What if losing your legal identity becomes an opportunity for growth? After an offhand wish she could be nobody, Type A academic Catherine Lipton finds her life upended and her dream tenure-track job in jeopardy when she doesn’t exist on government databases. The only one who can help her is the carefree Luca Morelli and his huge Italian family and their elderly neighbours.

I really love magic realism and this had such a great premise. However I think it was let down with some characters a bit one-dimensional and the pacing slow at times that I found myself skimming as some parts. Some scenes also didn't make much sense, e.g. why were Luca and Catherine breaking into the hospital records to get her birth certificate. Given Vito’s connections why were they doing this?

I liked Catherine and big-hearted Luca together. But I wish it wasn't just Catherine doing all the growing, as Luca was a bit flaky (even if he had valid reasons for some of it). I also would’ve liked more depth on Catherine’s relationship with her dad and to see her dad start to grow up a bit. I'd love to have known more about why he chose to raise her as a single teenage dad and then was completely unstable (especially with the end reveal). I also hated Luca’s mother’s judgement of Catherine’s mother given no rebuttal. Worst still Catherine's mother was the unfeeling career woman as a catalyst for Catherine to not be like her. Where was the humanity for that character given their difficult situation at 18? Both her parents needed more fleshing out with perhaps a growth journey for Andy too.

Yet despite my issues, it was still enjoyable and I adored the uplifting found family aspect to it. While I spotted the final twist a mile off, it was nonetheless a lovely touch. If you’re after a sweet, low drama read with a subtle dash of magic realism, I would recommend this.

Thanks to Forever/Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

You'll love WISH I WERE HERE for:

• Opposites attract
• You're right where you belong
• Neighborly shenanigans
• Extended Italian Family
• A quest AND a heist
• Golden retriver MMC
• Closed door romance

Catherine's life goes from hectic to non-existent the day she wishes she was nobody. From an early age she's been the parentified child to her free-spirited father. Even now, she's still mindful of how her brand new career in academics is the only stable income between the two of them. Her anxieties are deep rooted and it'll take storm of shenanigans to shake them loose.

Enter Doorman Luca. Or rather, crash into him right off the frequently in need of maintenance elevator. He's as laid back as Catherine is scheduled. Always on a "time is relative" speed with no rush through life. And he's got a family for every favor you might need - from a cousin that let's you skip the DMV line to an offer for cracked some skulls from Uncle Vito.

Often there is an even push-pull in an opposites attract relationship. Luca does a lot of the work here to slow Catherine down. Helps her reframe her perception of success and responsibility that will allow a life full of love and a tad bit more spontaneity.

There's also some pretty deep trauma that Catherine processes throughout the book. A childhood without a sense of permanence. A mysterious absentee mother. I appreciated the work done to reframe but never invalidate Catherine's lived experience.

The supporting cast of neighbors in the DeGreco building are equally treasures and terrors. But often their shenanigans felt like filler side-quests that took away from the urgency of getting Catherine's identity mystery sorted out.

There's something magical in how Wiesner blends an intense emotional throughline with pops of hijinks and comedy. Wiesner continues to be an author I seek out looking forward to what's next.

Thank you Netgalley & Forever / Grand Central Publishing for the advance digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Luca and Catherine couldn't be more different. Catherine is a polished, serious, math professor and Luca is a vivacious, free-spirited doorman in her building. When an unfortunate mishap sends Catherine's life in freefall, she has to lean on Luca to help her through the emotional journey of finding herself.

This was a really sweet book. It read more women's fiction the first half, and the romance really kicked in the second half. This is an adorable slowburn, as Luca breaks Catherine out of her shell.

Melissa always packs her books with life lessons and self discovery, a combination for strong character development.

I loved Melissa Weisner’s book The Second Chance Year, so I was really excited for another opportunity to read one of her books!

Wish I Were Here is a charming, whimsical novel with elements of magical realism, found family, and opposites attracting. Our FMC, Catherine has lived her life as a type-A overachiever with a passion for lists and order. She gets her dream job as a tenure track math professor, only to have that dream swept away as a result of her identity disappearing seemingly overnight.

With the help of the sweet as pie, tattooed doorman of her building (and his many relatives around town), she has to get to the bottom of her missing identity to get everything back on track with her job - and her future.

