My fascination with F1 racing continues to be fed with Double Apex. Cosmin and Phaedra’s hate to love was everything I needed. Had great tension at the beginning between Phae and Cosmin, and they pushed each other to be better people. The characters had great chemistry and there were emotional family moments (tw). I enjoyed the book although a little more of Phae’s engineering job would have been nice.

I just could not finish this. The FMC is unsufferable and the relationship was not one I could root for.

It starts out with her (his race engineer) talking to him over the radio in a practice session and him calling her a flirty nickname and making sexual innuendos. This wouldn’t be an issue but its made clear that she has told him not to and is uncomfortable. This book honestly comes across as misogynistic at a lot of points. The FMC is “not like other girls” and makes that clear, proudly. I really would not recommend this.

That said, the narrators did a fantastic job, and I would definitely listen to a book narrated by either again.

Douple Apex🏎️
By Josie Juniper❗️

Review🥰

This book was a delightful surprise for me. It was an excellent enemies to lovers story, which is my favorite trope. The banter started strong and lasted throughout the book. The spice level was also really good! I liked reading about all the women in Formula One; I wish it was true in real life! The Formula One races and scenarios were portrayed realistically and accurately. The happily ever after at the end made me grin. It was a lovely read!

Audio review-
I felt the audio was great, especially the female characters' voices. I thought it flowed smoothly, and the voices blended well together. The male lead's accent was difficult to understand at times. I had no additional issues and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Formula 1 🏁
Sports romance🏆
Sweet and spicy🥵
Race engineer x driver🛞
Forbidden romance🤌🏻
Enemies to lovers👅

4.5 stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The audiobook is done well. The voice of Phaedra is done well and the female actor's romanian accent for Cosmin is done very well and easy to understand. My issue is with the Male voice of Cosmin. The way he does the thick Romanian accent makes very difficult to understand what is he saying. The other voices he does are well done.
A race engineer and a FM1 racecar driver, what an interesting pair. If you are not a fan of formula 1, there are several terms and moments that will go over your head like they did for me. We love a woman in stem! The building tension is delicious! This book has the fun trope of when the guy falls first and hard. It does kind of lean into the immaturity of when a boy likes a girl so much he teases her and that can be a little frustrating as a reader. I also want to warn readers that there are several triggers in this book loss of a loved one, grief and SA.

I am DNFing at about the half way point and I normally wouldn't write a full review, but as a woman in STEM and a DV survivor I have to talk about this book.

1. Phaedra is a horrible example of women in STEM. She is extremely sexist, talks down to other women, and tries so hard to not be like other women all while she is benefitting from being the daughter of the owner of the team. She is a true nepo baby and she had zero redeeming qualities. I noticed very early on how horrible she was, but I was hoping she would grow. She only has one friend in this book and I understand why. Phaedra was so terrible to her only friend, but then would still go to this "friend" when she needed something. It was honestly such gross behavior.
2. The moment I DNF'd. Phaedra is actively being an aggressor in a DV situation with the MMC. When he tries to diffuse the situation she throws his past abuse in his face and accuses him of being an abuser. This, in my opinion, has the potential to cause a lot of harm. Women can be abusers. This scene paints Phaedra as a victim when she is the aggressor and that makes me sick to my stomach. The tactics Phaedra uses to victimize herself while actively being an aggressor is something a lot of abusers do. This book has the potential to cause a lot of harm and thinking that a woman could pick up this book that is in a bad situation with a partner and think they are the problem makes me sick top my stomach.
3. This last point seems so small after the other two, but the spice in this book is atrocious. I was physically uncomfortable while reading the spicy scenes. "Are you fertile?" "plunges his fingers in to see how deep I am" "my girl bits are only trimmed" and "sweet juice he is gouging out of me" are just a few examples.

I received both an e-ARC of this book and an audio-ARC. The audio was a dual narration. The one good thing I have to say about this book is that the narrators did a good job and I would listen to them again, just narrating something by a different author.

Thank you Netgalley and hachette audio for the alc. My opinions are being left voluntarily. I loved this book. I haven't read many f1 romance books of the ones I've read I loved this one the most. I read one of Josies books back in June and knew her writing would suck me in!!!! I love the forbidden romance, the attraction the banter !!! Ate. It. All. Up. GONNA NEED TO ADD A COPY TO MY FOREVER SHELF.

