The audiobook felt halting and staccato.
I had a tough time following with the time jumps
The narrator didn't differentiate between characters, so I was always confused as to who was talking.
I cant really comment on the book itself because the audiobook experience kept me confused.
I DNF'd at the 3 hrs mark

Thank you NetGalley for a copy to review!

2.5 ⭐️ stars rounded up

I love the premise of this book, but it just didn't quite scratch the romcom itch for me.

Told in present time and flashbacks, the story follows two friends from high school- (that sort of had a thing for each other) reconnect at their reunion.

Second chance is one of my favorite tropes, but unfortunately I found this one rather forgettable. There was lots of fun banter, but I wish the characters were a bit more fleshed out. I will definitely give the author another try in the future.

This book explores the question, “What happened to the person I thought I’d be?” It's quiet, a little tender, and full of that reflective energy I didn’t realize I needed.

Rachel Dang was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” back in high school but fast forward twenty years and she’s unemployed, living with her mom, and questioning just about everything. When her old debate rival-slash-frenemy Danny Phan invites her to their 20-year reunion, she shows up…mostly to prove to herself that she still can. What follows is a night of reconnection, reflection, and slow-burning romantic tension between two people who never quite figured each other out.

I resonated with Rachel so much. That feeling of not being where you thought you’d be, of measuring your life against old expectations, whew. I’ve been there. Her uncertainty, her quiet frustration, her longing to still be seen as someone with potential-it all hit. And I appreciated that the book didn’t try to tie everything up neatly. It let her exist in that in-between space, and that felt honest.

Rachel and Danny’s dynamic is full of sparks and tension, but also real vulnerability. Their banter made me smile, and their awkward honesty gave me hope. The entire story takes place over one night, which worked in some ways, giving the story a dreamy, what-if quality, but also made me wish we had just a little more room for things to breathe. Some of the miscommunication felt a little drawn out, and I would’ve loved more time with them outside the high school setting.

Still, this is a thoughtful, introspective second-chance story. Not a big, sweeping romance but a soft, quiet reminder that it’s okay to start over, even if the timeline looks nothing like you planned.

The Girl Most Likely To by Julie Tieu is a delightful contemporary rom-com. Rachel Dang was laid off from her big-time Hollywood career a week before her 20-year high school reunion. As a high achiever voted most likely to succeed in high school, she was planning on skipping the event… until her high school best friend and almost-boyfriend, Danny Phan reached out to see if she was coming. Switching back and forth between their teenage friendship and their rekindled adult relationship at their disastrous reunion, the book has the kind of nostalgia you want from a second-chance romance. As Danny and Rachel rehash their past, they begin to discover what a new future together could really look like.
This book is funny. It has all the high jinks required of a successful rom-com with enough romantic tension to make you swoon. Danny and Rachel’s relationship is all about communication and they are both finally mature enough to work through the problems they kept running into as teens on AIM chats. As an aside, the audio perfectly narrates chats and texts as they appear in the novel. Overall, I highly recommend The Girl Most Likely To by Julie Tieu if you are looking for a fun reunion second-chance rom-com to sink your teeth into.

Even though I'd consider this a light read, Julie Tieu took me on an emotional rollercoaster with The Girl Most Likely To—and I loved every loop and drop. Rachel and Danny’s journey from enemies to tutor/student, to friends, to flirting, to enemies again, to strangers, and finally to lovers? Wild. But also: so, so satisfying.

I usually struggle with books that play with timelines (hello, ADHD brain), but the way Tieu structured it—paired with Natalie Naudus’ narration—made the transitions seamless. I never once felt lost in time.

While the plot itself isn’t wildly complex, it’s beautifully written. It transforms what could’ve been a typical second-chance romance into a quietly powerful story about growth, missed chances, and finding love in the middle of your career falling apart. Rachel and Danny might not have become high school sweethearts, but their reconnection is a real love story.

This was a light read that still delivered all the feels—humor, heartache, nostalgia, and hope.

My Ratings:
🧍🏽‍♀️ 3/5 Characters
🌶️ 3/5 Spice
🎬 4/5 Ending (I'm an HEA connoisseur, and this one hit nicely)
🧩 2/5 Plot
💫 3/5 Overall

If you’re into nostalgic rom-coms with a touch of emotional depth, this one’s worth your time—especially in audio format.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5

The Girl Most Likely To is an entertaining contemporary romance with a compelling cast of characters and sweet romance.

