it’s honestly poetic how everything is compared to song especially the love. julie soto always putting me in my feels making me feel smiles in my toes


“ But don’t let anyone tell you what you’re capable of. Even if it sounds like a compliment.”


“ “Tell me I can see you again,”

“It’s about a cello who fell in love with a violin.”

JULIE SOTO, THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE.

I inhaled this book in less than 24 hours.

HOW COULD SOMEONE MASTERFULLY WRITE THAT LEVEL OF TENSION IS BEYOND ME.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved Julie Soto's first book "Forget Me Not," but I think that between the two, this one became my favorite.

For me, the highlight of this book is the connection that the main characters manage to find through music. This connection that appears between them allows both Gwen and Alex to grow as people and as musicians. The tension between these two in the first 55% of the book had me at the edge of my seat. There came a point where I was ready to throw the book (my poor tablet) across my bedroom if these two idiots didn't kiss once and for all.

Gwen is such a sweetheart, I loved her character so much and all the growth she has in this book. I wasn't very sure about Alex at first, but as the book progressed and he became more and more crazy about Gwen, I was rooting for him.

One of the few problems I had with the book is that the first time they have sex, the author resorts to using musical terms, and at first, I thought it was okay, but then I just cringed too hard. Aside from that, I loved all the scenes between them when they become a couple. It happens more often than not that I lose interest after the first time the protagonists have sex, but this time I was living for all the comfy scenes. I loved having the opportunity to see them being a couple and composing and creating music together.

I didn't completely like the last 20% of the book if I'm being honest. I felt that their discussion was quite valid, but the way they both handled things was very stupid. Not only that, but the reconciliation seemed very poor to me. But well, I was very moved by the final scene where everyone plays together.

So, overall, it was a great romance book that I will be recommending nonstop. Julie Soto has become one of my auto-buy authors.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.

When I saw that this book was listed at "Read Now" on NetGalley, I rushed so fast to pick it up and start reading it. The speed in which I finished this book is incredible. I simply devoured this book. There's no other way to say it.

The sexual and romantic tension between Gwen and Alex/Xander is SO GOOD.

And can we just talk about the cover real quick? Because we see that scene played out and OMG. When I first saw the cover, I thought it was so beautiful, but reading the characters in that scene put me on Cloud 9.

My favorite trope is hate-to-love relationships (not in real life, of course. This is only acceptable in fictional stories). And Julie Soto did NOT disappoint in delivering a perfectly hate-to-love relationship. And if you're annoyed about third-act break ups, don't worry because even though there is one, this one makes sense to the story. (Because don't you hate when the hero and heroine break up for really no reason??)

Also, having music as the theme of the book was just another amazing way of adding to the complexity and beauty of the relationship.

I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!!

I absolutely devoured this book. Julie Soto is becoming an automatic buy author for me. The characters are well developed and genuinely interesting. I love the evolvement of Gwen and Alex’s relationship and that the third act breakup was not for no reason or miscommunication but truly because of things that had already been happening in the relationship

While I enjoyed Forget Me Not, I think Not Another Love Song might have just edged it out. The scenes of Alex and Gwen playing and composing together in his studio were so romantic. I devoured this. Sometimes Alex was a bit frustrating, as he did kind of seem like he felt he knew best and Gwen should be told. But he seemed to get over that by the end.

I received access to the netgalley book on April 1st. I was intrigued by the premise and was looking for something to read.
I read 80% of this book in one sitting and stopped only cause I had to work the next day. I just finished, and read any chance I had while at work.
From here on out, this review may contain spoilers:

I absolutely loved Gwen and Alex’s chemistry. All I wanted was to see them finally together and I was happy we didn’t have to wait til the very end for that.
I am not a fan of the unreliable narrator, but that’s mostly because I prefer first person POV when reading romance novels.
I loved to learn more about the world of professional musicians in their league. I also really liked how relatable some of the things Gwen goes through or thinks about throughout the book.
I do have some issues with how things were resolved because I really wish Nathan and Lorenz should have met a more satisfying ending than what we had. I needed vindication for what they did to Alex and Gwen and Mabel and Ava. But I was ok with the ending given.
I would still give 5 stars because I absolutely loved seeing these two on page and dreaded the chapters they were apart.
Will continue to read as much as possible available from Julie Soto!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Julie Soto is an absolute master of her craft. I first fell in love with Forget Me Not, so much so that I got Amaryllis flowers tattooed on my skin to forever be reminded of Elliot and Ama.

