I did not finish this audiobook. I found that the books pacing was very slow. I did not find the characters likable. I thought that their letters back and forth, while giving each other a glimpse into their past relationships, didn’t provide enough excitement and they tended to just blur into one another. Nothing was exciting enough to keep me interested, and I found myself tuning out a lot.

Thanks for the opportunity! This book just wasn’t for me unfortunately.

An interesting premise but predictable and it dragged on a bit. I lost interest about halfway through but forced myself to finish it. Initially I was intrigued by the letter writing concept but it fell flat. I didn’t like the characters and the romance felt forced…cringey, almost. Overall, not for me.

2.8 stars rounded up to 3.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC.

I absolutely love this. I finished this in two sitting as the characters were mesmerizing. They kept me hooked till the very end of it and the writing is so beautiful, I a absolutely love it.

I really enjoyed this unique take on a romance story. To me, the audiobook is better than the movie, (isn’t it always?) because I much prefer the lure of the penned romanticism over throwing it together in a road trip; much more heart that way. The narrators, I felt were good at making you forget they were not those characters, if that makes sense. They submerged you into their story with a fever and you just had to believe everything they said was true. Definitely recommend!

I wanted to read this book (or I guess listen to it) because I'd heard about the movie and was interested in watching it. (It helped that Nat Wolff and Lucy Hale were the leads too). I don't have much to say about this book because while I can't say I hated it, I didn't particularly like it either. A lot of the confessions felt like they were meant to be funny but all the jokes just fell flat for me. I also didn't particularly care for either character and found it odd that they were called John and Jane. Were they named that because we were meant to put ourselves in "John Doe" and "Jane Doe's" shoes? If we were... it didn't work for me. The story felt like just a long stream of consciousness from two different people and I didn't like it. There were so many tangents in each of their letter confessions that I sometimes forgot what they were initially trying to talk about. It also astounded me that anyone could write a letter so long. I know it was all in the name of story but it made it hard to pause the story and then jump back into it later when I was in the middle of John or Jane's thoughts.
Overall it was an okay read but not something I'd ever buy for myself.

I really enjoyed the first 90% of this book. I didn't have a good understanding of the premise besides the movie preview so it was definitely not what I was expecting, in a good way. I liked the witty dialogue and using the letters as the vessel. My issue came with when they meet and actually interact, it felt like something about them fell apart and became cringey.

I was very excited to listen to this book after seeing the movie previews. However, the story fell a bit short of my expectations. The narrators kept me entertained the entire story and the unique way that each character's stories were told through letters was intriguing. But I did find myself asking what just happened during any given letter. It seemed like the story was built on the shock factor and trying to have one character one up the other the whole time. I did not feel a major connection between these two characters and their time together felt strained and traumabonded.
I did find their stories individually to be entertaining, but when the two main characters were together I did not have the same interest.

i absolutely loved jane and will! their conversations and banter and undercover flirting had me hooked from the very beginning!

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 3.5⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: romance📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
A fun and enjoyable romance that fell a little short for me.

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Romantic comedies
Character driven plots
Friends to lovers
Realistic romance

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
The letters were fun

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
Its a little predictable
The romance felt a little forced
I feel like not much really happened

I enjoyed the narration, It really helped the story flow and made listening to the letters more fun

Not your typical rom com…but nonetheless I LOVED IT and now I can’t wait to see the movie! This book shows how two very flawed people can come together and share their pasts without fear…and add in a lot of laughs. I highly recommend this book!!

This book just wasn't my favorite. I can't pin point exactly what. The narrators were great. I do look forward to the movie though.

This story begins with two people meeting at a wedding. Both feel that “spark”, but John doesn’t want to rush. He suggests they write letters to each other making confessions as a way to get to know each other. This turns into them writing letters back and forth detailing their past loves. While the idea of getting to know someone via how they loved others in the past is an interesting concept, I don’t think I bought into it. It felt weird that this was all that they knew about each other and this was glaringly obviously in the end.

I did enjoy the narrators. They did a great job bringing the characters to life especially since I didn’t really like either John or Jane as people.

