Such a cute and sweet slow burn/ enemies to lovers romance!

The book follows Rosie and Aiden, who are both authors. They both are forced to partnered up in a writing class and have to work together to create a book together. Throughout the book, the more time they find themselves spending together the more they become closer. It was so fun and cute seeing their relationship developing.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️
Romance

The vibes: two authors, enemies to lovers, if he could he would

I could not stop reading this book. They are both writing students at NYU. They hate each other. They tear each other’s writing to shreds and call each other names during class. It got so bad that the teacher said she was going to fail them or they can work on a book together. They have to write a romance book. At the beginning of the book they are writing about each other and throwing in digs and unkind things. When it comes to the romance part they go on lackluster dates but when they write together how they really feel comes out in a way they would never say in person. Loved it.

#netgalley #netgalleyreads #netgalleyarc #notinmybooks #notinmybookkatieholt #katieholtauthor #romancebookstagram

4.5⭐️
I LOVED this book!! I went in with no expectations and I absolutely adored it. It had me giddy and kicking my feet up in the air. I hadn’t read such a cute romance in awhile and it was exactly what I needed and wanted. It was a bit predictable but I personally don’t care about that. The ending was also a bit rushed which was unfortunate because I love long endings where we get to see lots of moments of the couple being happy and I would’ve loved to see a second epilogue or a couple of chapters between the last one and the epilogue.

Loved it!! The characters were perfect rivals-to-lovers! Rosie and Aiden were so cute. Definitely recommending!

This is an enemies to lovers romance set in New York City with the two main characters completing a writing workshop at a prestigious masters program.

Rosie is a spunky and hard working Peruvian-American who leaves her small town in Tennessee to pursue her dream of writing soul lifting romance novels with happily ever afters.

Aiden is a grumpy, misunderstood literary fiction writer who believes that romance and Rosie are beneath him.

The two immediately clash in their creative writing workshop and after a particularly public spat in front of the entire class the professor asks them to drop the class 🫨 They come to a compromise. . . write a romance/literary fiction novel together & no more public disagreements.

As Rosie & Aiden begin to write together, they also spend time together during the holidays and into the spring. This novel tackles some difficult issues such as family dynamics, finances, and grief/loss but I felt it drew the reader in and made the characters more relatable.

I couldn't put this novel down and I think it's a lovely "not holiday" but kind of holiday romance you should add to your TBR list this year 🥰❤️

4.25 🌟
this book gives all the New York City Christmas vibes and I’m sooo here for it!! I felt like I was right there. One of my favorite aspects about this book was the found family! Since Rosie moved from Tennessee to NYC, she really depended on her friends and they always came through for her! The character growth throughout this book was also immaculate! Although it was technically nally single POV, I really enjoyed how we got Aiden’s POV through the book they were co-writing!

My only problems were that I felt like when they “hated” each other if felt extremely childish, the 3rd act conflict felt like they were 12 years old not mid 20s and also there were at least four full chapters of spice which I felt like is a lot for a book that isnt super long or marketed as a spicy book.

4.5 stars!!!

ahhh okay first this is another amazing take on rivals to lovers (they could not go a week without fighting or having banter lol it was top tier. Which sounds awful, in the beginning it is much but i did not mind bc it felt like a TRUE slow burn. I can't wait to go to Barnes and get a copy to annotate ex:

“I know you prefer what’s in your books, and I pretend I don’t want to be like them, but I do. I want to be the person you picture when you’re reading and dreaming because you’re who I picture every single time.”

“I’ll wait for you, Rosie. I swear it. I’m in it for the long haul. I want all your tomorrows. Every single one you’re willing to give me.”

We have Rosie a hopeless romantic romance writer and Aiden a grumpy lit fic writer. They are in a writing class and their argument lands them a new assignment to co-write a book. Now I loved everything abt this concept except for the fact that they wrote in their relationship and FIRST KISS and a few other things i found immature overall nothing crazy bad

but again this is an amazing debut I have been in love w katie and her booksta for so long I have been so excited to read this for awhile now. And so excited to read more from her thank you netgalley for this eARC!!!

3.5 - this was a fantastic debut! The pacing was good & I enjoyed the rivals to lovers aspect!

I will say that we maybe needed some Spanish translations. The FMC is half Peruvian, like the author, and though I could try to infer the meaning, it did take away from the story by having to try and figure it out before continuing on.