I loved all the sweet secondary characters living in Catherine’s building, as well as her dad’s friends at the art space. The romance element of this book was very sweet, and I would have liked to get to know Luca even more. As someone who had to grow up quickly without a lot of parental support, I resonated with Catherine’s drive and perspective - and loved the journey she went on throughout the book. The magical realism was a very sweet touch, and made me tear up a few times. This was a lighthearted, wholesome, cozy read that I certainly enjoyed!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Forever for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fun and lighthearted rom-com with a touch of magical realism. I enjoyed the setting of an older apartment building in Pittsburgh and the relationship between serious and ambitious Catherine and fun-loving and loyal Luca. He’s a doorman for the building. She’s a soon-to-be mathematics professor. There’s one problem, her identity is missing? Not stolen, but completely wiped from all government databases. What follows is a fun, sometimes heist-like, search involving lots of Luca’s community friends and his possibly mafia-associated uncle. There’s also interactions between Catherine and her father, a literal clown, and all the burlesque dancers who helped raise her. It’s part romance, part Catherine finding her voice and standing up for herself, part heartwarming community tale, and a small part gentrification story. I enjoyed the elderly residents best and loved Catherine’s interaction with the book club at the community center. There were a few items that didn’t hold up too well for me though, bringing my rating down slightly. The humor wasn’t perfectly suited to my taste and I found the clowning a little cheesy, getting second-hand embarrassment for Catherine at times. I also predicted a few of the twists and turns. I don’t mind predictability, especially in romance, but I still like a little surprise and didn’t find that here.

The bottom line: I enjoyed this one, but found the side-characters more compelling and interesting than the main ones. That being said, I’d still read more from this author.

A wish might be just the thing for Catherine. Something she didn't know she needed. The MC starts out annoying and hard to root for. But as the story goes on, she starts to melt and is redeemed in the end. Luca is the golden retriever who everyone loves. I enjoyed this book about the community and found family.

Charming truly is the perfect word to describe Wish I Were Here, a sweet story of one woman finding herself and finding love.

Catherine is organized, dependable, and a bit stringent about rules. When things go haywire with her paperwork for her new job, she is thrown off balance and starts to see life in a different way with the help of her handsome doorman Luca.

I didn’t read the synopsis and had no idea where this one was ultimately going, and it ended up being a sweet and satisfying read. With small hints of magical realism, humorous moments thanks to Catherine’s clown of a dad, and plenty of heartwarming scenes, I adored every moment of this book. The primary focus is on self-discovery, with a side of romance, and I enjoyed Catherine’s character development.

Read if you like:
⭐️ Found family
⭐️ Reverse grumpy x sunshine
⭐️ Magical realism
⭐️ Golden retriever MMC
⭐️ Closed door romance

Thank you to Forever for the ARC. All opinions are my own,

I absolutely loved The Second Chance Year, so I was extremely excited for this new release. I love a bit of magical realism, self discovery and romance in a book, and assumed this one would be no different.

While the premise and plot are really unique, I felt like the execution fell a bit flat. This felt like a book about self discovery, with romance being a very small sub plot. I didn’t feel the MC’s had chemistry, or we really got to know the MMC at all. He felt like a very one dimensional side character so the romance on this one just didn’t work for me. I kept wishing there was more romance.

I liked this but didn’t love it. However it was very cute and I enjoyed the characters. I’d reccomend!

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this sweet and heartwarming book.
The story centers on Catherine, who is a mathematician and thrives on organization and rules. The book has a magical realism plot when Catherine suddenly no longer appears in any government or banking systems. She no longer has an identity. With the help of the charming doorman at her new apartment building, Catherine breaks out of her shell and takes risks to find herself both in a formal paperwork way and her personal inner identity.
The characters, especially Luca, the main male lead, and the other apartment complex residents were cute and funny.
The book was light, not stressful to read, and was a closed-door romance.
I think my only hesitations were how impractical it felt at times. It's hard to go into details without giving away spoilers, but there were elements that felt silly, and I thought there could have been easier solutions. I think it's a book where if you want light entertainment, it is enjoyable, but it could be easy to lose yourself in the details that certain aspects weren't realistic or practical.
Overall, it was a really sweet and touching story. It shows how you can find your community and that you can open yourself up and grow in new opportunities.