Not Another Love Song is no different. This story was beautiful. Absolutely stunning, I’m at a loss for words. These two characters brought me something and somewhere I didn’t know I needed to be. This love story was one for the record books.

The spice was beautiful. Can you say beautiful about 2 people coming together in perfect harmony? Absolutely you can. The way it was described on page.. made me FEEL. It was magical. Alex (Xander) and Gwen were perfect for each other. They overcame so much together and created beautiful, moving, heart racing music together. It was lovely to watch their story unfold.

I also learned a lot about music, the cello, violin, and the Manhattan orchestra.. which you might say “Courtenay, that wasn’t the point..” but really it made the story just that much better.

I can’t wait for everyone to be able to read and appreciate this book. It was everything I could have asked for. Going to cry now.

🎵 Rivals to Lovers
🎵 Musical Romance
🎵 Slow Burn
🎵 Spice
🎵 Forced Proximity
🎵 “Rockstar” Romance

I loved Forget Me Not, so I was excited to see another book by Julie Soto. Thank you to Julie, the publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC just in time for spring break!

The writing was just as good as Forget Me Not, and overall I liked the time the author took developing the relationship between the two characters. The chemistry she creates between them is addictive, and the backdrop (as dueling members of an orchestra) is delightful. I devoured this book in a sitting.

There were a few things that bother me in hindsight: the lack of communication on both main characters' parts, leading to a third-act breakup (one of my least favorite tropes). I also know this started at Reylo, but sometimes it was just a little too much Reylo and I had to work to not just picture those actors in this story. All told, I still think the fun I had reading this book was worth it. I will absolutely be returning to Julie Soto's books again with enthusiasm.

OMG OMG OMG. I DEVOURED this book.
What an amazing story! I seriously loved all of the music references as I play piano myself, but I do think for someone who doesn’t play an instrument, those could be kind of confusing. I loved the main characters, both were so complex with such an unknown interconnected history. And I just loved Declan, he was my favorite side character.

I had a list of approximately eight things I needed to get done yesterday and I did zero of them because I read this in one sitting and could not be stopped. Someone could have been giving away free trips to Cancun outside my window and I would not have noticed. Even the 3rd person POV, normally a deal-breaker for me, was an absolute slam dunk. The minute this man started providing her with iced vanilla lattes I knew it was a 5 star read, ok. I'm a simple gal. I like vanilla iced coffees. I do not understand people's obsession with Adam Driver but frankly it doesn't matter.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this, it was one of my most anticipated of the year and definitely lived up to my expectations. A lovely start to April!

I need a man like Alex in a way that’s concerning to feminism and this revelation came as a surprise to me.

Here’s two reasons why I’m surprised I loved this :

#1 : I’m not a Star Wars fanfic girly or a Reylo shipper.

This book feels MUCH more fan fiction to published work than her debut, Forget Me Not. I feel like I noticed the Reylo much more heavy handed in the beginning where we’re learning about the setting and backstory of both Gwen and Xander.

#2 : They’re rivals and rivalries tend to seem unreasonable to me in contemporary romance.

THIS was valid. Every issue the two of them had with each other had so much merit and I could understand exactly why either of them felt the way they did. Their rivalry is well founded and it creates a tension that is so juicyyyy and delicious.

