If you are looking for romantic retelling of Beauty and the Beast look no further because Mae Bennett's debut has it covered for you!

Read this for:
- Enemies to lovers
- Forced proximity
- Grumpy/sunshine
- Plus size rep
- Roommates
- Workplace

Bellamy Price is forced to take lead on a huge job that could mean big things for her and her Dad. She moves into the Killington Estate to take on restorations and immediately has issues with the recluse of a grandson Oliver Killington.

Bellamy and Oliver do not see eye to eye and the tension between the two at first is more along enemy territory. As Bellamy keeps moving forward on her project, Oliver and her are forced into situations that make them be together. They start to get to know one another and Bellamy begins to realize that there is so much more to Oliver than a big brooding grumpy man. He has a traumatic past that he starts to open up to her about.

The two navigate the challenges of the restoration and are forced to be roommates because of these challenges throwing them together even more. There are also some fun side characters from the butler, to the chef, to a sassy teenager who all work at the house. And you can't forget about the intrusive AI program Bl8z3 who provided some funny character moments.

The chemistry between Bellamy and Oliver continues to build as does their relationship. Bellamy finds herself opening up to Oliver and letting him into her heart more than anyone else before. The problem is that the job is temporary and each of their paths diverge away from one another.

I enjoyed the grumpy/sunshine dynamic because it was so fun. Oliver ended up being a true softy and I really loved seeing him work through his trauma. Bellamy also was able to move through her past issues and find the love she deserved.

Thank you to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

I really wanted to like this but sadly it was just all over the place. No magic or chemistry among the main characters. Very progressive writing but it just didn’t click. The best friends and AI were the best part!

There are better Beauty and the Beast retellings out there.

For a story that has been retold a great number of times, existing as a mediocre addition to the pile is fine. There’s no requirement that every retelling be amazing or fantastic. And, to be fair, I think there’s some worth to the story—if you’re a Beauty and the Beast fan and you’re really searching for a story that’s going to be more relatable to you, this book can definitely achieve that for a lot of people. Is it a great literary work? Nah, not so much. Is it engaging and entertaining? Sure.

I think the biggest issue I had with <i>Barely Even Friends</i> was that it feels like one of those knock off brand movies that you kind of enjoyed but you’d never watch again. It’s a doofy rom com with silly and recognizable tropes that many of us readers are eager and ready to be here for. It’s fun, it’s escapism. And it’s perfectly alright for a book to be that. I watch terrible romance films every December for a reason.

But that’s really all it is. Character development, while there, is minimal. Some of the tropes are incredibly silly and cheesy. It’s great to love that for what it is, but in this case it just didn’t bring out the emotions that I need in order to be able to praise what does genuinely kind of fall into terrible rom com territory.

Ultimately, the only thing you’re here for or really going to get out of this story is <i>the romance</i>. The side characters are very one-dimensional, and while good things might happen to a few of them, there’s really no growth to be seen there. The majority of these characters aren’t even present for vast chunks of the novel, flitting in and out as they may. It’s a story about two characters falling in love. It’s a story about a lot of miscommunication, which can be annoying at times, but is okay if you really get that emotional character attachment.

I enjoyed the book. I didn’t love it. And that’s alright—I’m know there are those who will.

It starts as a pretty straightforward retelling of the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast (if you're of a certain age, you probably started humming the tune as soon as you see the title!), but definitely has more emotional depth, dealing with some tough family dynamics. Grumpy Oliver and cheerful Bellamy make a good match, slowly giving each other reason to breach their emotional walls. The curious, quirky assortment of side characters deserve more backstory than Bennett gives them; the contemporary family dynamics are really the only modern twist.

Full disclosure: I was excited to read this book— something about a historical home restoration girlie butting heads and eventually falling in love with the grumpy owner of the estate in question sounded so fun. I love the tropes that Barely Even Friends promised and couldn’t wait to dive in. I genuinely feel bad about how much I disliked and was disappointed by this book.

The best way that I could describe this book is that it’s almost exactly what it says on the box. She’s sunshiney, he’s grumpy and sad, those are almost the full extent of their personalities, and also it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling. The things that aren’t advertised are exactly how literally the Beauty and the Beast story is told (without any magic, as this is a contemporary romance) and how suspiciously closely many of the characters align with a certain Star Wars reboot.

