The Next Best Fling made my heart soar with happiness! I loved that Marcela was Hispanic, a book lover and her growth just had me in awe! This book has her and Theo, the brother of her best friend Ben, on a journey of healing from broken hearts. When Marcela keeps saving Theo they start to form a friendship and come up with an agreement to help each other out. This story is messy and full of drama but I loved every second of it because life is messy and full of drama.

I found the characters to be very relatable and I loved the open honesty Theo and Marcela had. They both pushed the other and showed each other that love is more than just a feeling!

This book is told only through Marcela’s perspective but her journey is so inspiring that I had no problem becoming hooked and couldn’t put the book down! I’m paying for it today with lots of coffee but it was worth it!

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼, 𝗕𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿, 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰é𝗲, 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗮, 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗻, 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀. 𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝗻𝗼-𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀-𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀.


I really did enjoy this one, and the two main characters I can’t even describe how much I love them. Wow.


𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗼:
Oh, Theo Young, my new book husband🥹
From the first time he appeared I knew I’m going to love him.
He gave her an entire box filled with signed copies & special editions.
AND THE LETTER!! THE LETTERRRR!!

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗲:
Whoa, the woman that you are!!🥹
I never once thought she was irritating or disagreed with her decisions. She seems like a really nice person, and I would absolutely lend her my comfort books.🫂💞 I really want to read "An Ember in the Ash," too, because of her obsession with it!

𝗕𝗲𝗻:
I hope both of your pillows are warm.
I hope every time you go to your favorite bakery or restaurant and want to order your favourite, it’s sold out.
I hope your charger doesn't load, even if it’s new.
I hope you step daily on Lego (with no shoes).
I hope you also stub your toe daily.
I hope your ketchup is very watery.

Staying up until 3am to finish this book was worth every single second spent. A bookish FMC (with a home library, aka the DREAM), a charming MMC (who’s a former NFL player, a nod to the sports romance lovers), so many angst filled chapters because of a love square (you read that right), and even more self love?? I had to see it through, and Gabriella did not disappoint. Marcela and Theo were so easy to love, and the easy way they communicated with each other and saw the other for who they were really stuck with me.

The Next Best Fling has been the debut I’ve been looking forward to the most this year, and I’m so happy I was able to read an ARC of it 🩷

If you like romances that include:
•Latine characters
•Plus sized representation
•So much library love
•Angst filled unrequited love x2
•Fake dating
•H‑E‑B

Then I highly recommend this book for you 🫶🏽

Obsessed with this! Marcela navigates complicated love—her best friend engaged to another, and his older brother entangled in the drama. Amid popcorn-worthy moments, a tale of trust, self-love, and escaping unhealthy relationships unfolds. Marcela's body positivity shines, addressing insecurities without overdoing it. A perfect balance that resonates with plus-size women. Also, Theo Young? Absolute favorite!

I absolutely loved this book! This is the first romance book I’ve read in ages that made me genuinely excited and I’m so stoked to share this one with others (friends, internet friends, coworkers, customers at the bookstore, etc.). The emotional journey and growth of Marcela and Theo was enjoyable but still realistic. And the balance between sweet, emotional, fun, frustrating, steamy, and all the other aspects were so well balanced.

Ok, I feel incredibly torn about this book. On the one hand, I loved the writing and am impressed as this is a debut work by Gabriella Gamez. I’m definitely interested in what she releases next. However, I just think I may not be the indented audience for this book. I realized I do not enjoy love triangle stories and omg this one is A LOVE SQUARE my gosh the complexity and the drama.

Theo, the MMC, is such a lovely character though! He was so so so sweet and so honest and such a strong communicator. I would have loved half of the book from his POV. I enjoyed witnessing his personal growth as well as Marcella’s. They both had a lot of relational trauma and fears to process through before they could give a relationship a go and I appreciated how Gabriella wrote that aspect.

Read if you like stories with librarians, book lovers, a rebound romance turned more, family drama, a plus size FMC, and spice (three skippable open door scenes).

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Forever Publishing, and the author for an eARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Oh hey it’s meeeeeee I’m reading this for work! Aaaaaaand there's a character limit on reviews here are some more words

I loved this book! 4.75 stars rounded up.

The plus size book loving heroine, the San Antonio vibes, MCs having actual emotional growth and sizzling physical chemistry made Next Best Fling a read I couldn’t wait to come back to multiple times day until I finished it.

At times I worried about our main character, Marcela, and her self sabotaging habits built from a cycle of family trauma, but major kudos to the author for actually having our girl do some much needed self reflection and have a honest to goodness character arc! We love to see it!

I don’t know what tropes I would use to describe this book, and I love that fact! It’s a refreshing read, shaking up the sometimes over-relied on romance tropes. Will “getting over someone by getting UNDER his brother” be romance’s next big thing? Because this was HAWT.