John and Jane meet at a wedding. They’re bored so figured what they’d spice things up in the coat room. Cooler heads prevail and they decide to do things differently and be actual friends. As they are geographically incompatible, they decide to share of themselves via letters in alternating chapters. The concept sounded interesting, for me the reality was not. I was bored and didn’t really like either John or Jane so found it hard to care about their respective story lies. I kept wondering how they got to the ages they were being so incredibly immature. This is not a really a romance and I found it tough to finish. Just not for me personally.

This was a bit of a dull read. The majority of the book are letters between John and Jane about their own previous relationships. Lots and lots of stories I couldn’t care less for.

Thanks NetGalley for an audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

I don't ever rate anything a 3 star, but man this story....it just didn't do anything for me. I thought since Netflix was making it into a show or movie that it would be a great story. I listened all the way through, but nope...it wasn't for me.

I am a romance reader and maybe that is the problem. This wasn't really a romance until the end. I had a really hard time liking Jane from the get go. Learning her romantic past didn't really help and I think if I was John I would have stayed away. Not that he didn't come with his own baggage.

This was an interesting premise, but it dragged for me and I didn't love the characters all that much.

The narrators did a good job. I wasn't a huge fan of their voices since I felt like Jane sounded too old and John too young, but they told the story well.

This book was just not for me! It was a really cool concept but just fell flat for me! I’m interested to see how this plays out on the big screen.

you know that tiktok trend where they ask people "what gives you the ick"
this.. this book gives me the ick.

the story almost has my attention in the begining where our two main characters fail to hookup in a coat closet at a wedding they dont want to be at. They decide that instead of hooking up they will send confessions about their sex lives to eachother so that they get to know each other more.

The narration is quite boring, you dont actually learn anything of substance about our MCs .. I learned one has an issue with PE (aka the too quickly issues), she really liked hooking up with a boy at school and any boy who would let her. and basically similiar confessions to this continue until they meet again to see if they are soul mates (why confessing these things would make you think you havea soul mate is odd to me)

(also they never actually repeated ttheir names Jane and John .. so i totally forgot until writing the review who they are )

I grew tired of the concept of the book which was sharing confessions so quickly in the book I only finished it so I could hope they ended up alone forever in their misery and boringness. How this became a movie is astounding.

The narration was very off for me and the characters from the beginning were so so odd and unlikeable.

I love quirky characters but this was too much. And I’m not sure whether it’s just the way the narration was done or the writing.

This book was just ok for me. It took a little bit to get used to the back and forth in letter form between the two main characters. And at times I thought I may have liked the book better if I hadn’t listened to the audio. The narrators just didn’t do it for me. I really didn’t feel like their voices were a good representation of the characters. Jane and John seem way more quirky, I just feel the narrators fell a little flat with this book unfortunately.

I am looking forward to the movie though, I will definitely be watching it!

***Thank you Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for an ARC copy in return for an honest review***

At the 53% mark I decided to not finish the audiobook.
I really enjoyed the first 40% or so, the writing was great and it was really funny. The premise of the story is a great one, and I liked that the characters were both kind of messy and not the usual polished romance book characters.
But even then there were a few moments that bothered me: the male character making fatphobic comments about his first girlfriend, saying that he finds oral sex degrading for women, weird comments about classism, him cheating on her "with thinner girls" - all of that is being reflected upon by the character though, and he does see that his behaviour is shitty, so I was able to see past it.
But then there were several moments where offensive language was used for disabled and little people, and a deeply problematic story about his latina girlfriend. A fight turns violent, and later he writes that he "wanted to slap her so badly, I wanted to slap the pretty off her face". In her next letter the female main characters recounts an experience of violence by one of her exes, and doesn't challenge Johns behaviour at all.
I don't think this character will be able to redeem himself for me as a reader, and while this is not a review of a character, obviously, but about the story, the writing and the audio production - writing a character like this and clearly not challenging his beliefs and actions in this genre is simply outdated and offensive. This story should have been edited before rereleasing it in this day and age, or probably should not have been rereleased at all. I hope that the screenwriters didn't let any of this into the movie version. It's such a shame, because the premise was amazing and the humor initially funny - but all of that leaves a bitter taste later.

The narrators were really good, although the female narrator's voice, that sounded like a young Dolly Parton to me, took some getting used to.