Gwen is a great representation of a talented woman who gets imposter syndrome. Alex feels like a genuinely pained man going through an identity crisis related to his ‘gifted child’ syndrome. Because of this, Julie Soto has become an auto-buy author. I look forward to seeing her work progress even further out of the fan fiction trope space and into the truest iteration of her style.

Also, the Ama and Elliott cameos had my heart.

So thankful to have gotten the chance to read one of my most anticipated books early! Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for this <3

thanks so much for the ARC!!
sophomore novels always make me nervous but i enjoyed this book by Ms. Soto! i adored ama and elliot and therefore really enjoyed their early cameos :) also as a reader, it was a gentle introduction to a new couple - as a romance reader i *love* getting to see what my fave couples are up to now (also why i adore epilogues!!)

anyways.

angst was soooo good. i loved the pacing of the book. and gwen's relationship w her roommate/bestie.

what didn't work for me were the music metaphors during the spicy scenes... 'twas a bit cringe. parts of it read a lil too esoteric which is not my vibe. there was a lot of lust but no relationship development? i don't understand why they like eachother

I received an ARC of this from NetGalley. Honest review incoming

This book was the equivalent of falling in lust with that hot guy at your job

The chemistry? Off the charts. You could feel it off the page.
the tension? Some of the best I have felt in years.
The cello scene? Could have been cringe but was hot.

but in the middle everything becomes mid. There is no in depth conversations outside of work or their mutual hobby. I pressed on because the first 60% of the relationship was so wonderful the ending and the climax have to be worth it, right?

Instead it becomes so bland and lackluster I started to find minor annoyances, the man never becomes grand just stays stuck in an emo teen syndrome.

The banter is lost, the tension is faded. The duels I were promised never happened.


Gwen: Loved her but her personality disappeared half way in.

Alex/Xander: he felt so hot at first, but became way to emo to me. Rich boy stuck in some kind of mood he cant leave since his teen years.

They never had a conversation longer than 20 minuets, zero depth, and mostly listen to my tragic backstory (not so tragic). There wasnt really a plot either, and the third act-you-know-what was so laughable. Like a relationship built on passion and obsession's this left me with nothing but broken promises and disappointment.

4.5 ⭐️

I've gotten much pickier about romcoms in the last couple years, and Julie Soto's writing reminds exactly what it is I love about them when done well. The balance of angst and lighthearted giddiness and self-indulgence—and horniness—strikes just right in Not Another Love Song, and the chemistry between Gwen and Xander makes this book incredibly binge-able.

This story is very visibly an adapted Reylo fanfiction, not just in its characters' physical descriptions, but in their characterizations, but I think this books really succeeds in taking those archetypes and adding a level of depth that makes them feel very real and very human. It doesn't fall into the trap of leaning too heavily into the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, nor did it overemphasize the "tall/smol" dynamic that often dominates Reylo. These physical features are still present, but they didn't feel particularly fetishized.

I had some concerns about the way Gwen and Xander perceived each other through much of the book, where it felt like they weren't fully understanding one another—particularly Gwen making a lot of assumptions about Xander. I worried that this would carry through to the ending, but it wound up being handled in a way I found relatively satisfying, although I wish it had been addressed more thoroughly. There is a 3rd act break up, which I'm generally very picky about, but I think it was executed well here, in a way that addressed my concerns and ultimately made their relationship more convincing.

There were a few things that were a bit faster than I expected. Xander and Gwen say "I love you" much earlier than I expected, but it definitely doesn't fall into the insta-love category and I wound up actually enjoying reading a romance between characters who (eventually) make an actual effort to communicate with one another. I also found the resolution to the larger conflict to be a bit fast, where I would've loved a bit more time talking through what went down and what they need from one another moving forward. Ultimately though, none of this hampered my enjoyment of the book.

This book was an absolute delight and Julie Soto unquestionably remains one of my auto-buy authors.