The constant frustration that I felt over the fact that the main conflict of this book is that Bell is a woman cannot be overstated. While it was a good jumping off point that she had jumped in to take her father’s place on the job and it was unexpected by everyone involved when she showed up, it felt like we were just going in circles over and over again. Bell’s struggles to be seen as a professional absolutely baffled me. She assumes that her blossoming romance with the owner’s grandson will cause conflict in her career and with the rest of her team, as if no one has been watching this all happen? Like girliepop just assumes that everyone will assume that she’s sleeping her way to a successful project when that literally would never happen on a job site (in a firm, this absolutely happens, but not on an in-person job like this). I completely empathize as a woman in the industry, but her energy was really being spent on the wrong worry, rather than on the even more frustrating fact that her employer demanded that she be supervised and reported on by his grandson.

The dialogue is absolutely garbage (the main love interest ends almost every conversation with “I’m cursed”), to the point where many of the exchanges felt like video game dialog, wherein they were just repeating previous conversations until some other plot point is accomplished.

Unfortunately, almost every character fell incredibly flat, beyond the two main characters. The full cast includes a gay best friend with a wild sex life that only serves as comic relief, a weird AI butler who would disappear for long stretches and only appear randomly, meddling staff who literally serve no purpose in the plot aside from trying to push the two main characters together at points that felt weird in the story.

There were also multiple instances where I had to backtrack because characters would be in one location and then suddenly appear in another with no mention (he’s sleeping on the couch! Wait! Now they’re in bed together, just in the middle of the conversation, as if he’s been there the whole time!). I feel like I could excuse this happening once, but it happened enough that I just started to ignore it.

Overall, this book really felt like it was trying to be too many things and wasn’t creative in its approach. What seemed to be an exciting concept that was really different from other contemporary books that I’ve read recently ending up being just a disappointing read that I felt secondhand embarrassed the entire time.

i’m a huge fan of beauty and the beast so I was excited for a retelling. I appreciated the concept and as someone that’s currently renovating a home, I enjoyed those details. I’m excited to see what Mae writes next.

It's my fault. I requested without realizing this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Themed retellings, I can do, but actual retellings where names and situations are the same just pull me out of the story. It's well written and cute, but not for me.

From the first page I fell in love with this book and its leading lady. As a HUGE beauty and the beast fan, this book checked all the boxes. It wasn’t too close to the original BUT it took a really fun modern twist. I look forward to reading more books by Mae Bennett.

I am all for a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but I really struggled with this book. The premise just felt way too over the top. I was fine with Bellamy renovating a historical house like the Killington Estate, but Oliver Killington's talking AI was too reminiscent of Jarvis. I wanted to focus on the relationship between grumpy Oliver and Bellamy, but I was getting too distracted by all of the side characters. The whole book just felt too cliche, and I couldn't finish reading it.

This is what dreams are made of!! Barely Even Friends is one of the most well written and authentic Beauty and the Beast retellings I’ve had the pleasure of reading.

I also loved getting to read Mae's writing and her characters. I couldn’t get enough of this book and tried to go as slow as possible in order to stay with Bellamy and Oliver more!

Bellamy shows up to the Killington estate ready to tackle her biggest renovation project yet, all on her own. She has been working under her father for years, but with his recent health issues it’s time for Bellamy to take the reins. Unfortunately, Olivier the grumpy caretaker and heir to the Killington fortune is not pleased to see her. But Bellamy is determined she has been hired to do a job and her bottom line and reputation is on the line. Over time Bellamy softens Oliver and they grow close during this modern retelling of beauty and the beast.

This wasn’t really my cup of tea - but if you love beauty and the beast and grumpy/sunshine this book is right up your alley. The prose was good but the story didn’t quite suck me in. Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A spicy Beauty and the Beast retelling with a Succession type of twist. It was really fun watching Bellamy and Oliver's relationship grow and watching Bellamy grow more confident in her abilities. I do wish we had seen more of the growth and had less snippets, but it worked with the length of the book.

This was a difficult book to review - and a difficult one to get through.

I enjoyed the plus size representation and I actually thought the steamy scenes were written really well.
I enjoyed the character writing in most of the second half of this book, however, I came close to DNF’ing it at least 3 times in the first half and if I wasn’t planning on reviewing it, I probably would have done so.

