what it’s like being a black woman in professional settings, I felt the storyline and characters were ultimately very underdeveloped, which made this a lackluster and disappointing read.

Thank you, Net Galley and Alcove Press for the chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was everything, I picked it up mainly because working in corporate I know the perils of being the ONLY Black girl in the room, the ONLY Black girl in the office, and the ONLY Black girl in the building, yup! Anyway, the title alone spoke to me and the book was so much better than I expected, no shade.

This is a second chance romance but it’s also a Black woman trying to navigate her career, her ambitions, and making space for herself.

Gen is working her dream job on her home city’s newspaper, but the microaggressions and racism she faces daily are weighing on her. She’s left out of conversations, not getting any good stories and it’s all a lot. Then her ex Jude requests her to write his big profile piece about him replacing his father as CEO for their big firm. This could be the break Gen needs, but she’s worried that they had a very dramatic breakup, as well, working with an ex, among other things.

This was a great read, I was so invested in the characters and the story.

So I thought this was good (hence the 4 stars) but I found parts of this very slow. I did think that Travis did an excellent job showing how a Black woman has to move when in predominantly white spaces (the main character Gen is a journalist and former girlfriend to a rich white man) as well as the everyday racism that most Black people deal with. I thought that at times though, the romance was not front and center enough for me. I needed more of Gen and Jude. It felt like a very long time before we even got to understand what made Gen fall for Jude and why she still couldn't shake him after not speaking for several years.

"The Only Black Girl in the Room" follows Gen. Gen is a journalist that is worried that she's never going to be able to write a "big" article and move on. The current newspaper she works at is the very definition of "allies are a mess and this is why". Dealing with the casual and overt racism of her days, she still struggles to try to find a man to date after breaking things off with her ex Jude during a bad time in his life. However, Gen is given an opportunity to write an in depth profile of a young CEO who ends up being her ex Jude.

I think as others have already said, I wish the romance was more. I think that Travis at times wanted to write a different type of book that really gets into how Black women have to navigate spaces. But it takes a while for the book to shift (IMHO) to a romance and have Gen and Jude start to open up to each other again. This is a second chance romance and I think that Travis does this very well though. There were legitimate and messy reasons why Gen and Jude ended (and not what you think) and I don't know if I would have went there again either. But I get how they got there.

The secondary characters like Oliver, Eva, and Mickey were great.

I did think that the flow was slow though. I think some of the book could have been paired down a bit because it started to feel like I was getting a lecture and I wanted to just enjoy the romance.

The ending was really good and I will definitely check out Travis again in the future.

A great debut!
I appreciate everything that this book covered, socially.
All the microagressions and racism that Black women face esp in the workforce.
I enjoyed the messy second chance romance in here too. I found myself invested in all the plots this showcased.
A great read.

I enjoyed Gen’s story and seeing her find her voice and go after what she deserved. I also liked Jude and how he was the catalyst for change but didn’t overshadow the fact that Gen was more than capable of being a great journalist.

This book was so relatable because I’ve been the only black girl in the room and let me tell you it’s hard. Needless to say this book did a great good of highlighting some of the micro-aggressions and racism while also adding an interracial slow burn romance just to shake it up and I’m here for it…

Took me a little longer than I expected to finish this. Overall it was a good book but didn’t keep my attention for longer than a few chapters at a time.

The plot was great and I enjoyed all the characters. Definitely a direct look into how it feels to be the only or one of few black women/people in a room no matter if it’s relationship, work , just existing period.

I struggled with this book a bit in the beginning, when it looked like it might be headed toward being a romance. Even by the end, I was still lukewarm at best toward Jude, although he did grow on me.

But ultimately, while there is romance in this book, that's not the focus. This is really the story of Genevieve coming into her own, dealing with her toxic, horrible work environment and egregious coworkers, and trying to find a balance between telling the stories that matter to her while also avoiding being tokenized--which, spoiler alert, does not involve changing the opinions of her coworkers... I won't get too into that, but the trajectory of her career and ambitions was the most interesting part of the story for me. There's a great passage in here about how some people get multi-page profiles just for existing, while others are only awarded space in the mainstream consciousness when their pain is being mined and exploited. Since I have an ARC of the book, I won't quote it directly, but it's great.