4.5/5☆

Thank you to NetGalley, Forever/Grand Central Publishing and Hatchett Audio for both the eARC and ALC of Double Apex by Josie Juniper.

I cannot express how excited I was to read this book. I was so incredibly thrilled to not only be able to receive a digital advanced reader copy but also be fortunate enough to pair it with an advanced listener copy as well - reading and listening simultaneously is my favourite way to read books these days. The main reason I was SO excited for this book is because I'm a big fan of Formula 1 and have been devouring F1 books every time I come across one, and two because the couple were on the same team and SHE was the engineer! I woman in STEM + an F1 driver? I was SOLD and so excited to dive in.

All that said, I am absolutely devastated about having to DNF at 29%, because of seriously dislikeable and problematic characters and a choppy prose.

First of all, the FMC, Phaedra, was immediately dislikeable for many reasons. I've often struggled to connect with grumpy FMCs, but Phaedra was a whole new level. As a math prodigy and an engineer on the F1 team, she has a critically important job of communicating with the driver. She is also the owner of the team's daughter. This is a significant disadvantage to her, because she is already a woman in F1, STEM and now has to deal with the perception of being a nepo baby rather than earning her place on the team. I can absolutely understand that puts her in a difficult position. Add on top of that, her father appears to be terminally ill, so she is dealing with grieving the loss of her father while he is still alive - grief does strange things to people and grieving someone who is still alive can be so confusing. Again, I can absolutely empathize with this.

HOWEVER, her behaviour and actions are atrocious.

Phaedra vehemently lobbied for the team to take on a different driver than the MMC, Cosmin, they ended up with. Her behaviour came across as if she were throwing a temper tantrum about not getting her way - behaving exactly like the stereotypical nepo baby she doesn't want to be perceived as. Additionally, she comes in with such strong preconceived notions about Cosmin, that she refuses to get to know him while repeatedly making judgements about him based on zero factual information.

Phaedra's judgements don't end there. She mentions that she only has one true friend, and both of them frequently judge one another and say horrible things to the other. Phaedra will throw her own intellect in the face of her friend to make her feel stupid, while also slut shaming her. Then she gets upset when her friend states this is why she doesn't feel like she can talk to Phaedra and felt the need to keep secrets from her.

Cosmin is also problematic. The man is funding a charity in support of his sister after she was sexually assaulted and trafficked by the uncle that raised them - which is fantastic. And yet, Phaedra is rightfully upset and frustrated about the frequent innuendos and advances Cosmin makes after she has repeatedly asked him to stop and stated she is not interested. Not to mention, him gaslighting her when she calls him out for it but he claims that she took it as sexual when it could have been interpreted as a harmless comment. Additionally, when the two of them are forced to spend time off together in Greece to "improve their communication," he rubs himself all up on her, after she has repeatedly told him she is not only not interested, but there is a strict no fraternization policy that could result in her losing her job. Does this stop him? No.

Then, a couple of time jumps later, Phaedra is upset about her only friend dumping her and bad news about her father's health, so her coping strategy? Forget the no fraternization police and all the times you have said and done horrible things to Cosmin by flipping the switch and coming on to him now. Mixed signals anyone? But Cosmin has been pining for Phaedra, so he doesn't appear to be super keen that she is openly trying to use him while he is developing feelings for him. But Phaedra believes he is a "man whore," so of course he would want to sleep with her.

That is when I decided to call it quits. I have a pretty high tolerance for character flaws, because at the end of the day, they're meant to portray relatable people and I love seeing growth through a character arc, but this was just too much for me.

The prose and time jumps were so choppy that it kept taking me out of the story. There were times I felt confused, because we were suddenly jumping ahead and getting mixed messaging from characters.

For the audiobook, I felt like the narrators were doing a good job with what they had to work with. Mackenzie Cartwright did fine, she was just voicing a character I really didn't like. Johnathan Lake was juggling a lot of accents and pulled it off - including doing female voices with different accents. I was pretty impressed by that. That said, my normal listening speed is between 2-2.25x speed, and I found at 2x speed, there were times I wouldn't have understood what Johnathan was saying from Cosmin's POV, if I didn't also have the eARC in front of me. I'm sure slowing my speed down would have helped with that, but I felt it was worth noting.