When a woman with a checklist for her checklist disappears from all government systems, the journey that unfolds is as unexpected as it is heartfelt. Wish I Were Here follows Catherine, a woman whose rigid routines and struggles with OCD have kept her anchored in her tightly wound world—until she vanishes. She soon finds herself relying on Luca, a free-spirited man from a large, vibrant community, to unravel the mystery of her missing identity.

Catherine’s meticulous nature immediately drew me in. Her obsessive need for control, stemming from past trauma, made me both empathize with her and want to scream, "Take a chill pill!" Her journey is one of learning to let go, but her father’s tight-lipped silence about her mother only adds to her frustrations—and mine as a reader. I couldn’t help but want more answers.

One of the novel’s strengths is its characters, particularly the contrast between Catherine and Luca. The romance between them is understated but beautifully organic. There’s no need for grand gestures or attempts to change the other; instead, their love quietly blossoms from a place of deep understanding and mutual respect. In a genre often defined by dramatic romance arcs, this subtlety is refreshing.

The Morelli family, Luca’s clan, feels like a "mafia fairy god family"—supportive, yet with a mischievous, larger-than-life energy that brings warmth and humor to the story. I particularly loved Lorraine and Mrs. Goodwin, who became kind of surrogate mother figures to Catherine.

The main driving force of the plot is Catherine’s identity crisis—how can someone so meticulous suddenly cease to exist in all governmental records? The mystery here kept me turning pages, but it also served as a metaphor for Catherine’s internal struggle to reclaim her own life. Her obsessive control is, at its core, a reaction to past trauma—especially her father’s refusal to talk about her mother. This secrecy creates a tension that hovers over the story and leaves me wanting more resolution.

What sets Wish I Were Here apart from other contemporary romances is its balance of quirky humor, emotional depth, and a slow-burn love story that feels grounded in reality. While the pacing sometimes felt uneven, the characters more than made up for it. Ultimately, it’s a story about learning to live in the moment, even when the past keeps knocking on the door.

For readers who love character-driven stories with a touch of magic and a lot of heart, this one’s for you.

As a big fan of the Second Chance Year, I was so excited to get my hands on this ARC! Wish I Were Here centers around Catherine Lipton, a mathematics professor who, after submitting her hiring paperwork for her dream teaching position at a university, discovers that she simply *doesn't exist*. As she begins to uncover answers around her missing identity, she works alongside her apartment's doorman, Luca (a golden retriever-like MMC), and discovers that maybe there's more to life than just a career.

Initially, I was expecting more magical realism going into this book so I found myself a bit caught off guard. As the plot and loose ends came together, my perception and opinion of this story changed--for the better. For the majority of the book, I found many of the characters insufferable and struggled to connect to the FMC. While I enjoyed how everything came together, this book was honestly a bit difficult to get through until the last 15% or so, but ultimately I feel like the resolution did make it all worth it. Overall, I loved the ending, but wish I had enjoyed it just a bit more throughout. I'm still a big fan of Melissa Wiesner's books and am eager to check out her future releases!

Thank you so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, so Melissa set up the most fun ARC group read thing ever and I had a blast reading this book after it travelled all over the country to some of my fave bookstagram pals and seeing all their notes and annotations 🥹🩷

Dr. Catherine Lipton is a recently hired mathematics professor at a local university. She grew up with her single father, but is finally feeling stable and secure on her own! She just got her own apartment in a quiet building and landed her dream job—everything is moving along great. There was a small hiccup with the doorman and another tenant on her way to her initial meeting with the chair of the mathematics department where coffee was spilled and pants were swapped, but Catherine survived and made it through!

However, a couple weeks later, Catherine arrives on campus for orientation and is told… her files are… gone….? Her background doesn’t exist anymore. Her social security number, driver’s license, birth certificate.. none of them are valid and there’s no record of her existence anywhere at all! Catherine’s world takes a major shift as she tries to navigate her new reality. However, as a bonus, the doorman of her apartment building—Luca—is by her side every step.

