2.5 ⭐️ I was pretty excited to read this as the premise of a romance book surrounded by Wordle was really fun. But I would hesitate to call a romance. This book is much more about a young woman finding herself. there is a subplot of romance, but the MMC feels like a cardboard cutout- just there lol. By the end of the book all I feel like I know about him is that his job is cars. also as a wordle player myself, her word choices were quite interesting and sometimes inaccurate. considered DNFing through the entire midsection, didn’t have the dreamy element that I like from romance books felt like I was living my own life- going to work, playing Wordle, going home, etc..

This was a cute, light-hearted, low-angst, small town, single POV romance set in PEI that has a young woman struggling to figure out what she wants to do in life and bonding with a mechanic over a shared enjoyment of the game, Wordle. I thought this was a fun premise and enjoyed the Canadian setting and (many) Anne of Green Gables references but the romance itself didn't grab me or have me fully invested. I wanted a touch more emotional depth, growth and heat from this if I'm totally honest. Still a solid debut and I look forward to reading what the author writes next. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

I thought this was a charming contemporary romance novel! A delightful cast of characters, I really liked Emily as the main character, and all the people she encounters in her new home. I would definitely recommend checking this book out!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

"A heartwarming and humorous romance in which an unlikely couple fall in love over Wordle.

Twenty-seven-year-old Emily doesn't have a lot going well in her life right now. She dreams of a creative career but works as a receptionist in an auto shop. She longs for big city life but lives in a small town on Prince Edward Island. She craves a close group of friends but is stuck with irritating, car-obsessed coworkers.

What Emily does have is a 300+ day streak on the New York Times Wordle. But one day, with only one guess left and no clue what the answer is, she's forced to turn to one of her irritating, car-obsessed coworkers, John, for help - and in doing so, realizes that he might not be so irritating after all.

As they make their way, word by word, toward a 365-day streak, Emily is drawn into a surprising romance that will take her outside of her comfort zone - and challenge everything she thought she knew about happiness, success, and love."

I love the cover design, I just wish somehow that they could have found a five letter word to use instead of "Letter..." Also I feel Emily's pain, I lost a 438 day streak because I forgot to play one day.

I would say 2.5-3 stars. Unfortunately, the book just wasn’t for me. The concept is super cute and the cover is adorable. As a big Wordle fan, it drew me in. I just felt like I couldn’t connect to the characters and after 50% in, I still had no love for the characters. I felt like the relationship between John and Emily was flat and pretty much non-existent and then all of a sudden they are kissing in a parking lot. I did thoroughly enjoy the scenes where Emily was helping the various elderly couples and getting life advice from them. That content felt on point. The rest of the book just fell flat for me. Thank you Amy James and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I've never played wordle but that didn't stop me from loving this romance. I love enemies to lovers and this was a great one!

I’m dnf’ing this book at 12%, unfortunately. I wasn’t really vibing with the narration style. It felt very strange and constantly broke the fourth wall with the main character talking directly to the reader. That type of storytelling may work for others, but I was not a fan. The MMC’s name was John Smith, which was a WILD CHOICE to make.

The premise is fun, and the cover is cute. But it’s not for me.

3.5⭐️ Not gonna lie, I went in with pretty low expectations thanks to early reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it! Emily was a little insufferable at the start (and John could be frustrating too), but they totally grew on me. Emily’s anxieties about what she’s doing with her life hit close to home, and for once, I actually appreciated the third-act breakup—it made sense and was needed for their character development! I just didn’t love how they made each other feel or the things they said to get to that point. Everything obviously works out in the end (lol), and I loved that it all comes full circle with Wordle. The writing wasn’t my favorite, but I still flew through it and enjoyed myself! This would be perfect if you’re looking for a fast and easy read.

Okay. This book started off on a quirky, fun note! The FMC made me laugh with her inner monologue and the use of Wordle was creative. (didn’t think it was possible to fill pages with strategy for Wordle) But ugh it just didn’t hit the way I needed. Emily’s constant 2nd person narrative and her usage of parentheses to talk to the reader became SO ANNOYING. First, it was endearing…then it was exhausting. John was so bland. No chemistry what so ever. It was just hard to root for two people equivalent to cardboard. I think my biggest complaint was how rushed everything was. Emily went through so many side quests in the span of a couple chapters that I couldn’t get attached to a single plot-line because it would be over on the next page.

I’m kind of bummed because I ATE UP THE BEGINNING…but then it just became hard to root for anyone or anything.

I don't know what upset me more...

1. Her strategy for Wordle being the most outrageous thing I've ever read about or
2. The fact that quite literally nothing happened in the first 20% of this book.

This was a DNF for me. I wish I could say that the story was interesting enough for me to continue on, but her "quirky" character can only carry the story so far before you need literally anything else to go on in the story. I'd go as far as to say this made me want to delete the NY Times app from my phone just so I never play Wordle ever again. Never have I ever had Wordle at the front of my mind like Emily does.

