I really enjoyed this book. I see so much of my-self in Marcela being a YA librarian for one, and a beautiful, plus sized hopeless romantic with a big heart and still wanting love although it seems scary due to personal issues, kept me intrigued, I had to know how her story ended.
Marcela is in love with her best friend Ben, who is dating her college friend Alice. Then there’s Theo, Ben’s brother who is in love with Alice. He’s a very handsome, tall muscular ex-NFL player who all the women pine over when he’s in town ( I picture Reacher from the series on prime 😊).
Theo and Marcela meet in a very odd position that begets rumors they’re together. So, they pretend they are to keep Theo’s secret. Marcela, in her eyes and everyone else’s is not quite Theo’s type but under unnormal circumstances, he chooses her, lie or not, the woman that they all wouldn’t expect because she’s saved him from doing something horrible. This story is messy, maybe a bit overly examined or drawn out self-deflecting from Marcela but also has good thought out parts that brought pieces together Marcela has a lot of insecurities and fears about herself falling for someone that seem to stem from her father leaving her when she was a child (abandonment issues) and from Ben, her best friend/long time crush manipulating her and having hard opinions about her decisions when it comes to who she chooses to date and about almost everything. Her best girl-friend Angela is a great friend who is honest with her but still validates her feelings and helps her notice things without being mean; just the right amount of “tough love” she needed to get over her delusions when it came to Ben and seeing Theo for who he really is despite Ben’s warnings. Theo may have been bad for her in the beginning (based on everyone around her) and how they ended up in their situation but as the story goes on and their feelings begin to truly come to light and flourish, it gives me- a very hopeless romantic- hope. But of course Marcela has her doubts about the stability of a relationship with Theo especially after he confesses something else to her. There are funny and unsuspected twists and turns, and plenty of romance and grand gestures throughout the book. It was well written besides some overly dramatic drawn out thoughts from Marcela but they also help build her character and they die down as the story goes on and she starts to lose doubt and have faith in herself and Theo.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

2.5 stars rounded up

I applaud anyone who becomes a published author. I think this had a lot of missed potential. I wish we'd gotten Theo's POV. It got to be repetitive so could have been shorter - at the 60% point I couldn't believe I had that much more to go. I wish the miscommunication trope wasn't rampant throughout the entire story - basically any time Marcela could have had an honest conversation with Theo, she resorted to sex instead. I loved Theo but couldn't quite connect with them as a couple and I'm not sure what exactly he saw in her once the fake dating was underway. She mentioned multiple times that she didn't deserve him - no kidding. Ben was an absolute tool and, c'mon, who pines for someone for 10 YEARS? Well, that would be both Marcela and Theo. I thought that part was completely unrealistic. I did like the book talk and library book club scenes.

Gabriella Gamez' debut novel was fantastic!! I was invested from the first page and could not put it down! I loved the relationship between Marcela and Theo, the plus size and Mexican-American rep, and of course the fact that she's a librarian! this shit was MESSSY and I was SAT!

from beginning to end, the author was able to convey incredible depth of feeling with this novel and that is sometimes hard to do in "standard rom-coms". we see Marcela grow so much in relationship with Ben, her body, and her relationship/ commitment issues that stemmed from her absent father. so many times throughout the book i was laughing, gasping, or talking hella shit on Ben. when miss girl sent that text to Ben instead of Theo I slammed my kindle down so fast in FEAR and secondhand embarrassment. and then ALICE SHOWED UP!!???? I think I would have passed out in mortification if this had been me. Ben's a bitch fr but I do hope for everyone's sake that he learns a valuable lesson from this and grows from his mistakes. we saw him fall from the pedestal that Marcela placed him on through her romantic love for him in the beginning, to his inevitable fall and their resolution by the end. we felt everything right alongside her and it was an incredible experience! I'm intrigued to see how the next book in the series plays out bc the ending of this book didn't make it clear on who the main couple would be.

while I had trouble with some of aspects of her career as a librarian (if someone EVER takes me to my place of work aka the library for a date after hours, I might just sue), I really tried to come at it from a perspective of someone who doesn't have this job, but some of the details were just incredibly farfetched. I'm sorry but your fling showing up to your YA book discussion and kissing you (cheek or not) is INSANE to me. her love for An Ember in the Ashes series though reminded me of my bestie and I loved that. the dedication at the beginning of the book was also incredibly sweet and is going down in my list of beloved dedications.

what a FANTASTIC starting point for this author and I'm super excited to read more from her in the future!

This was a really cute romance from 2 characters that had their hearts broken in similar ways. The FMC was very relatable. She constantly overthought every little detail which I have caught myself doing too many times. This story was full of romance, friendships and focused on a librarian obsessed with reading just like many of us!!

This book hooked me in from the first chapter. I loved the character development and how the story progressed.

This book was so different from what I normally read & I do not regret it one bit! Loved the chemistry. I can’t wait to tell my friends about this book when it releases.

This book had a fast-paced plot and I really enjoyed it! I loved relating to the FMC and the tension was PERFECT!!! I wish there was a little bit more of these characters because it fell a little flat at the end BUT I still would highly recommend this fun read.

