4.5 stars rounded up!

If you Googled swoonworthy, this book would come up first for sure. It had angst. Second chance romance/enemies to lovers. A rivalry competing for a prestigious MFA fellowship. Tear-watering prose. Deep characters with believable problems and motivations. I loved this and recommend it to anyone looking for:
-second chance romance
-enemies to lovers
-heartmelting banter
-angsty buildup
-personal growth

Thank you Forever and NetGalley for the e-arc of this stunning debut!

Loved it from start to finish. Made me miss college/grad school and the community you find with such a variety of personalities. Loved Leigh and Will’s banter/bickering/flirting.


I’m not a big poetry gal and I actually really enjoyed reading Leigh’s poems ! Will is just such a gem. 🥹

Excited to read more from Katie Naymon.

🌶️🌶️ maybe a little tamer or on par with Emily Henry

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for this ARC. All opinions are my own. #YouBetweenTheLines #NetGalley

This is a stunningly crafted debut about two people who missed each other once in high school and again in college, who find themselves rivals in a poetry MFA program. Their rivalry, as well as the unravelling of the real motivations behind it, is brilliantly crafted; like real people, both characters misunderstand each other, and once they figure out that it is not actually hate that keeps them apart, well, the burn is so real. I'm rooting hard for Will Langford, a poet living in the shadow of his disapproving father even after the man's death, and Leigh, the sorority girl whose self doubt turns her slightly bitter to her colleagues in her MFA. I love that they both need to learn that they are enough as individuals before they finally get together; that felt like authentic and rewarding growth! This was a great read!

Thank you to Katie Naymon, Forever, and NetGalley for the copy of an eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

I am going to be honest with you. I thought this book was going to be somewhat angsty but on a deeper level. Unfortunately, it just didn't live up to my expectations at all. I got a bit annoyed with both of the characters at different times. I just don't want to be annoyed if I am supposed to enjoy the romance between them. It just wasn't adding up. I felt that their romance was a bit forced in my opinion. I'm not saying it's a terrible book. It just wasn't for me. It was just meh.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read, "You Between the Lines", by Katie Naymon! This was a super cute young adult book. I loved the college setting and also the characters being writers.

I feel very incapable of expressing how I actually feel about this book, but alas, here we go.

You Between the Lines is a classic rivals to lovers story between two grad students getting their masters in poetry. Leigh is a former sorority girl with some major people pleasing tendencies & killer pop-culture poetry; she's just a girl trying to find her place in this world. Will is her broody rival who is, indeed, the type of person who would leave a typewriter at your apartment. He is soft, steady, and swoony, with a bit of an ego-thing. He kind of gets whatever he wants...just not *her*.

These two are extremely complicated and miscommunicate like no other characters I've ever read. Yet, these tropes that typically make me want to die inside, fit perfectly into this story. These characters are deeply insecure and figuring their lives out throughout complicated scenarios. You find that they are trying to figure themselves out while figuring out their relationship.

In the midst of these complications, you get the most delicious tension, incomparable chemistry, and the most tender moments. There is something so inevitable about these two. The invisible strings spanning a decade of their lives, are undeniable. There is never a question that Will Langford and Leigh Simon are meant to be.

This book feels like coming home, like a place I'm meant to linger, a place where I'm safe and sound. It's simultaneously cozy and crackling with tension, chemistry, and spark. This is absolutely for fans of Emily Henry -- if you're a fan of deeply relatable characters, stunning prose and poetry, and Taylor Swift references, this book is for you.

If you like:
- rivals to lovers
- flirting through poetry
- found family
- mental health/therapy rep
- MFA in creative writing
- former high school classmates
- tortured poets

I am so in love with them, with this, with my life now that Will Langford is in it.

Thank you Forever Pub & Katie Naymon for an early copy of You Between the Lines in exchange for an honest review.

5 ⭐️
1.5 🌶️

-college setting (MFA)
-both MCs are writers
-hate (sorta) to love
-forced proximity
-slow burn

MY THOUGHTS:
-I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK!
-Clever and beautiful with excerpts from their college assignments on page
-Couldn’t put this down
-Slow burn with so much tension, I almost exploded 💀
-I melt for Will (the glasses, him being emotional, how he took care of Leigh) *cue screaming*
-Character depth was amazing, I was to taken my everyone 🥺
- Leigh and Will had amazing character growth 🫶🏻


I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommend if you enjoy reading romance in an academic setting.

If you're an Emily Henry fan I think you'll love You Between The Lines.

A special thanks to NetGalley and Katie Naymon for this ARC.

You Between the Lines was one of my most anticipated romances of 2025, and it blew me away. I’m a sucker for stories with rival writers— I love the push and pull, the witty banter. What I wasn’t expecting was for this book to have two characters who are broken in their own ways, who have to overcome their insecurities, their fears of rejection.