Full disclosure: I'm very white, so I'll refrain from commenting on many parts of this story, but I am also 1,000% certain that there will be readers who complain that Gen's experience is over-the-top. As someone who worked for a company with similar "values," I can say with certainty, it's not. I think this book will make a lot of people feel heard, and for my fellow mayonnaise-tinted readers out there, please read and journal about it if this books gets you in your feelings. While I don't love Jude--or, more accurately, the idea of getting back with a dubious ex whose family is NOT GREAT--I did appreciate that he's trying to be better, but that he's also not a savior in this story.

This book deals with a few other topics, like substance abuse and recovery. I would definitely categorize it as general fiction with a side of romance. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this book as an ARC. This is a great debut novel, and I see that her next book is already in the works, so you'd better believe I've already added it to my TBR.

Talented Black journalist Genevieve is stuck working menial assignments. Her luck seems to change when her billionaire ex, CEO Jude, requests that she write the newspaper’s profile of him. Despite the potential risks and lingering emotions, Gen seizes the opportunity. But as racial tensions rise and professional lines blur, Gen finds herself courting scandal, endangering more than her career.

This is an engaging women’s fiction with a romance subplot. The main characters are likable and relatable. The plot is a bit complicated, but the book held my interest throughout.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This book is so so good. Romance lovers AND cont fiction readers would like this in my opinion. I have seen reviews saying this leans less on romance than it does the other subplots but I disagree. Jude is such an interesting love interest and the interspersed romantic moments are so perfectly placed.

Racism is a major topic of this book as you can probably guess from the title. In big and micro moments it is pervasive. Gen is working in a newsroom having to provide free emotional labor acting as a sensitivity reader for her coworkers all while being told she's too "biased" for certain features. There is camaraderie shared eventually with other Black women who advocate for and with her, but truly there are some really painful and cringey moments that she faces that is absolutely based on reality.

She is thrown back together when she is tasked with writing a feature on her now billionaire ex-boyfriend, high school to college sweethearts who haven't spoken in 5 years. When this book first started their breakup scene in the prologue- I was shocked to learn that this was going to be the main love interest. It is ROUGH what they both go through. So he really has to work to win her and I felt like myself as the reader as well back.

This overlapping conflict of interest brings up questions on journalistic ethics and integrity. Gen has to balance that while also dealing with her editor with his own agenda. All while trying not to fall back in love with Jude who has changed so much.

I don't think I've ever read a second chance romance where one of the reasons they broke up was due to substance abuse/alcoholism. I can't speak on the accuracy of Jude's journey but it did feel to me like it was handled with care. Their work back to each other was so incredibly delicate and I loved every moment of it. They have to talk through a lot of things before Gen can even think about being vulnerable again but it is all so interesting to read because they have so much chemistry and BANTER. Gen also acknowledges that as much as they are alike and compatible at their core they have a huge economic and social difference and also as anti-racist as Jude can try to be he still will never fully understand her experience as he is white.

There are many ups and downs of this and also amazing side character friends. I didn't even notice that there's no spice, no closed door. The majority of this is them getting back to a new start (but you do get an epilogue! It felt HEA to me not even HFN). The nostalgia they had for their bright eyed youth and the connection they continue to share I was really satisfied with the second chance aspect of this, they absolutely needed to break up to come back together stronger. And there is definitely pining.

Thank you so much to Alcove Press for this eARC! Highly recommend.

This was a great story but I can’t lie it made me mad at times. I hated how Gen was treated as the only black girl in her workplace and on her team. It really made me think of how hard I tend to work because I am black I feel I have to work 10x harder at times just to be given a chance. The story was realistic and I love that it wasn’t so romance focused but more in regards to her career and the drama that came with it.

TW: racism in the workplace, racism in social spaces, cyberbullying

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for permitting me to read this work prior to its publication date.

Genevieve Francis broke up with her long-term boyfriend Jude. Four years after the breakup, her career in journalism is stymied by politics and prejudice in her workplace. When given the opportunity to write a profile on her now high-profile ex, she struggles even more with the unfair treatment in her office while reconsidering her feelings about her ex-boyfriend.

I wanted to like this book, but it was “meh” for me. I appreciated that the author wrote Genevieve with great depth and complexity. Her Blackness isn’t the only thing we know about her; she has her friendships, her hopes, the love of her family and conflicting feelings about Jude. I’ll admit I was hoping that the novel leaned away from romance as opposed to leaning more into it, but I think I’ve become more of a cynic.