I enjoyed reading You Belong with Me by Mhairi McFarlane. You will fall in love with all the characters. I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely. Happy Reading!

A prior love shows up on Edie’s doorstep asking for a second chance, but is it possible after the prior fallout when the situation hasn’t changed?🚪

This is book two in a series, published almost 10 years after book one, and I’m not sure this was a couple we needed to revisit. For me, the book was so slow and anti-climactic all around. I don’t recall more than the broad strokes from book one, but from what I do recall, this felt very much like the same storyline with our main characters struggling with celebrity and the toll it takes on their relationship. The whole book was rather tepid for me, reading more like a revisit with “beloved” characters. (Not sure they’re actually beloved, but this was the vibe.) This may have worked as a novella for fans who loved the first book, but in my opinion, there wasn’t enough here to warrant another full length book.

My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for a complimentary advance copy of this eBook, out today.

Another first for me for this author. I did not know this was a sequel so I read Who's That Girl first before jumping on this one and boy was I happy I got introduced to Mhairi's work because I got this ARC. Now onto You Belong With Me. This was such a solid and fun read. The celebrity/Hollywood trope is not normally something I resonate with. Maybe because I know some of the stories can be a bit unrealistic but Mhairi's book definitely makes you believe its possible to experience love this way. I loved Edie and Elliot on the first book and frankly, I wanted more and was happy I could jump into the next one right away. This book fulfilled all the gaps the first book left. This sequel jump straight to what happened after and how Edie and Elliot is adjusting to the new relatioship. This book was heartwarming and left me so emotional. It was so easy to root for Edie and Elliot to survive all their issues because you can feel their love and care for each other. I love how the book is serious but funny at the same time. Overall, I highly recommend this book. Sooo good! Thank you NetGalley for the early copy. I thoroughly enjoyed this and will be reading more of Mhairi's books!

★★★½
This wasn't labeled as a sequel when I started it, therefore it was a bit of a confusing catchup in the beginning. After about ch 9, I felt caught up enough to fully enjoy the story! I'm not normally a celeb romance girl but I liked this take on one, probably bc it was a sequel so all the normal conflict that comes with a celeb romance was hashed out in the first one. The book was well written and had well developed and enduring characters all around. This is my first book from her and I'm excited to read another as I really enjoyed her writing style.

A sequel to the book Who's That Girl by McFarlane, You Belong With Me picks up after the happily ever after...and a period of less happy. I haven't read Who's That Girl since 2020, so I didn't remember a lot of the details anymore (it was one of my favorites from my 2020 Mhairi binge, though!). While it's the same characters as a continuation of the same love story from WTG, You Belong With Me almost functions as a standalone because Mhairi artfully reminds us of the important items from Edie and Elliot's first go-round. While their past is important, this story is about the fight for a famous TV star and an ad exec to be together and the kind of pressure a relationship can withstand. It functions almost as a marriage in crisis book, but the crisis isn't how much they love each other - at the beginning when Elliot walks back into Edie's life, they'd abundantly clear - the crisis is long distance and the media.

The reason I keep coming back to Mhairi again and again is her ability to capture the messy reality of human emotions. Life is complicated, and so are people. Most of Mhairi's books have a tidy tying-up where the heroine realizes the hero she's been looking for isn't the one she thought. This book explores the complexity of knowing who the One is, and negotiating to make it work.

Fans of Mhairi's books will recognize her very British humor, but maturity as her writing has grown. (I reread parts of her debut books as a buddy read earlier this summer, and I love seeing where she started!) Longtime fans will love cheering for a second HEA. And for those who haven't read one of her books before, this may be a good entry point, as long as you can hold on for dear life with the anxiety inducing plot wondering what happily ever after really looks like in a class difference, second chance romance.

The long awaited sequel to Mhairi McFarlane's Who's That Girl is here!

This is not a stand alone title. The first installment was published in 2016 and left us in an utter cliffhanger. Elliot, A list celebrity is back for our Edie with a swoony grand gesture on Christmas Day.

He's in New York and LA. She's in Nottingham with a day job as a marketing exec and copywriter. They have vowed that this is forever, but how does that work with paparazzi and millions of Instagram followers.

In Mhairi McFarlane's typical hearfelt, deep and relationship centered prose, we get to see the rest of Edie and Elliot's story! Die hard fans are so grateful for the ride!

