3.5 stars rounding up!

This book gave all the Lizzie McGuire Movie energy in the best way possible, with a bit more depth in our slightly older and slightly wiser characters! We had some fun Lizzie/Gordo moments and a couple (less insidious) Lizzie/Paolo (but also kind of Lizzie/Ethan?) moments!!

Lo comes from a line of women who have visions, and not just any visions: they see a vision of their soulmate right before they meet them. When Lo finally has her vision just two days before her monthlong trip to Italy, she’s certain she’ll find The One there. What ensues is not just a love story and a soulmate quest, but a young girl trying to figure out who she is, what she wants in life (and doesn’t want), and where she should be. Lo’s decision making isn’t always the brightest, but that’s my fully formed adult brain looking at this nineteen year old with all the paths open to her, if only she can find the right one for her at the right time!

I thought this was so sweet, and Amy Lea has once again proven she can write a story about women at any age! Thanks so much to Amy Lea and NetGalley for a chance to read this in exchange for an honest review!

Something Like Fate was another sweet YA romance from Amy Lea. I enjoyed reading this travel/vacation romance set in Italy. Italy was one of my favorite places to travel to, personally, and I loved all the descriptors of the cities, food, and activities in Lo and Teller's vacation!

Lo and Teller themselves were cute, but there were times I found myself feeling like they didn't have much romantic chemistry or connection. For the first 2/3rds of the book, Lo and Teller are strictly friends and Teller makes no clear action or intention that he has romantic feelings for Lo, so I had a hard time believing that he was truly in love with her when he confessed so. I don't enjoy friends-to-lovers romances for this reason, but having loved Amy Lea's previous books, I was hoping this wouldn't be the case here.

My favorite part of this book was seeing Lo's aunts and father support her through her journey with finding her soulmate. The family relationships in this book were very special and heartwarming. I loved relationship Lo had with her father in particular, as they both grieved the loss of Lo's mother.

Overall, I'd give this book 3.75 stars rounded up.

Something Like Fate is for fans of friends to lovers, love triangle, and travel romance. Amy Lea's latest rom com is full of fun and adventure, as Lo goes on a trip to Italy with her best friend Teller and meets who she thinks is her soulmate. But is he really? A well done romance, thanks for the ARC!

this was a fun read! books centered around a trip can be hard to pull off but i think it worked well for this story. i liked that the fantastical element wasn't overbearing in the story also. ultimately, i think i might just be a little old to fully engage with this story, it felt very reminiscent of the lizzie mcguire movie to me. i think this will be a perfect read for its intended audience!

I was hesitant on this one at first because I'm not the biggest fan of books with psychics. However, this one pleasantly surprised me. While it was very predictable throughout the entire book, i still had fun on the ride. Overall, I would recommend for a quick, cute read!

3 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It’s been over a year that I’ve read something from Amy Lea so I was really excited to be able to read her newest book. I loved the premise and the idea that the women in Lo’s family have been able to predict their soulmates and that it’s something passed down from generation to generation. I think at the end of the day, i didn’t care for much about the history. I also wasn’t expecting it to be friends to lovers, which was a good storyline between Lo and Teller, but both characters weren’t too memorable for me.. It was pretty cliche at some point and felt a little more on the YA side, being closed door as well. I guess that’s why it’s called “something like fate”, since Lo couldn’t predict her soulmate because Teller was there all along. I enjoy Lea’s writing but this wasn’t my fav.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: March 1, 2025

A friends to lovers travel romance traipsing through Italy?! Yes please.

Adorable but unremarkable. This follows the trope exactly as you’d expect. It starts and ends strong, but there’s a big lull in the middle. I never believed her relationship with Caleb so I felt it got away from me when she just couldn’t get past this fated soulmate vision. She catches up, but slowly. The cast of family in this is truly lovely!

If you like travel, Chinese fortune telling, and friends to lovers this is a really cute and easy read. I loved the character’s month long trip around Italy and tried living vicariously through the book since I’ve never been. I’ve read a few books where fortune telling and matchmaking is central to the plot and thought this was a fun take on it. I like how the family traditions, loss of Lo’s mom, and pressure to follow fate was woven throughout the story and led her to make some of her choices. And I’m always a huge fan of friends to lovers and really enjoyed watching Lo and Teller move from best friends to more. The characters were a little juvenile acting to me, but that’s to be expected since this is technically YA and they’re 19 years old. I’m apparently getting too old to read from a teenager’s perspective 🤪. Otherwise I really enjoyed it!