At times Leigh and Will seemed determined to sabotage their relationship, but was balanced with tender moments that made the romance feel so relatable.

This was angsty, vulnerable, messy, swoony, lyrical, pro-therapy, and so much fun.

You Between the Lines is for the Mirrorball girlies 🪩

So.. about this book 🫣
Thank you, Forever Books, for the gifted copy of You Between the Lines {partner}

Genre: Romance
Format: 🎧📖
Pub Date: 2.18.2025
Pages: 368
Star Rating: ☆☆☆

When I first read the synopsis for You Between the Lines, I was immediately intrigued – I haven’t read a romance set in an MFA program before. However, it ended up being one of the two reasons why the book didn’t quite work for me. Initially, it was fine, but the author spent so much time delving into poetry and the dynamics within the program that it distracted from the main point of the book.

My second issue was with the female protagonist, Leigh. She was really difficult to connect with. One moment she was passionate, and the next, she was distant—constantly indecisive about what she wanted from life, school, or her relationships. At times, her behavior felt so immature that I just wanted to scream at William to run away and never look back.

Read if you enjoy:
🐌 Slow burn
💥 Rivals to lovers
👩🏽‍🏫 Academic settings

I recommend reading You Between the Lines if you love a good academic setting and characters that may test your patience a bit.

27 year old Leigh is accepted into a prestigious MFA program for poetry. Another member of here cohort is Will, whose negative feedback during a high school writing class has haunted her for a decade. Leigh’s pop-culture poems are drastically different from those of her classmates reigniting old feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. During the first year of the program she bonds with her classmates and begins a relationship with Will.

I loved the first two thirds of this book but it kind of lost me in the end. The book is a much more compelling women’s fiction book than a romance and when the focus of the book became the relationship between Leigh and Will it just didn’t work as well for me. Considering they were writers they were really bad at communicating with each other and I grew bored of the should we, no we shouldn’t aspect of their relationship. Yes I know that not liking the romance plotline is an insane sentiment coming from a die-hard romance reader, but Leigh’s personal journey was just more interesting and I honestly see Leigh and Will’s relationship as a HFN rather than an HEA. I am not a poetry person so I can’t really judge the quality of the poems included in the book. As a Swiftie I enjoyed the Taylor Swift references and the poems about Taylor. I am interested in seeing what else Katie writes in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have a new book boyfriend!! Hello, Will! *heart eyes* This man really caught my attention, and I think he’s going to be a new BookTok favorite. The only question remaining is, where can we all get one? As I book nerd I loved the writing and poetry plot as well. Lots to love here.

You know what? I had the funnest time reading this book! I am usually really hard to please with romance books but I was truly swooning through this entire story! There definitely were parts our main characters were so infuriating but I also feel like thats what made them feel real. The plot line and dialogue felt rushed in parts but all in all I can't deny how much fun I had with this book--definitely recommend to romance readers!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

The cute cover and the synopsis pulled me in, but unfortunately this book was not for me.

Will and Leigh's constant push and pull, their choices, and the initial reason for their conflict were all incredibly frustrating.

This is a stunning novel! I will be reading all things by Katie Naymon from here on out.

The story follows Leigh, a former sorority girl, pop-culture loving poet, who has just been accepted into a mfa program. Leigh has a lot going on. Her parents are going thru a divorce, she’s dealing with a lot of self doubt and comparison, she’s struggling to find her voice and to accept that voice. Day one of starting this new program she runs into her moody high school crush turned academic rival, Will, who has just been accepted into the same program. Will is dealing with a lot right now too with the loss of his father and some insecurities of his own. Finding what he really loves and wants to do. It’s a struggle.

These two have some history. And it’s not all that great. She’s faced a few rejections from him in her past and definitely has some animosity to overcome when it comes to Will, and she wants to, but can she trust him? Can she trust herself?

While this story has a ton of heart, it’s also so funny, so angsty (the chemistry is off the charts), so much pining, there’s pop culture references, poetry flirting, mental health representation that is extremely relatable. Leigh to me felt like if Cher Horowitz was a poet. She’s so bright, so heart forward, she loves fashion and pop culture….her insecurities broke me, but it was so beautiful to see her be built back up. Will comes off at the start as cold and lacking empathy, but that was just his shield. His heart is huge and he loves so hard. Plus, they were so hot. Omg. I love them.

I absolutely loved this book. I know I will be thinking about it forever.