Marcela Ortiz has been in love with her best friend Ben Young, who also happens to be her ex boyfriend, for 10 years. Marcela is devastated when Ben gets engaged, but she decides to ignore her feelings and play the role of the supportive best friend like she has year after year for Ben. However, that plan changes when Marcela stops Ben's brother Theo from confessing his feelings to Ben's finance Alice at their engagement party. After that, Marcela and Theo decide to start a friends with benefits relationship. When real feeling start to grow for Marcela and Theo, will they be

I really enjoyed The Next Best Fling. Marcela and Theo were so well rounded and were so well developed that it made it so easy to understand their motivations and why they reacted the way they did throughout the book. Marcela and Theo were so easy to root for, and I was so sad when the book was over. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend this to anyone that loves a cute romance book.

The Next Best Fling was a cute fake dating story. Marcela has been in love with her best friend Ben for 10 years but when he gets engaged she isn't excited to go to the party. At the party she meets Ben's brother Theo right before he's about to go in and ruin the party. They decide to fake date. You really need to read this book to see what happens.

I had a great time reading it! I'm about to start school to become a librarian so I enjoyed the fact Marcela is a librarian.

I enjoyed the slow burn romance of this one - as well as the slow move both the characters make towards choosing a new person to love. I like the growth experienced by Marcela, and that she learns to love and accept who she is. I also appreciate that the main character is a curvy one who doesn't shy away from the nature of her body. This story was a quick read for me and I enjoyed it in one sitting.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love this as much as i had hoped. The mmc really rubbed me the wrong way for the first chunk and I couldn’t quite get over it no matter how much I liked the fmc. I would absolutely read this author again, but this book specifically wasn’t for me.

Marcela and Ben have been friends since college and even though Ben said they were better off friends; she has a crush on him. She is devastated when he proposes to Alice and she accepts. Marcela is asked to pick up Ben’s brother for the engagement party. Theo has always loved Alice and is drunk, threatening to ruin the engagement party when Marcela takes him home to her apartment. Their friends talk suspecting there is more to the relationship. Theo and Marcela decide to date to get over their love for Alice and Ben. This is a wonderful book with characters that really draw you in to their relationships. I loved seeing the trust issues both Theo and Marcela worked to dissolve. I marveled at the things Theo did for Marcela to help win her over.

The Next Best Fling was a delightful, fake dating, romantic love triangle story that would make a fun summer read. Marcella is a strong female lead who is the perfect match for sensitive football player Theo. They've got great chemistry, and Theo's thoughtfulness is such a nice compliment to brainy Marcella's independence.

Their love triangle (square?) gets a little tedious at times, with minor miscommunications becoming much bigger speed bumps in order to draw out the plot. I found myself hating toxic, narcissistic Ben from the beginning, and he never grew on me. Luckily, love and calmer heads prevail in the end.

Thank you Forever and Gabriella Gomez for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

A fun read, I enjoyed the drama between Marcela and her friend and that the abusive nature of his actions wasn't clear until later in the narrative, ensuring the conclusion didn't feel wrapped up early

There was so much going on with the relationships in this book (it starts off pretty messy), but ultimately I was rooting for Marcela and Theo from the start. This book really explored the dynamics of both friendships and romantic relationships. I really enjoyed the character growth throughout this book with both main characters learning how to trust and love both themselves and someone else. I found Marcela’s relationship with her body to be very relatable (content warning for fatphobia). Also you could tell this book was written about book lovers by a book lover for book lovers.

I really liked this one!!! had me laughing a few times! Definately recommend. it was cute, funny and spicy.

thank you for the ARC!

This was such a cute romance. I love the whole fake fling aspect and felt it was well done. I really appreciated the LatinX representation as well as the plus size rep that we get with our FMC. And I mean, she’s a librarian so of course us bookish gals are going to eat that up! I’m happy they fell for eachother after thinking they were in love with other people, because obviously fate had other plans 💕
I will post on my bookstagram @thatbookishteach on release day 😀

I didn’t want to put this down!! I loved the library elements (as a library assistant myself). I loved Marcela and Theo and their fake fling - to real fling - actually being together. This book was very messy but so fun!

I didn’t end up finishing this book, not very invested in the story once I started reading, but I really wanted to love it because I liked the description.

I really enjoyed this book! Marcela and Theo both have it bad because Marcela is in love with her best friend Ben, & Theo is in love with his brother Ben's (yup that ben) fiance, Alice. So after Marcela is seen stopping Theo from doing something he will absolutely regret, people just start assuming they are together!! So of course in any good romance book, they take this as a sign to start fake dating each other so they can hopefully get over their feelings.

One thing I really liked about this book was Marcela was a Plus size FMC, but that was not the whole focus on the book! As a plus size girl myself, I love when there is representation of it, but it doesn't take over the whole plot! The love, communication, and flirting these two share between each other is SWOON WORTHY. My man Theo here has such a big heart despite the reputation Marcela had for him based of the couple times she met him beforehand. And Marcela is a librarian so she shares the love for books I had which I really loved. Definitely recommend!