I loved the themes of friendship, how family can hurt you, self acceptance and self kindness, and leaving toxicity behind are woven throughout the book. And praise the romance gods for giving us a plus size MC who doesn’t hate her body!!! As a plus size reviewer, I connected with some of Marcela’s very real thoughts and insecurities about previous dates and interactions, but she ultimately never let them become intrusive or stop her from loving herself. Seriously, the bar shouldn’t be so low but I adored how the author allowed Marcela to convey some realities of plus size life without ever leaning on fatphobia to show us.

All in all, I loved this one and will absolutely be recommending to all Texan and Plus size romance readers.

Thank you to Forever and the Discover Forever program for the arc.

Ate this book up in under 24 hours. Normally I don’t like if the MMC mentions another girl if it isn’t the FMC BUT THIS AUTHOR CHANGED MY MIND REAL QUICK. The chemistry between the characters AND THE GRAND GESTURES??? MY book lover heart was screaming. I love this book sm.

Thank you Forever and Hachette for the ARC!

I loved this book. I got home from work and only stopped reading (begr dgingly) to eat dinner. The writing was witty, engaging and conversational. Marcela was a loveable disaster with a good heart who had me rooting for her the entire time.

I loved the way that Marcela and Theo bring out the best in each other and grew together and individually. Theo was a DREAM. His words made me melt, but his actions made my heart stutter even more. Marcela's fears were all understandable and it was glorious watching her grow to understand herself, but to want to have more for herself too.

I don't think I could say anything bad about this book if I tried. Love. Love. Love.

3.75 stars rounded up. I almost DNFd during chapter one and I am very glad that I kept going. While this book was not perfect and I had to majorly suspend belief at times, there is a lot about it that I really loved and I look forward to the author’s next book.

The main character is fat, she’s obsessed with books, and she doesn’t trust her feelings or the hunky hunky love interest’s feelings. So like, is this effing play about me?!

It’s set in San Antonio and all the Texas things made me very happy, especially the H-E-B tortillas shout out.

Also it was very hot. My jaw was hanging open multiple times lol.

Fake dating because you’re in love with the individuals in another couple who are getting married, one of whom is the MMC’s brother, is too messy for me.

Fat FMC • librarian • NFL player • fake dating • rebound • 1st person POV

Likes:
-Marcela’s passion for her job as a librarian was so cute!
-Theo being passionate about Marc’s job too was adorableeee!
-The fat FMC rep was great!
-While the basic plot of this wasn’t for me, I will read more from this author in the future

Dislikes:
-Too many “almost” spicy moments due to interruptions 🙄
-The whole premise was a setup for disappointment actually
-The characters kept going around in circles
-I got weird vibes from one character, but all of a sudden in the end he’s the big bad villain & the root of everyone’s problems…? It didn’t track for me and felt like a scapegoat for poor writing

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Look - if I stay up past my bedtime to finish a book, you know it’s worth reading. In fact, I read this one all in the span of a few hours one evening. I adored Marcela’s underlying fierceness and hated how much she lost of herself in the name of her “best friend” and secret crush, Ben. Theo has definitely gone through a lot, between relationships with his family and persistent injuries as a football player, not to mention his one-way feelings toward his sister’s fiancee. While they both could have certainly been more forthcoming at various points in the story, it’s easy to see why they felt they needed to guard their hearts while their “fake” relationship started to become a thing all on its own. There were quite a few unexpected moments, enough that I couldn’t put down the book and needed to know how things ended.

If you liked the vibes of Kate Winslet’s character/storyline in The Holiday (especially hating Jasper Bloom obvi), if you like bookish characters (especially those trying to help increase diverse reads for teens!), and if you are looking for some characters who feel extremely real and messy, I cannot recommend The Next Best Fling enough.

Thank you Netgalley and @ReadForeverPub for the advanced copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and ReadForever publisher for the advance read of this adorable book. All opinions are my own.

This book was so darn cute and managed to hit on some fairly serious topics at the same time. The overview of two people coming together and fake dating to try and act normal when their love interests are engaged is by no means groundbreaking, but the execution made it exquisite!

Somehow, in the middle of a romcom, we ended up with a perfect depiction of how factors like parental abandonment and experiences with fat phobia create deep rooted insecurities. And I am here for it. So often, if these topics are touched on at all, it’s way too lighthearted or even talked about as a joke. It was so refreshing to see them realized in a serious manner even within such a light and fun read.

Also: so healthy! It’s rare for me to find a book where characters need to take a step back from each other and then actually do it. Everything was resolved exactly the way I wanted at the end (no spoilers - so I can say no more).

I’m so glad I pushed outside my usual fantasy genre to enjoy this one.