Also I know this was an ARC (thank you to NetGalley for proving me with a copy in exchange for my honest review), but there were a lot of mistakes. More than I’ve ever seen in an advanced reader copy before. There were also issues with continuity, for example Aiden thrust the final chapter pages at Rosie and didn’t put them away after she failed to take them, but then he suddenly had to fish them out of his back pocket for her & that wasn’t the only time things like that occurred. Hopefully those were all fixed before publication, but they were hard to ignore.

An enemies-to-lovers bookish romance where two grad school writing students are forced to write a novel together so they can stop disrupting class. Rosie (romance) and Aiden (broody lit-fic) clash constantly, critiquing each other's work so harshly that the professor finally requires them to work together so they can understand each other better. But is this bitter hatred for each other actually a coverup for more than just lust?

Decent character growth, but the "grand gesture" ending was a bit of a letdown.

After I finished this book, only one sentence popped into my mind: I love it so much! Interestingly, I loved Maxine and Hunter’s parts more than Rosie and Aiden’s, even though they are the same characters!

This was such a cute book! Rosie and Aiden were so made for each other and I loved the writing class aspects and them helping each other. As a writer, this was so up my alley and I'm so happy I got a chance to read it early! The only ick I got was them writing every detail of their interactions into the book together... that was just weird in my opinion. Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

I absolutely adored Not In My Book by Katie Holt. It has rival to lovers, forced proximity, one bed, and a bit of grumpy/sunshine.

Rosie and Aiden are rivals in a college writing class, they take giving feedback to each other to the next level. He writes LitFit and she writes romance. They love to insult each other’s writing but they both secretly are attracted to each other.

Rosie and Aiden are forced to write a book together and it makes them confess their feelings via their characters. I loved this idea because it is first person POV but we get what Aiden is thinking because of what he writes without actually switching POVs. The romance is slow burn but has great payoff. When they write the sex scene together for their characters, I was a puddle.

The cast of characters surrounding our main characters are great. They don’t take away from the main characters or their struggles but add depth and personality to the story. I loved seeing the Peruvian representation. It made me look up recipes to some of the things that Rosie mentioned she liked to eat. My spouse is Colombian so it’s important to see mixed families represented in books.

Overall this was such a great book. I cannot wait to see what else Katie Holt is going to put out, this is probably one of my favorite books of 2024.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

It seems like there are a lot of books recently with authors competing with each other and having to co-write something. It's getting to be it's own subgenre to the enemies to lovers trope but I'm here for it.

Rosie and Aiden are both in the writing MFA program at NYU and have been competitors for years. In their writing workshop, they always have the harshest criticism for each other, the sharpest barbs and endless eye rolls. When it gets so heated that their instructor and mentor threatens to remove them from her workshop class, they have to prove they can write together and pose a united front in their class to improve their work. Naturally, it doesn't go well at first. But the more they speak through their characters and get to know each other through their writing, the more sparks fly. The only issue is trying not to get burned.

I loved it. I couldn't put this book down, I was cranky when I had to people instead of stay in this world of Rosie and Aiden's story. I highly recommend for those who love the grumpy meets sunshine, enemies to lovers, battling writers, slow burn.

#arc
#netgalley
#notinmybook

So so so cute!! A perfect rivals-to-lovers slow burn with ANGST!!! I absolutely adored Rosie and Aiden. Definitely pick this one up if you're looking for a spicy romance in an academia setting!!

Rosie Maxwell and Aiden Huntington fight so much in the writing workshop class they both take that the professor gives them an ultimatum – write a book together or drop out. The two agree to write together, but Rosie wants to write romance, which Aiden hates, and Aiden wants to avoid a Happily Ever After.

As I somewhat anticipated going into this book, there is a story within a story, and those stories feed into each other. The book they write together mirrors their own story, including some typical tropes or versions of them, and is very self-referential with multiple instances of the characters saying something to the effect of “If we were in a romance novel”.

Both of the characters had traits I found annoying and I would go as far as to say both display some toxic and perhaps even emotionally abusive behaviour, but I still felt invested enough in their journey to keep reading and enjoy the experience. I would have liked it to end differently, but that is a minor complaint for an overall good book. It flowed, had good structure, was easy to read without compromising on detailed scenes or character depth, and had a fun plot that is a little different to your usual romance novel.