I want to be able to pick this one back up because I know I haven't gotten to the good stuff yet.

i loved everything about this book. at first i thought, “oh this would be a cute book for a wordle-themed christmas gift!” but the more i got into the storyline, the more i realized the depth of this book. the characters were all so lovable and i found myself getting overly attached. the storyline was incredible. i couldn’t see a way for it to end with a HEA that i was okay with but i didn’t want the emily and john to be apart either, and let’s just say the ending was unexpected and perfect. as someone around emily’s age, i enjoyed seeing someone else with the same struggles and thoughts as me and i loved that this romance book had so much more depth to it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 (rounded up to 4)
This book was a pleasant surprise!! I went in with expectation of getting a fluffy little fun romance, but I got much more. Our fmc Emily lives in small town Waldon but has big dreams about one day moving to a big, bustling city and having a creative dream job that she knows she is eventually destined for. She works at an auto shop with grumpy and non-talkative John (ugh the guys here are so simple, right?) and can’t wait for what’s next. But as she continues to dream, she roots herself into the small town daily life, its elderly residents, and ends up finding out the grumpy mechanic might be different from her assumptions.
This was so cute and fun. The romance does end up taking a back seat to Emily’s personal growth and development, which was surprising but very welcomed. I saw myself in a lot of Emily’s traits and loved watching her grow into herself. There is, unsurprisingly, a lot of Wordle included, which is pretty fun for me as I also play daily, but that and a few other aspects did get a bit repetitive. Part of this book also caught me so off guard and absolutely made me sob at midnight. I really enjoyed myself for the most part and thought it was a lovely read!

I enjoyed this. It was a feel good romance, full of romantic comedy vibes that you sometimes just need to read. The characters in the book were lovable, and they were also just perfectly matched for one another. I found that it was the perfect book to read, curled up at the end of the day in bed, or with a cup of hot tea. The author really struck home with how the characters found family and each other and I really just enjoy the progression of almost a Year not quite enemies, but not quite friends tension to lovers and this is my person at the end.

I tried so hard to like this book, but there are minimal redeeming qualities for me.

Emily is one of the most insufferable characters I've ever read. She's wildly judgemental and outright looks down on others while failing to realize that her dreams and aspirations are not right for everyone. Her incredibly juvenile inner monologue spotlights her immaturity and makes her seem much younger than her 26-27 years.

I cannot fathom why she even moved to Waldon in the first place because it was immediately apparent that she believed her job, the town, and everyone in it were beneath her. Enter John, an outwardly content but not super fleshed out coworker who keeps to himself. Somehow this man decides she's interesting and wants to spend time with her despite them having nothing in common besides playing Wordle every day. As their relationship progresses, he continuously lets her for the hook for being genuinely shitty to him and it's so infuriating. That's it. That's the book.

Oh, there are side characters that are relatively enjoyable.

Thank you Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the advance digital copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I loved this story! I loved the main character Emily. I loved her story of finding herself and what makes her happy. I also loved that she plays the game Wordle daily, as do I.. the story was easy to follow along and it was told at a good pace, no parts felt rushed or out of place. I will be recommending this book to others.

I absolutely loved reading A Five-Letter Word for Love. My husband and I both do Wordle, so the scenes with it incorporated feel so familiar. The book itself is well written, and there’s a few parts of “breaking the 4th wall” where the main character makes comments towards the reader which is cute.

Both Emily and John are great characters and are well written. The romance was pretty closed door, so if you love cute, easy romance novels but don’t want or need super steamy scenes, this one is for you!

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a review.

This book was so fun and funny! I liked John and Emily and their relationship, both the conflicts and the resolutions. This book also dealt with some serious themes, but they were handled with care and I loved Emily's heart throughout the story. When the conflict felt unreasonable we had John to help bring us and Emily down to Earth.
My only complaint about this book was that it made me want to try Wordle and made it seem like it would be easy. LOL. I love reading but I'm not good at word games!
Overall, I really liked this book and would definitely check out more of Amy James books.

Twenty-seven-year-old Emily doesn’t have a lot going well in her life right now. She dreams of a creative career but works as a receptionist in an auto shop. She longs for big city life but lives in a small town on Prince Edward Island. She craves a close group of friends but is stuck with irritating, car-obsessed coworkers.
What Emily does have is a 300+ day streak on the New York Times Wordle. But one day, with only one guess left and no clue what the answer is, she’s forced to turn to one of her irritating, car-obsessed coworkers, John, for help—and in doing so, realizes that he might not be so irritating after all.
As they make their way, word by word, toward a 365-day streak, Emily is drawn into a surprising romance that will take her outside of her comfort zone—and challenge everything she thought she knew about happiness, success, and love.

2.5-3 stars! "There were thousands of things I wanted to do, I'm sure. But you can't do everything you want to do in life."

Tropes: Small-town romance, workplace romance, grumpy x sunshine, forced proximity (?)

Blurb: Small-town girl Emily dreams of making it big and out of Prince Edward Island and the only things keeping her going is her dream and her 300+ day streak on Wordle. Terrified of ruining her streak, Emily turns to her grumpy coworker John for help and learns that Wordle is not the only thing that they have in common.

A book driven by Wordle?? SIGN ME UP! I was obsessed with this during the pandemic (along everyone else) so I was intrigued by this book immediately. Unfortunately, while this part was this part was exciting, I found the chemistry between both characters pretty surface area and this may be due to the fact that we knew a lot more about Emily than we did John. It was cute that they both ended up bonding over Wordle but it didn't seem like they didn't have too much in common other than that.

Also the way that ended?!! Ya'll. I know it was meant to be cute but maybe it was my OCD but that bugged me haha!

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book for my opinion :)

Unfortunately, I made it 50% through this book before skimming the rest and calling it a day. It just was not for me. The main character read more like a high schooler than a college graduate and the romance was extremely lacking. No tension, no stakes. Had this been a YA novel, I could have maybe gotten behind it, but as is, it just falls short in my opinion. I also think Wordle would be better as the meet cute rather than the basis for the entire slowly-developing romance. I wanted more squealing and leg kicking reading Emily and John’s texts, but instead I felt nothing. :(

A Five-Letter Word for Love by Amy James follows Emily, a young woman, who is working as a receptionist at an auto shop. There, she meets grumpy co-worker John. Emily is a Worldle fan, and has a 300+ day streak.
The book was quite enjoyable. It is fast paced, light and a fun read.
Overall, fun and cutesy read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon via HarperCollins for the e-arc of this book to read.