I devoured this book! My kind of romance book. I’m going to read everything Julie Soto writes.
I loved Alex and Gwen together. I laughed out loud a couple of times while reading this book. I was kicking and giggling with this couple. Also, I don’t know anything about music, but I didn’t have any trouble understanding.

Thank you, Julie, for the gifted arc!!

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto is the story of Gwen Jackson, newly-appointed first chair violinist of the fictional Manhattan Pops, and first chair cellist and lead of the classical rock group, Thorne and Roses, Xander Thorne, who meet at the top of the novel when people pleaser Gwen agrees to play the cello (borrowed from Xander), instead of the instrument she came with, the violin. Xander is immediately drawn to her rendition of a fairly popular wedding tune despite criticizing her intonation afterwards. And although they have been playing in the same orchestra for over a year (Gwen has yet to be offered first chair at this point), this finally brings her to his attention. She's been aware of him much longer.

Full disclosure, I was a very big fan of this story when it was the fic, "Food of Love", so I was really excited to read this one and see how the story developed for publishing. I love fic, and I love seeing fic authors succeed in publishing, but I will say, one of my big frustrations is how the characters are rarely developed beyond the original IP. Not Another Love Song does this pretty well with a clever shift of some of the side characters and an added POV.

Things I Loved:
- The dive into the world of music, orchestras, organizational relationships. Making art takes money, y'all, and I loved the idea that they would hand the reins of the Manhattan Pops over to a 23-yr old who was pretty and could bring in more subscribers, because while it seems a bit far-fetched in some ways, it was also completely believable knowing how much the public loves a "prodigy". It became a bit heavy-handed at the end, especially the last sex scene, but I did love the comparisons of them making love and making music together, because it's a really wonderful way to illustrate how working in a creative bubble can feel.
- The tension was really great! And of course, that cello/composition scene is still sexy as hell!
- Alex/Xaden POV! The drops of his POV throughout were succinct, enlightening, and gave good insight to someone who is seemingly insufferable and rude for the first Act of the novel. They were a great addition.
- I was a little in love with the drama of the company. The dynamic of the director and original first violinist being married and holding the strings of Gwen's young career while being secretly tied to Alex/Xaden was fascinating. I just wish this could have been explored more.

I think the overall idea of the different villains of the piece coming from multiple sources generally works, especially considering the manipulation and control that is often in the current music industry through contracts and when money exchanges hands, but it felt too neatly wrapped up. Granted, this may have been the goal for the book as a whole, since the characters were a bit basic and didn't have much of an arc. They certainly find a way to stand up for themselves in different regards, effectively blowing up their lives in favor of making their own choices, one includes being able to be together, but the set-up to that, especially on Gwen's end felt lacking, other than Gwen being constantly told to be wary of a specific character. When it comes down to it, his actions seem less believable when the reveal comes.

Gwen and Alex/Xaden's tension is good, but her obsession with referring to him as Alex is a bit weird, and it almost seems akin to someone being deadnamed after they've left a different part of their life behind. She has no real understanding of why he chose the name or if he even likes it when she chooses to call him "Alex" mid-orgasm. Of course, knowing the fic, I'm aware of the Ben Solo/Kylo Ren differences here, so in that space they're a little more forgivable, but here, I would expect more of her, or him at least, to ask her not to call him that. By the time he does, it's after she's accidentally done it again in front of a reporter. This is where my frustration with fic to pub comes, because this would have played beautifully if the development hadn't completely centered around her obsession with calling him "Alex" and had maybe bloomed from that with him making that choice for her to begin calling him that in private. He does eventually make this choice, sort of, after he's practically forced to give up the name when he chooses her over the tour of his lifetime. The novel hinges on this choice by him in a sense, but I would have appreciated him having some agency in it before.