I will mention the spice level as it is something not everyone is comfortable with. I appreciated that it was only a few scenes, but I felt they were heavily detailed and perhaps a bit much for my personal comfort levels, though this was not something I factored into my rating.

I would recommend this as an option for those who love a good trope or 5 or anyone looking for something a little different to the genre norm without straying too far.

⭐️4⭐️

this was so cute and fun!! i feel like this would be beach read in a diff universe where gus and january end up together in college.

aiden and rosie HATE each other (or do they👀) and are forced to write a book together after getting in trouble in class. and I LOVE that the only time we get any pov from aiden are in the snippets of his chapters. the way they didn’t know how to admit feelings to each other so just made the book characters do it for them was so fun.

this was such a feel good romance read. while it could be a bit predictable, it was sweet and funny and cute, and that’s all I really need out of a romcom at the end of the day.

I received this eArcfrom NetGalley, and this is an honest opinion of the book

I wanted to love this one. The premise sounded so cute, but it just didn’t deliver from the beginning of the book. It was so negative. And I get that it’s supposed to be the enemies to lovers theme. But there wasn’t any hint of a chemistry at all.

There is a lot of “Humming” in the book. It seemed like all the time and in a context sometimes that doesn’t make sense. You probably wasn’t as often as it seemed, but it was often enough that it stood out and was annoying.

And there were so many cringe moments in the book
During spice scenes: Calling it “his member”
A lot of hissing in spice scenes
And the spice interactions do not match the rest of the book. Like the way, the characters behave in the book versus how they behave in a spicy scene does not match at all.
It happens SO abruptly - this switch of behavior- that it seems like a different book/different set of characters
It’s very off putting

The revealing of feelings and the backstory behind their feelings for each other came out of nowhere.
No buildup or even a clue that the feelings were there through the previous part of the book so it seemed false.

I think the idea for the story was cute. But I think the actual writing of it failed in so many ways.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! 3.5

A perfectly pleasant rom-com with a few pretty steamy scenes. It follows predictable tropes and I don't mind that!

As posted to GoodReads

4.5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (rounded down)

๋࣭ ⭑🦋๋࣭ ⭑ I look for you in every crowded street, and when I see you, I smile in pure awe and relief. ๋࣭ ⭑🦋๋࣭ ⭑

'I Knew You Were Trouble' by Taylor Swift playing softly in the background

WHAT. Okay wait, give me a minute to compose myself. (pause) I'm back! I have so many things to talk about this book and by 'so many', I mean A LOT.

Let's start with the negative parts because I know it'll take a super short time for me to run through and I'm feeling lazy right now, all I want to do is absorb this book and engrain it in my head. For a start, this is a personal preference but I wished that there were fewer of those *ahem* scenes and more romantic scenes. I felt that the writing was good, but not groundbreaking and I wished there were more plot twists as the story was somewhat predictable. That's literally all the criticism I have for this book.

There are so many amazing aspects of this book that I can drone on about but it'll probably bore you to death. Firstly, Ms Katie Holt, why did I have whole body shivers and I could genuinely feel my arms tingling while reading this book? What magical spell did you put on it to make me feel that way? Please teach me your ways. And can we please acknowledge the fact that she's a debut author? I would be so proud of myself for delivering such a delicious debut read! I absolutely loved the main characters and I was so invested in them and their story, I'm so grateful that I get to read it before it's published, it truly is an honour. The idea of writing a book within a book is an idea that has never occurred to me and I thought it was such a creative and cute idea, I loved Max and Hunter as well and how their story parallels with Rosie and Aiden's.

All in all, this is such a cute and cozy read that I thoroughly enjoyed! I look forward to more books from Ms Katie Holt! :)

Many thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for giving me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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The comparison of it being a mix of Beach Read and Hating Game is so accurate! I wasn't obsessed with Beach Read like everyone else, but Katie did the dang thing here! The plot didn't move super fast, but enough to keep you intrigued and waiting for the rivals to turn into lovers, but not where it's immediate. The tension was absolutely insane in the best way. It had me kicking my feet and giggling. The ending I thought was a bit rushed with how quickly it was rushed but overall I still absolutely adored this book and all the cute quotes.