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for the gifted copy. My opinions are my own.

Hiiiighly recommend reading the first book in the series before diving into this one.



This author's earlier novels were fine reads, the last few have been some of my favorites and thus couldn't wait to dive into this one. I did not realize this was a follow up novel to Who's that girl (to which my review was "loved Elliott, but that ending was terrible, WTH" 😅) that being said I wish I had reread before diving in because it was a little hard to get into since it had been so long since reading the first and the two books definitely need to be read as a duo (this is the only reason I'm rating 3 🌟 instead of what would have been 4). This was an enjoyable follow up and I absolutely still love Elliott 🥰, I wanted more from the epilogue but that is my usual M.O. I also wouldn't be opposed to a book where Declan gets his HEA!


Thank you Netgalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for the ARC in exchange for my review!

loved the title as a taylor reference but i did not feel connected to these characters at all. i might be in a slump but this book put me in a bad mood

A worthy follow-up to "Who's That Girl". I'm not sure why Mhari McFarlane books aren't more popular in the US. She writes with such crisp wit and many laugh out loud scenes. You'll fall lin love with Elliott and Edie and root for them to work it out. Read "Who's That Girl" first. Thanks to the publisher for this ARC.

I love Mhairi McFarlane books, but this one wasn’t my favorite. This was….fine, but I wasn’t invested in the characters or the story at all.

I apologize I will not be reading this one,

I started it and really enjoyed the writing style.
It was just very hard to read without reading the first book first.
I was unaware that this was the second in the series when I applied for the arc.

I’ll be reading book one then I’ll re-try this one!

Thank you for the opportunity.

You Belong with Me is the sequel to Who's that Girl. People who have read the first book will be pleased with this story. Regrettablly I didn't know about the first book until I looked it up after struggling through the first two chapters. I love celebrity romances so I'm sure I would have loved it but do think this story will be more enjoyable to those who have read the first book.

Even without reading the first book I appreciated the story and was able to put together what had happened previously. I liked that it got into the weeds of what happens after the fairytale. Relationships take work. Relationships with a celebrity likely take even more work. The story balances the challenges of celebrity with other sensitive topics making a realistic love story. I did struggle with some of the slang and occasionally found the story slow. For me it's a high 3.5- enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this eARC!

While Who’s That Girl? wasn’t my first Mhairi McFarlane book, it was the one that introduced me to her. By that I mean I read the summary before it was released and become obsessed, but since it wasn’t out yet, I turned to her backlist first. Anyways, Who’s That Girl? has always been one of my favorite of her works and I have been absolutely begging for a sequel since 2016 (see: my Goodreads review). When the announcement for You Belong With Me dropped, I was on my knees screaming. Unfortunately though, this ended up being a lesson in getting what you want and then realizing what you actually needed.

By no means do I mean that I didn’t like this book because I really, really did! You Belong With Me is honestly one of McFarlane’s funniest books yet; I laughed out loud at so many scenes, and her dialogue was at peak wittiness, which is saying something. Who’s That Girl? has been one of my comfort reads for so long, and I really loved returning to this cast of characters.

The issue here is that You Belong With Me easily could’ve been a novella, an underlying thought I had the entire time I was reading. Romantic sequels are always tricky and rarely well executed because you already had a happy ending; you’re not meant to turn to a new page. And yeah, the ending of the first book wasn’t really a happy ending, but it just felt so repetitive returning to the same problems and issues Edie and Elliot were having in the first book in another full-length book.

Again, I did really enjoy this book; it was just sad for me to admit, at the end, that we didn’t actually need a full-length sequel when it’s been something I’ve been begging for for almost 10 years. I do think it’ll be a book I enjoy a lot more in the second read (which is probably coming up), so who knows, we’ll see. I do think if you enjoy this author’s books in general, you’ll like this one. If you haven’t read the first book, you probably should before diving into this one though. But for readers of Who’s That Girl?, You Belong with Me will be familiar ground, albeit maybe a bit too similar.

It’s Christmas Day, and Edie has just had a knock at the door amidst a heart-wrenching breakup with superstar Elliot Owens. Picking up right where Who’s That Girl? left off, You Belong with Me tackles the struggles of dating a celebrity when you’re a “normal person” and the press simply can’t leave your relationship alone.