I liked Gwen and Xander/Alex, but I also found them a bit flat. It worked somewhat in the beginning as we get to know them and find them inexplicably drawn to each other, but then that seems to be where the development ends. I love a one-sided grumpy pairing, but if is wasn't for the random additions of side characters screaming at Gwen that Xander/Alex had a hard-on for her, it would have been difficult to hang in. We are eventually told by him that he struggles to express himself, but boy, would this knowledge have been more helpful to expand on a little earlier as he continues to be an absolute jerk to her in their interactions. I love misunderstandings and when characters have the wrong idea about each other, but this one dragged a little far to the point where he was almost a little hard to like until his POV came around (perhaps intentionally). And again, it's then explained away in a sense when he makes it more clear and then tells her he's always struggled to express himself in words. Something his alter ego allegedly helps him to conquer.

Gwen is a little easier to peg. She's without any family after cancer took them. She gets a job with the Pops at 18, so she's been on her own for quite some time without much of a safety net, but she's described as more of a people pleaser than someone who is struggling financially. I wish it was something she could really force Xander/Alex to understand. He has a million-dollar instrument, an apartment in Manhattan, and budding music career, and while she does mention the stability that a Pops job offers her, it's downright abysmal that she doesn't make it more clear how difficult it is for her to go elsewhere just because he wants her to go for an opportunity that sounds downright unbelievable, considering the timeline in which it happens.

Their declarations of love so early on also felt disingenuous. Or, as the chapters wore on, made genuinely worry for them, since they seemed to mean different things to them. Having two people fall in love who've also experienced a great deal of control and little leeway in their own lives felt more reckless than exciting, and I cringed a little bit when they kept saying over and over again. I could only think that they were in over their heads, but not in a good, swoonworthy way, and I would have felt better knowing the development was going to lead the story to a point where it made sense.

Gwen's friends: Mei, Jacob, and Declan are also less enticing and more fodder to fill out Gwen's character, and truly not as compelling as whatever is happening with Ava, Nathan, and Mabel. The friends are often inserted to make what's happening to her seem plausible, but end up making it less so.

Another addition to the story is the appearance of Elliot and Ama from Soto's previous story, Forget Me Not. I feel as if this may be controversial, because this seems to be really popular with fans of author's books, but I'm finding these interactions less than exciting and more of a distraction. I've enjoyed little tidbits when an author mentions a book by a fictional author they've written before, but the insertion of the characters to the story as an additional epilogue is often difficult to pull off and usually not very satisfying. It's a distraction, and I'm getting to where I'm less inclined to read those sections, because they offer nothing to the previous arc or the one at hand. I know that this is partially personal preference, since--as I said--it seems to be popular for readers to revisit characters they love, but I would love for authors to revisit these moments in a different way than to drag us into a conversation that seems completely innocuous to the story.

Not Another Love Song is a brisk, enjoyable read with some spice and exciting tension, but the tight limit of pages left the character development lacking as well as a too-brisk ending.

Wow did I devour this! This was a gorgeous and swoony story that I can’t wait to reread. The cello scene lived up to the hype.

The way I absolutely devoured this book cannot be considered healthy.
Easily a 5 star read for me.

Alex and Gwen’s dynamic had me giggling and kicking my feet the entire book
The way Alex was absolutely enamoured with Gwen and continually would (accidentally) insult her had me cackling at multiple points throughout this book

I need more Julie Soto books immediately please and thank you

This was very much Check & Mate x Wreck the Halls x Where She Went and I ate. it. up. The first 70%, I would say, was great and kicking-my-feet inducing, and I'm a LOVER of angst, but this was just far too much and for a book about STRING INSTRUMENTS lol. I can very much see that this was Julie Soto's first book (even though Forget Me Not was her debut), and it was very much AO3 in a good(ish) way. Still, I can't get over how frustrating the plot devices in this story were, to the point that they were aggravating and unenjoyable. However, the first half was great and I was having the best time! Thank you Forever and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I could not put put this book down and wanted to restart this book as soon as I finished it to spend more time with the characters! This was n incredible music rivals to lovers romance with fantastic tension, passion, and character development,