I had a lot of fun with this one. The characters and character development were well-written, although the development sometimes felt sudden. Rachel was an excellent main character, and I enjoyed her romance with Danny. The flashbacks into their past were delightful, and I enjoyed Julie Tieu’s engaging prose. The plot was fun, and the pacing overall fit the story nicely. It was a sweet, funny, romantic story that was a wonderful treat.

Natalie Naudus narrated this one beautifully. She captured Rachel’s character and the other characters’ personalities well, and she brought her signature energy and emotion to the story. I would certainly recommend the audiobook!

Thank you to the publisher for the free ALC!

I really enjoyed The Girl Most Likely To! It felt very relatable and I'm in awe of how Julie Tieu made this story feel so timeless despite the fact that it mostly took place over the course of one night. It's so sweet and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by the author!
I also really liked Natalie Naudus's narration.

🎧AUDIO REVIEW🎧
📚The Girl Most Likely To by Julie Tieu
🎤Natalie Naudus

GREAT Solo Narration

Rachel is your typical Type-A personality. She's been let go from a job she's had for years & just in time to attend her 20 year HS reunion. She hates being unemployed but wants to see if she can reconnect with Danny Phan, a close friend.

At 14, these two find themselves in a group chat. They connect immediately but it's totally anonymous. Once they've hit their senior year in HS, they meet in real life. Not realizing they've been going to the same HS this whole time. They had become quite close 4 years ago in their chat.

Their paths diverge due to family circumstances & a series of misunderstandings. Now with Rachel's 20 year reunion approaching, she's wondering about Danny. They were young & stupid when they parted ways but she's hoping they can reconnect. Rachel was voted, "Most Likely to Succeed." in HS but she's not feeling too successful.

Deciding to go to her reunion, she & Danny are pushed together & a series of hilarious & slightly dramatic events unfold. There's still chemistry there & they both realize that there are things that need to be said after their unfortunate parting years ago. Can they make it work a second time, 20 years later? It's worth a shot!

🎧Let's talk narration: Natalie Naudus is extremely talented. I enjoyed this performance a lot. Rachel's character is impulsive & stubborn and Natalie voices this Type A FMC perfectly. Solo Narration is so hard to pull off but Natalie's talents made it easy to listen to.

I did LOVE the 2000's nostalgia, NGL! This is a slow burn but a tender & funny romance. It's a great look at characters in HS and how they hopefully become better as they grow into adulthood. I always love a good second chance story and add in a HS reunion??? This was a fun listen!

💚Second chance
💚HS reunion
💚2000 nostalgia
💚Slow burn
💚Friends to lovers
💚Set in L.A.

Thank you Julie Tieu, NetGalley, & Harper Audio for a copy to listen and review. All thoughts are my own.

The audiobook was well done, I liked the reader a lot. I don't really relate to caring so much about a high school reunion, or generally being this anxious about people's opinions 20 years after high school (which I'm pretty close in age to actually) though I get that her life has really been upended recently. I think as the book goes on, though some of the plot points are pretty over the top, the characters and their anxieties get more nuanced and realistic. They're fun. The rediscovering of the friendship between the two main characters was enjoyable. It was perhaps a little longer than necessary. I didn't need all the details in the past POV. Overall I liked it, though. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperAudio for the ARC.

The Girl Most Likely To is a romcom about two people who are getting a second chance at their high school love. This is a fun story that takes place mostly over one reunion night. There is a past timeline woven through that enhances the story.

Told from the female POV, this story shows growth that is genuine and multifaceted. As a reader, I wanted to go on this journey both for the romance and for the MC’s individual story.

I listened to the audiobook version of this story, which was well done by a single narrator, Natalie Naudus. I listened at 1.75x speed (my normal audiobook listening speed is 1.75).

Thank you NatGalley and Harper Audio Adult for this advanced audiobook copy.

After a couple of weeks after reading this book I kind of still feel the same way about it. Like overall a good premise, a fun book just not something very memorable for me. I was kind of bored in some parts and I just maybe wanted a tiny bit more. Overall just a lovely time.

I liked the narrators of this, and it It had been others I might've DNFed.

ALC Review
The Girl Most Likely To by Julie Tieu
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus

Okay, I think what I liked the most about this book was that they graduated the same year as me. The nostalgia references were my references. It was my high school experiences, music, and technology.

I have a hard time when a book is done in solo point of view - I find it difficult to connect with the other main character when I don't get their point of view. Although the AOL communication was definitely interesting. I do think that Rachel was a bit too quick to dismiss Danny and his explanations. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable and easy read.