I liked this book a lot. It was cute and I thought the characters had chemistry (and it was closed-door!!! YAY)! Some of the conflict resolutions seemed a little too easy, but they weren’t entirely unreasonable/unbelievable. I LOVED Melissa Wiesner’s The Second Chance Year so I had really high hopes for this one, maybe my expectations were a little too high and that’s why this book felt so average to me, idk. Regardless, it was definitely enjoyable and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes a sweet lil romance novel ☺️

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Wish I Were Here by Melissa Wiesner is a rom-com of a different kind. Just when Catherine lands her dream job her world begins to fall apart. Overnight, it's as if she has become invisible and her identity no longer exists. Luca, the doorman, offers her a helping hand and she begins to think he's related to everyone in town. Over the course of the few weeks in which the story takes place, Catherine not only discovers her true identity but she also comes to realize that the most important things in life aren't things but rather the people you choose to live your life with. A beautifully written, slightly unbelievable story that I would recommend to others.

This was a cute book. I enjoyed the characters and the romance and I’m always down for a touch of magical realism. The book was a solid middle-of-the-road romance that I likely won’t remember for longer than it takes to read my next book, but it was pleasant enough. and I would recommend it to people who enjoy the genre

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the advanced reader copy All opinions are my own.

💭 ⓂⓎ ⓉⒽⓄⓊⒼⒽⓉⓈ
Romance with a touch of magical
realism is one of my favorite genres. I had really high hopes for this one and unfortunately it didn’t meet my expectations. I loved the themes in this book on self discovery, found family, and happiness, but I wanted more of a romance. I felt like the relationship between Catherine and Luca lacked some chemistry and was missing the typical warm fuzzies I get from reading a romcom. Some scenes in the book were really repetitive (the dang elevator) and the magical piece of the book just didn’t quite do it for me. I will say that it was still a cute book and I enjoyed a lot of the side characters. If you read this one let me know your thoughts!

📚 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
🧲Opposites attract
☀️Reverse grumpy sunshine
🚪Closed door romance
🪄A touch of Magical realism
🏡Found family
🤷🏻‍♀️Lost identity
➕Women in stem
💡Self discovery

🍬𝕄𝕐 ℝ𝔸𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔾🍬
⭐️⭐️⭐️

💕Q U O T E: “𝒮𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝑒𝓂 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒹𝒾𝓈𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒 𝒶 𝒷𝑒𝒶𝓊𝓉𝒾𝒻𝓊𝓁, 𝓌𝑜𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇𝒻𝓊𝓁 𝑜𝓅𝓅𝑜𝓇𝓉𝓊𝓃𝒾𝓉𝓎."

🙏 🙏 Thank you NetGalley, Forever Publishing, and Melissa Wiesner for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts. 💕

There were some really cute moments in this one. Luca was a very golden retriever mmc. His family was a funny cast of characters, and the residents of the apartment building were sweet. The ending was also pretty adorable.

I had a really hard time connecting to the main character and the romance in this book. It didn’t feel super authentic and I found Catherine to be unpleasant as a fmc. The plot felt a bit disjointed, and I didn’t see a clear path in it.

Overall it was okay and had a few nice moments.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC of Wish I Were Here by Melissa Wiesner. This one was such a fun, tug-at-your-heartstrings read, with the zaniest, most fun cast of characters. I absolutely loved Luca Morelli and the whole Morelli clan. The touch of magical realism brought a bit of sparkle to the story, and overall, I was charmed by the story, characters, and ending. I loved the epilogue (I teared up) and thought it all came together beautifully in the end.

I loved Melissa's The Second Chance Year and was extremely excited to get an ARC of Wish I Were Here. From the first line, I got sucked into Catherine's story. She went from being all consumed by work and measuring her life's worth by her professional accomplishments to realizing there is more to life than work. I loved Luca and how Catherine's relationship with him began as a friendship and flourished into something so sweet and soft. Most of all, I loved how Catherine found her community through finding herself again. I will treasure every moment of this book for a very long time. Thank you NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of Wish I Were Here.

This book can be summarized in one word: whimsical. It just really was so sweet. A great opposites attract love story that is pretty heavy on the women’s fiction/growth. I had so much fun reading this one 💛

What to expect::
•Opposites attract
•Goldendoodle MMC
•Type A math professor FMC
•The greatest apartment building full of sweet elderly friends
•Wild family dynamics on both sides
•A case of lost identity
•Just a touch of magic