Admittedly, when I requested this book, I did not realize that it was a sequel. I am incapable of reading sequels as standalones, so I quickly read Who’s That Girl to prepare for this ARC (and I should add, I really enjoyed that one). While I definitely was unhappy with the cliffhanger that this book immediately picked up on, I don’t think this sequel really needed to happen? I was so content with Edie and Elliot in the last book, and it felt like they spent this entire book looking for reasons to breakup? They were constantly throwing cheap digs at one another, accused the other of being (or thinking of being) unfaithful, and had a massive fight seconds before the book ends with a big old HEA (seriously - the e-book was at 97% and things still felt nasty). Honestly, while the plot line with Edie’s coworker Declan felt massively unresolved, I was rooting for him more than either Edie or Elliot (and especially not their relationship) at the end.

In short, read Who’s That Girl and the first chapter of this one and you will be all set.

Many thanks to Mhairi McFarland, Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This wasn't one of the top books I've read this year, and it wasn't the worse. I was bored most of the time, the relationship was messy when it didn't have to be. I wanted it to be over half way.

I got an e-arc of this book on NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

You Belong with Me by Mhairi McFarlane is a continuation of Edie and Elliot’s story from “Who’s That Girl” that left readers a bit heartbroken with its ending. This could be read as a stand alone but is better enjoyed in reading order.

The story starts with a fabulous Christmas surprise when famous actor, Elliot Owen returns to Edie Thompson and wants to have a proper go at a relationship. He says everything she needs to hear and they decide to be together through long distance and all the complexities that their private citizen and famous actor their relationship will bring.
The pair are forced to deal with media scrutiny, family complications, and long distance. I’ll be honest, I was stressing about how this was all going to work out. McFarlane provides her classic witty dialogue, fully fleshed out characters, charm, and side characters that keep the reader emotionally invested.
Mhairi McFarlane is an auto buy author for me and I highly recommend her work to anyone that will listen!

Thank you NetGalley and Avon for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced eARC and an honest review.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. It was just very hard to get into from the very beginning. I will say, I have not read the previous book and did not realize this was a follow-up, but I don’t think that factor led to how this read for me overall.

In general, the story was just flat. I understood the complexities of both Elliot and Edie trying to navigate their on-again relationship given his celebrity status and the distance, but I just don’t know how much he needed to convince her he was all in after EVERYTHING he was already doing. Throwing Declan’s character into the mix felt unnecessary, but I do think it made the last 20% of the book more interesting and engaging as it forced Edie and Elliott to finally talk to each other about their relationship and future.

Finally, my biggest complaint about the book is the heavy use of colloquialisms that I’m assuming makes sense for someone with connections to Nottingham or the region in which they live, but I would imagine that the audience for this book would be a bit more widespread than that and even as an American having lived in London, I had a hard time understanding what they were talking about at times and just had to either rely on context or completely skip over it.

I just have to comment on the ending (and part of the beginning). Mhairi Macfarlane has this amazing way of bringing these deep angsty feelings to the surface. I have a lot of abandonment issues (ie. daddy issues) and it felt like she was reading into my soul. It became overwhelming because I was in a long distance relationship for 5 years and so many of my insecurities were paralleled. It's amazing how much this trauma can transfer onto your relationships. But I leave this review with this quote that deserves the five stars alone:

"Dont let it, whatever it is, trigger the ongoing fear that somehow, someone you love that much will leave."

You Belong with Me by Mhairi McFarlane is a humorous, and entertaining story. I had not read the book that precedes this but I was not at a disadvantage as a great job was done of explaining the past events. This book describes the shaky courtship of two people madly in love, juggling problems that threaten their future together. There are many wonderful conversations that illustrate the give and take two people together must make in a relationship, and McFarlane does a lovely job of allowing both Edie and Elliot the grace to value themselves while also support each other. I was convinced that the characters truly belong together and that the romance is part of the work required to maintain a life-long love.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.
#NetGalley #Avon

Despite being the second in a series, I read this book as a standalone. While it was fairly simple to jump in and understand what was going on, I do think reading the first book would have made it much easier to follow and keep up with the first few chapters.

I found this book fairly slow and struggled to stay engaged. The characters basically always are miscommunication and misunderstanding each other, and while they both seem committed to their love, it’s unclear why.

I do appreciate there not being a third act breakup, but they also never resolved their main conflict of what being together looks like? It’s hard to view the HEA as realistic.