I confess myself a bit let down. After falling head over heels for Lia Louis's other books, I expected the same here but it fell flat a little bit. Despite me not normally liking the soulmate trope, I love that her books always had a little bit of this mystical, meant to be, element in the love story. In comparison, the plot, setting, and trope of this one felt mundane.

SO, the good: Jack! Loved him! Ralph!! I adore you! Cate! You are divine. Petra, boss. These side characters were so lovable and amazing.

The not so good: Millie went on an on about missing Alexis, someone we never even MET until she showed up right at the very end?! The weird tension with her parents. All of the miscellaneous characters at the office who I did not care about at all? It was just too much clutter and it took away from the main story.

I'm still not out on Lia Louis, I loved her other books enough that I will try again, but this one was not a slam dunk for me. Obviously she's a good enough writer that it pulled out a 3 star from me, but I was just expecting a lot more.

A delicious and fun rom com. Great escape read!
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book hooked me at first as it was an interesting plot that we all could have to deal with one day - emails accidentally being sent. However I felt it dragged on and on and I lost interest.

This book just checked all the boxes of things I love in books! First, relatability: Millie’s anxiety and embarrassment over her email situation was so palpable AND relatable. Second, humor: I laughed out loud soo many times during this book. This is my first book by the author and I plan to read her backlog!

I enjoyed Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis, but it felt like it lacked the emotion her books usually have. I’m used to the romance not happening to the very end, but I’m usually invested in the emotional aspect of the story. This was slow going but I liked the email element even though I had the worst secondhand embarrassment for her LOL. I enjoy this author’s work as a whole, this just wasn’t my favorite.

Millie Chandler's email draft folder is full of messages she will never send telling the people in her life - family, friends, colleagues, ex-boyfriends - exactly how she feels about them. Writing the emails is cathartic, and there's no harm done to the recipients - until somehow, one night, all of the emails are sent in one fell swoop. Suddenly, Millie is having to do damage control in every area of her life, and especially in her romantic life.

I really enjoyed this. Millie is a character we can all relate to, and her mortifying situation elicits immediate sympathy. I loved the workplace setting, and the relationships Millie has there. I also really enjoyed following her journey as she handles this massively embarrassing situation with grace and humility and learns a few things along the way. I also found Millie funny and laughed quite a bit as I was reading.

I had an e-ARC from Netgalley and read part of the book that way and the rest on audio The narrator, Ashley Tucker, did a phenomenal job bringing Millie's voice to life. I would recommend Better Left Unsent to fans of Sophie Kinsella, whose books also have relatable protagonists who often find themselves in awkward situation.

I am a huge fan of Eight Perfect Hours so I had high expectations for this new novel from Louis, Better Left Unsent, and it so such a great read. This book was an incredible heart-warming, charming and funny take on a twist of a romcon in which our female MC has her "vent-mail" unintentionally sent without her knowledge to a bunch of people in her life, aquiantances, friends, family, and foe alike. I found this unique concept to be so enjoyable and with that extra touch of romance, an overall 5 star read.

I loved this book!! It was delightful, very different, the characters were well developed and very likeable. The plot was believable endearing. I found myself excited read it each night. I loved it!

4.5 stars rounded up!

Millie Chandler leads a pretty standard life - until the 100+ emails she had in her drafts that run the gamut from declarations of longing for her ex-boyfriend and his new fiance, to dressing down a sexist coworker, to frustrations with her friends get sent out when her company's servers crash. Now that Millie's innermost thoughts are out in the world, the only thing she can do it move forward and try to put things right.

This was such a fun book! There is just something about a British rom-com that scratches an itch for me and this was so charming. Millie was so sweet and I felt for her in so many ways - her embarrassment that her emails got out, her longing for love, her feelings of inadequacy that she isn't living up to her parents' dreams for her. The premise and plot were so entertaining and I loved seeing Millie work through the aftermath of the email incident, and watch her relationships change and develop in new ways as a result. There were so many great characters, from Millie's boss Petra, to her best friend Cate and flatmate Ralph, and of course, swoony Jack. This was just so heartwarming, fun, and made me laugh and my heart clench in equal measure.

TW: Mention of cheating, alcoholism, gaslighting, manipulation

This was cute and quick and bordered more on contemporary fiction for me. I read it in one afternoon while at the pool.

I love Lia Louis and I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. I think my main issue was that I didn't feel any chemistry between our hero and heroine, which made me a little less invested than I wanted to be.