This was the second book I have read by this author and I am really starting to love Amy Lea's writing! Teller is freaking hilarious. His nerdiness is top notch and just so so adorable that you just have to root for me. I found myself cheering him on throughout the book. Lo is trying to connect with her mother, her passed away when she was a little girl and comes to find out that sometimes fate isn't always who you think it will be with and it may just surprise you. Absolutely adored this book and ate it up!!

Amy Lea doing what Amy Lea does best! This was a heartfelt love story from beginning to end and was written so well I truly didn’t know how it was going to end. Lovely characters, places, and a little fate made this a great read for me.

I love a book with a travel vibe done well and I loved travelling around Italy with Lo, Teller, and friends. The story unraveled and matched each new place we travelled and I enjoyed how it pushed the story along in an organic way. Meeting new characters like Caleb and Riley as we travelled was a nice addition and was realistic so nothing ever seemed so far-fetched that it wouldn’t have happened in real life (a problem I have with a lot of books that revolve around travel). I loved how towards the end Lo got to have so many new adventures, but each one only pushed her closer to where she was “fated” to be.

The family vibe was so sweet and I enjoyed each of the characters and the role they played in Lo’s life. Her aunts were amazing and all of her bonding moments and jokes with her dad added depth to each of the side characters, but never so much that they overshadowed Lo. Family was so important to her and she never lost sight of that.

The book revolved around fate but it was up to each character’s own interpretation and that was really cool. It added an extra twist at the end that I genuinely never saw coming and I loovveee when every once in a while a book surprises me!

If you love Amy Lea’s other books you’ll definitely want to add this to your TBR, and I bet you’ll love it too. I could’ve curled up and lived in this story for a little while longer, but it was so much fun and had a picture perfect ending you’ll definitely swoon over.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Skyscape for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

What if you have the power to picture your true love before the meet cute even happened? What if this same power was passed down from generation to generation from the women in your family?
This premise alone of Amy Lea's novel, Something Like Fate, gathered my interest and also I just love Amy's books! But the fate reminded me of my team Jacob faze back in my Twilight years and I could never quiet get over the whole imprinting debacle. I mean to set eyes on someone and just know you found the ONE is quiet astonishing. Except when you're Lo Zhao-Jensen and you seem to think that fate is not on your side.
Lo thinks she's destined to live alone in this colorful word and so she takes a gamble on life the Lizzie McGuire way and travels to Europe. With her backpack on and her Gordo like best friend, Teller, by her side Lo is ready to find love. Is this what dreams are made of? Maybe.
I so wanted to live this book, but it lacked the special feeling that Amy sprinkles in her stories. Yes there was so many times I laughed at Lo's jokes and her snippy commentary on life, but other times it the story just carried on. I kept thinking to myself what a lot of pressure the Lo's aunts are putting on her to find the ONE at age 19. I went to a private Christian college and the pressure was ON to find the ONE and get your MRS. degree. So I feel for her and also just wish I could tell, her that there's no rush or need to place yourself in those confines of love. She's only 19 people, 19!
Overall it was a cute read and I wish I could have seen more of Teller's and Lo's friendship after the chapter 43.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5! Thank you very much for this ARC! Although I thought that this was very cute and I absolutely adore the author, I found that the story was wrapped up very fast and I wish there was a little bit more time when Lo got home. It was easy to follow, I loved the different representation that was throughout and it made me feel like I was travelling right alongside them all! Only thing I would change is that I felt the beginning and middle dragged on for a while and the ending was rushed!

Very cute premise which is what attracted me to this book. While there were so many good moments in the book, I didn’t love it. The whole psychic ability didn’t blend with the rest of the book. It almost felt like it was “oh don’t forget about your psychic abilities”. I did do a bit of skimming to get through it because I did want to know how it ended.

4.5 stars

Amy Lea's writing never misses 🙌🏻 I was concerned going into this that I wouldn't enjoy it as much as her other books because the characters are younger (early college age) and I find I often struggle to relate to them. However, this was not the case at all in Something Like Fate.

Lo & Geller's friendship was so fun. The weird fate love triangle worked weirdly well for me.


Thanks to NetGalley & Skyscape for an advance copy 🫶🏻

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️

A contemporary romance dealing with the concept of soulmates set in Italy? It’s like a mad libs designed specifically for me!

As someone who spent a summer in Italy at age 20, I really loved the descriptions of locations and just the overall experience really resonated! I also really liked Lo and Teller— and their dynamic.

Read if you love:
- friends to lovers
- magical realism
- travel romances
- Italy

Thanks to Skyscape, Amy Lea and Netgalley for the free eARC!

I just don’t think this book was for me, but it would appeal to others who liked her previous work.. though it is a bit different. This had some magical realism in it that I was not prepared for.

Review originally posted on March 4, 2025 on FYA blog:

Cover Story: Fancy Shower?