The snarky, juvenile “banter” of the first half didn’t work for me - I found Bellamy’s friends really annoying, the constant “growling” by Oliver exaggerated to the point of being ridiculous and Bellamy’s unprofessional attitude a bit too annoying. I also felt the Beauty and the Beast retellings which work well are usually subtle in their adaptations, and this was not subtle at all - it felt like I was reading a Modern AU fan fiction of the original story.

It is difficult - because in the second half, both of them actually start acting like complicated people, with motivations, feelings and consideration of one another and I wish more of the book was like that. That part had so much potential.

I would recommend this to readers who don’t mind a “contemporary romance enemies to lovers” and the type of “banter” which comes with it, but if you are tired of this in your romance, this may be a skip for you.

I appreciate this a debut novel and based on the acknowledgements, the author seems like a really sweet person - I hope we get the chance of seeing more books from them and see their writing grow even better with their next book.

This debut novel has a lot going for it: a swoony romance, hot sex scenes, and wonderful fat representation. It's very enjoyable as long as you fully suspend your disbelief and don't ask questions about how the crumbling mansion has an AI assistant wired into every room. I wish it had gotten a tougher edit because this story has so much heart but is undermined by writing tics that an editor should have caught. The constant mentions of the main character's suspenders, the comically evil grandfather character, the unconvincing miscommunication breakup... it feels like a paperback rom-com rushed through the editing process at the expense of the author and the reader. Mae Bennett has a lot of promise and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

Bellamy and her father own a home restoration company focussing on historic homes. When the wealthy Killington family contracts them to restore their crumbling New York estate, it is the chance of a lifetime. While Maurice already has a name for himself in the business, this will be Bellamy's first solo project and an opportunity to make a name for herself, maybe even open doors to her dream job! What she wasn't counting on was the grumpy Oliver Killington living on-site in the dilapidated manor, after all no one had seen him in eight years. He can make or break this project, and Bellamy will be damned if she lets an arrogant trust fund baby stand in her way of success. As they spend more time together, though, they begin to realize that they have misjudged each other, and instead of anger, a different kind of sparks begin to fly.

Mae Bennett's novel is a masterpiece! With subtle hints to the classic Beauty and the Beast, this love story has it all: forced proximity, humor, enemies to lovers, and so many spicy scenes! I read the entire novel one day because I couldn't put it down! I had to know what was going to happen next! The supporting characters of the novel are unforgettable, and they make you wish that you had friends as great as them! The romance was a slow build, and I loved seeing the main characters' perspectives of each other change over time until they both realized they loved the other. 5/5 for me. I highly recommend this novel to any romance novel fan!

Disclaimer: While I received a free advanced copy of this novel, my thoughts and opinions are mine alone.

» dnf @ 28%

i didn't read far enough into this to give a whole long review on it but it was falling even more flat with every page i turned. the writing style wasn't for me, the characters annoyed me, i didn't feel chemistry, and the plot was just boring.

with all that being said i do think a certain type of reader would enjoy this. i don't know what type but .. A type. does that make sense?

anyway, cover's cute.

thank you to netgalley & the publisher for an arc! (review not posted on gr)

I was hopeful that this book would be really good but it just fell flat for me. I loved how it was a twist on Beauty and the Beast but it also came off as really forced to matched parts of that storyline. I loved the idea of a female contractor, her being larger in size, and I did love how generous Oliver was. However, so much of the book was cheesy and forced. I didn’t feel any chemistry between the two characters, which made this a bit harder to read through. The two best friends also were just very unnecessary and it felt like they were added as diversity characters. Overall it’s a fine book, it just could’ve been better. The description overpromised and the book underdelivered. 3⭐️, 2🌶

I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!

The premise behind this plot is what drew me in initially. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale and I love when one of the main plot points includes fixing up and caring for an old house (and maybe fixing up and caring for someone else who is damaged....). The house itself is it's own character that shows our characters that they can't control every aspect of their life. Sometimes it felt like I was getting whiplash from the relationship between our lovebirds, as they went from hating each other to being obsessed with each over in seemingly split seconds. They both had to do some individual reflection before being ready for each other and I think that was super important to me in this story and made their relationship more believable.

This book which is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast just didn’t land for me. The writing style wasn’t my favorite and it was a bit more campy than I was looking for.

This will be a fun read for people who love the original story and enjoy suspended belief in their books!