First, this might be the best romance fmc I’ve ever read in my entire life!! Leigh enters a poetry MFA program, arguably one of the most pretentious settings imaginable, but manages to retain her exactly-like-other-girls persona in a way that made me relate to and root for her. In among a sea of very outwardly-intellectual stereotypical poets and other mfa types, Leigh works through what it means to stay true to her pop-culture loving, sorority-girl self. In addition to these things, Leigh struggles with incredibly relatable issues, like apologizing too much and molding herself to fit the desires and comfort levels of those around her. I LOVED everything about Leigh, even while she made mistakes and made bad choices. I have never read a romance book where the FMC is so like-other-girls and where that is portrayed as an okay way to be.

Outside of the amazing characters, this book also depicts obstacles to a healthy relationship in a realistic and truthful way. The author doesn’t pull any punches or make the love story come easily, but the struggles make the whole thing feel real and earned.

Overall, this is a very easy five stars from me!

Thank you so much to Forever and NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This is everything I could want in a MFA book about poets, but also so much more. The characters are so relatable, the side cast is interesting, and the setting brought me right into grad school.

This book was told in first person single POV, and I felt like this was the perfect choice - you really join the FMC along on her journey through not only romance, but also finding herself. While at times I found myself internally screaming at the FMC for being so oblivious, it was also painfully relatable - in the outside things seem so clear, but it’s hard to trust your brain when you’re in the thick of it.

A sizzling, dramatic, emotional and deeply romantic book. This book has a little bit of everything from years of pining, found family, academic shenanigans and an accurate portrayal of mental illness. Leigh is headed into her first year of a writing MFA program following a crash out at her marketing job and her parents announcing they will be separating which sends her down a spiral to finally put pedal to the metal and start pursing her writing for herself. And of course, at one of the first events for her new program is the guy that has lived rent free in her head since high school and beyond... The swoon fest, tortured and devastating human, Will. Subsequently after this high school mess, there was this fated meetup years after that has haunted both of them since. They decide to play nice and the friendship builds and the tension sizzles. During this time, Leigh is grappling with her suppressed emotions regarding her parent's split and frankly eminent divorce. Leigh being a Mirrorball by Taylor Swift girlie to her core is coming face to face with the downside of trying to be everything to everyone. What ends up occurring is yet another crash out that simultaneously is insanely hard to get through but deeply relatable. Naymon has perfectly captured just how hard it is to be vulnerable when you are always preparing for the worst. Post this crash out with the help of her iconic friend Gen and her no nonsense therapist Bridget you get to see Leigh get in the drivers seat of her life again and does so while having her heart on her sleeve and not constantly bracing for impact. Her relationship with Will is genuinely soo enrapturing. The way the see each other so clearly is something truly special. In this conflict moment, Will is the one to start to take down this protective shell around Leigh that has provided her with a false sense of protection. Will is an absolute swoon fest of an mmc who is honest, funny and a perfect match for Leigh. This book is definitely perfect for Emily Henry lovers as Will is a mix of Gus from Beach Read and Alex from People We Meet on Vacation.. (to me) Leigh brings that gritty realistic nature that again Emily Henry fans are sure to love. There is room for improvement in terms of more relationship building and I would love to see this Naymon explore writing in dual POV but this is a very strong debut that has put her future work on my radar and I look forward to recommending this book to all who will listen.

I ended up not finishing this. I couldn’t get into the storyline and I found Leigh to be too annoying. Also really getting sick of the TS references at this point.

I enjoyed the writing and prose! I thought the concept was interesting and fun, definitely different than a lot of romance on the market. Unfortunately the chemistry between the MCs didn't really hit as hard as I hoped it would. Overall a good read though.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Leigh has been accepted into a creative writing MFA, but is surprised to see a familiar face at orientation - Will, her high school crush turned nemesis. Both are in the poetry cohort, but Leigh leans toward experimental poetry with heavy doses of pop-culture worked in while Will is a "serious poet" and pretentious to boot. This feeds into Leigh's insecurities since back in high school, Will critiqued one of her poems as being "all style, no substance." Adding to the drama, both Leigh and Will are dealing with issues with their families (Leigh's parents are in the midst of divorcing and Will is coming to terms with never being enough for his now-deceased father) and Leigh's constant need to morph her personality to meet the needs of whomever she's with. When the two end up in competition for the second-year poetry fellowship, things get interesting and both are forced to face the issues they've been avoiding.

This was a very angsty (in all the best ways, I promise!) rivals-to-lovers romance. Both main characters were complex and well written, and I truly enjoyed the journey. My only complaint was feeling slightly underwhelmed at the ending. Maybe it's a me problem as I've noticed this isn't the only romance book lately that has left me wanting something more at the end, but I deducted a small amount for that. Overall, a fantastic debut and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future!

Overall: 4.5/5 rounded up
Spice: 2/3