Is it a tiled spa floor, is it a tiled bathroom wall? We’ll never know!

The Deal:

Lo Zhao-Jensen’s female family members have been fortune tellers as far back as they can remember with the unique ability to foretell their own soulmate. Lo has lived with the shame of being the only one without this ability UNTIL a hot summer night between freshman and sophomore year at college, when the vision hits her in the middle of a make-out sesh.

The timing is perfect, actually, because it foretells that she will meet The One during her backpacking trip to Italy. Lo and her college roommate, Bianca, will be following the itinerary her aunt and deceased mom took on their trip twenty years ago. How romantic, right?!

Except Bianca breaks her foot the day before they leave, so Lo has to recruit her high-school boy bestie, Teller, to join her so she won’t be staying in hostels alone. She and Teller haven’t seen each other in a year…when did he get those abs?

BFF Charm: Roger Murtaugh

Lo puts a lot of stock in these fortune-telling abilities, especially as it makes her feel closer to her mom, who died when she was too young to have any memories of her. This means she clings to these visions a little too hard, even as the people around her tell her to trust her gut. The second-guessing, hemming and hawing was a bit much at times—just speak your truth, girlie!—but it was relatable—yeeeah, it’s not always that easy! I share in her love of romantic comedies, and as an introvert, I’d love someone extroverted like her to tag along on a trip to help me make friends with the randos at my hostel.

Swoonworthy Scale: 4

Lo meets Caleb as he’s literally saving her life, and he’s exactly what the vision ordered: gorgeous, spontaneous, and gregarious. But I’m sure you’ll understand by my inclusion of Teller in The Deal that the course of true love doth not run smoothly. Lo and Teller are pure opposites that share an undeniably comfortable rapport, and if Lo has always had the teeniest, tiniest crush on Teller since the 10th grade, well, it didn’t matter because he was always with Sophie, and she was always dating some underrated jock.

I appreciated that there were plenty of moments where Lo and Teller were truly just friends versus a constant, secret pining. Also…kudos to the author on the makeout moments!

Talky Talk: Serviceable

My interest in this book was piqued when I heard that Lea was inspired by the 1994 rom-com Only You (starring an adorable Marisa Tomei and a YOUNG Robert Downey Jr.), which I have seen multiple times. This book is not a one-for-one remake, thankfully, but does bring up similar themes of traveling in Italy, natch, and whether you’re fated to be with a specific person. Unfortunately, while Lea crafted a serviceable romance, there was nothing that particularly stood out to make it memorable long beyond closing the back cover. I got a bit frustrated with Lo and her decisions near the end of the book, and parts of the beginning of their trip dragged a bit.

Bonus Factor: Italy

It seemed like 2024 was the year everyone on social media traveled to Italy EXCEPT ME. I really need to make it there one of these days. That being said, I don’t think this book showed off the country as well as other travel-romance books. There were plenty of moments where Italian things were mentioned, or touristy things were summarized as “they went here and there”, but if you took those out and just read the major moments…would it have mattered if the story was set in Italy?

Bonus Factor: Kick-Ass Aunties

While Lo will always miss her mother, she has always had wonderful, unwavering support in her mom’s sisters, Ellen and Mei. I love a good auntie in a story; they are always ready with sound advice and some kind of treat.

Factor: Love Triangles

If you want me to believe in a love triangle, both love interests really need to be stellar options. Teller obviously got a lot of page-time, and, to Lea’s credit, Caleb was a decent dude, but he did a LOT of monologuing versus conversing. Perhaps he’d work for others, but some of his views on life were making my eyelid twitch.

Relationship Status: Fated? Eh…

You’re nice, Book, but I can’t imagine that I’d be hit with a vision of us together forever. If you’d like to show me around Italy on your Vespa, I’ll take the free ride, but please don’t get down on one knee.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Skyscape. I received neither money nor peanut butter cups in exchange for this review. Something Like Fate is available now.

Thankyou to netgalley for sending me a copy of this book, unfortunately this wasn't for me. I don't like love triangles and it felt a little too young for me which is completely my fault for requesting a ya and I will be more mindful in the future to not request anything younger. I'm sure some younger audiences would enjoy this though.

Coming of age/romance

Lo is an Asian American and all of the women in her family have visions to predict who they will marry. Lo so badly wants to be like the women in her family but she also wants it to feel right. She struggles with her identity and who she is meant to be. Lo talks her best friend into going to Italy with her to search for her soul mate.

#netgalleyreads #netgalley #netgalleyarc

This was a cute read! I have really like Amy Lea’s books! This one wasn’t a standout one to me though, it was fine, and I liked it but I liked her other books a lot more.