Pick this one up if you enjoy:
* 2000s nostalgia
* High school reunion
* Second chance romance
* Slow burn

This book took a really long time for me to start enjoying. It spent a lot of time on unnecessary characters and details and I was wondering when the romance would begin (I'm sorry to say but the beginning was very boring). I enjoyed the millennial things as well as the AOL chat (haha on the usernames). Overall this one was a miss for me.

I usually love a good romance where we shift time between present day and past. I also love a second chance romance. But I will admit both elements fell flat in this book for me. It was a very slow listen. I also don’t know if it was due to narration or writing, but it was hard at times to pick up on when in time we were.

"𝘐𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭. 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘵𝘸𝘰. 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘱𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘫𝘰𝘣. 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘧𝘪𝘷𝘦. 𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴. 𝘉𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯. 𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘕𝘢𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯-𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳-𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺, 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭."


A big thank you to @harperaudio, @avonbooks and @netgalley for the advanced copies of the book and audiobook in exchange for this review!

Listening to this book brought me so much nostalgia. 😅 and then I had the realization that I'm coming up on 16 years since I graduated and I was shooketh. lol

While I graduated about 6 years after our main characters, I still had AIM. lol I remember the butterflies of hearing your crush log on.

I was also our class president. I TRIED to throw a 10 year reunion.... it didn't go well (alas is the life in a small town in the day and age of Facebook lol)

🎒 Asian Americans
⭐️ High School Reunion
🎒 Second Chance Romance
⭐️ Teenage Love
🎒 School Superlatives
⭐️ Navigating Life Changes
🎒 Dual Timeline
⭐️ Late Thirties MCs
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#bookstagram #booksta #books #booksbooksbooks #avidreader #ilovereading #thetwistedlibrarian #professionalbookworm #thegirlmostlikelyto #julietieu #harperaudio #harpervoyager #avonbooks #book4of2025 #whatsnikkireading #whatsnikkilisteningto #asainamericans #highschoolreunion #teenagelove #secondchanceromance #schoolsuperlatives #dualtimeline @natalienaudus

I enjoyed this book.. I'm torn between a 3.5 to 4 stars mainly be the FMC was annoying at times. I do wish we had gotten a POV from Danny.

audio-ARC from NetGalley.

Gawd, I love a good childhood-friends-to-lovers/second chance romance, and this one delivered that in spades alongside some dial-up internet, millennial nostalgia.

Rachel met her best friend anonymously on AIM. After speaking for years and pouring her heart out to the guy on the other side of the chat, they finally met and realized they already knew each other: he was Danny, the slacker she'd been tutoring all semester. Their friendship rocketed quickly into something more before imploding right before graduation, and then they never spoke again. Twenty years later, as her perfect life begins to crumble, Rachel receives a Facebook message from Danny, asking her to attend their twentieth high school reunion. After decades regretting how things ended, she agrees...

This book felt like home. I've never been an overachieving Khmer-American or worked in Hollywood, but I know what it's like to anonymously befriend someone via online messages. I've also had a best friend who I confided in without ever knowing their name or what they looked like. And, separately, I know what it's like to meet the love of your life talking crap on social media and to repair a broken friendship over Facebook Messenger.

I felt like this story was written for me. I felt the angst and the desperation of that teenage insecurity, but it was so satisfying to see the way that maturity and communication can overcome all that. When you're in your thirties, you've learned that time is wasted wondering when the answers are available now, if you just ask for them. And, as an adult, you learn that there is no need for drama or miscommunication or third act breakups.

Tieu is an incredible writer, and I can't wait to read more of her books.

Couldn't get into it and the narrator was slightly annoying/distracting. The switching of timelines was also confusing. I love a slowburn but it just took too long to get interesting and wish there was more early on.

Rachel, a 30 something career driven exec that just got fired and decided to go to her 20 yr high school reunion. I like how it switched between past and present. Overall, definitely a solid read, laugh out loud funny and enjoyable. I really liked Rachel and Danny's story.

Loved the basic plot of this book (a frenemies to lovers second chance romance, where two previous high school best friends reconnect at their twenty year high school reunion), but found myself disappointed by the story itself. The Girl Most Likely To is very heavy on all the typical rom-com tropes (which is fine, because that’s usually what makes a rom-com), but is also very heavy on stereotypes. I can look past the tropes, but the stereotyping felt very overdone and borderline inappropriate at times.

While the plot was fun and the book had some highly enjoyable moments, I found it hard to enjoy because of the main character’s immaturity.

Fun plot, but I found a lot to be lacking in this one.

Thank you to Julie Tieu, HarperAudio, & NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.