The ideas and concepts of this one were promising as well, but something about it just felt a little boring! I wanted more emotional buildup as the story went on, but I just felt like it was dragging! UGH! I wanted it to be so good and it just didn't hit the heights I wanted it to. I'll still keep reading this author's books, but this wasn't a win for me.

The weirdest thing about this book was that I was concurrently reading "I Hope This Finds You Well" and it was almost the same story. A female employee accidentally sends scandalous messages out at work and a male coworker tries to help them fix it. It was okay. I felt like Millie was very immature.

Imagine you used your email drafts as a way to speak your mind to annoying people and journal your most private thoughts - then the emails all get sent…. Oooooffff.
I absolutely love Louis and while this wasn’t my fave of hers, it was romantic and touching. A little lighter and funnier than her previous books!

Can you imagine writing emails to your family,work colleagues, the boss you ‘like’ and everyone else in your life…..but putting exactly what you would say to them if you could, then keeping them all secret in a safe folder……then one day you wake to find out a server error has sent them, to everyone…..nightmare…..well this happens to Millie and to say her life is turned on it’s head is no exaggeration as friend/foe and everyone in between suddenly finds out what she really thinks of them
It is, of course, a disaster and you can’t help but put yourself in Millie’s shoes as she walks into work the next day…..but as the story progresses she turns it to her advantage and a love story emerges from within the chaos, Millie being Millie though it doesn’t happen without many complications
This is a fun,lol romantic comedy but with surprising depth and emotion and it was a joy to meet Millie and get to know her and be with her through a terrible time ( although funny ) and see how her life changed
The author’s writing was great to read and loved the way she described lovely comforting smells and also described a stray dog having Robert Smith from The Cure’s eyes!
I really felt I shared this bumpy journey with Millie and was pleased to be there, a very enjoyable book!

Thank you Net Galley for the early copy of this book. Cute, office romance. I like my books with characters that don't have too much drama in their lives and this one fits the bill and opened the door into television productions.

Title: Better Left Unsent
Author: Lia Louis
Genre: Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5

So many ways to torpedo your career and your love life…So little time.

Two years ago, thirty-year-old receptionist Millie Chandler had her heart spectacularly broken in public. Ever since, she has been a closed book, vowing to keep everything to herself—her feelings, her truths, even her dreams—in an effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.

But Millie does write emails—sarcastic replies to her rude boss, hard truths to her friends, and of course, that one-thousand-word love declaration to her ex who is now engaged to someone else. The emails live safely in her drafts, but after a server outage at work, Millie wakes up to discover that all her emails have been sent. Every. Single. One.

As every truth, lie, and secret she’s worked so hard to keep only to herself are catapulted out into the open, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused, and face everything she’s ever swept under the carpet.

First of all, can you imagine if this happened to you? I’d have to quit my job and move away where no one knew me. I almost stopped reading about 20% in because I wasn’t totally invested in the story, but…I really liked Jack. He was great! I loved how supportive of Millie he was and how he treated her. That was well-worth reading!

Lia Louis lives in the U.K. Better Left Unsent is her newest novel.

Such a lovely lovely story! I adored Eight Perfect Hours, but I'm not sure if I love this one more, so now I will just say I adore Lia Louis and her stories. One of the best authors I've read and will continue to read as long as she's writing. I would give this 10 stars if I could. Please read it!

Thank you to Atria Books, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, and NetGalley for sharing such a wonderful book. All opinions are my own.

Better Left Unsent is a sweet rom-com based on a worst nightmare! Millie deals with the stresses of work and life by treating her drafts folder as her diary and writing her thoughts in emails she never plans on sending. However, when years of the email drafts get sent out overnight, her world is turned upside down! Secrets and hard truths come into the light, and Millie must decide how to move forward.

The premise of this book is so creative and engaging! I often tell my therapy clients to write out their thoughts either in a journal or letters they never plan on sending. The idea of those getting out make my stomach drop! I enjoyed the characters and that the story focused not just on the romantic relationship but all of the relationships in Millie's life, including the one with herself. Overall, it was a fun read that reminded me of an adult Harriet the Spy.

This book is adorable. I laughed out loud, but it is also heartwarming. The characters are endearing and it was easy to cheer for a happily ever after ending. I will recommend this for other adult readers, especially those who enjoy adult rom-com.

This is an absolutely adorable, wonderful romance! Louis is so good at coming up with hilarious little one liners sprinkled throughout her books. ( I'm a good person! I rinse my recyclables!). This is a quiet, low steam book that's very current with lots of tech talk, but in a way that we are all familiar with. There's also mixed media with lots of emails and text messages sprinkled throughout. I really enjoyed this book!