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The Best Worst Thing by Lauren Okie
Pub Date: October 14, 2025
Trigger Warnings: Miscarriage, surrogacy, infidelity, divorce

Review:
5 stars. No notes. I devoured this book. Lauren Okie’s debut is a raw, heart-wrenching, beautifully layered exploration of love, grief, betrayal, and unexpected second chances. It’s angsty in the best way, full of grown-up feelings, and feels like getting caught in a summer storm—messy, emotional, but oddly healing.

Nicole and Gabe have been together for ten years, and it looks like they have the perfect marriage, except they haven't been able to have children. Just when they’re hoping for a fresh start via surrogacy, Nicole discovers Gabe has been unfaithful. Enter: Logan—her old work crush and the literal embodiment of a cinnamon roll. One drunken night leads to something deeper, funnier, and full of banter that sizzles.

Nicole’s “best worst summer” is a rollercoaster of emotions as she navigates heartbreak, impending motherhood, and the chance to build something real with Logan while learning to be true to herself.

I laughed, cried, and wanted to give Logan the Book Boyfriend of the Year award. He’s nerdy, loyal, awkward in the best way, and you will be completely smitten. Nicole’s journey felt so authentic, and I appreciated the way her grief, uncertainty, and resilience were portrayed.

This book is for anyone who’s had to rebuild their life after everything falls apart—and finds something even better in the process.

Read if you like:
💔 Right person, wrong time
🍼 Surrogacy and infertility rep
💕 Book boyfriends who ruin you for real men
👯‍♀️ Strong female friendships
🎢 Emotional rollercoasters
✨ Hope after heartbreak

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I knew this book would wreck me. Do I think this a book everyone should read? Yes. Do I think it’s a book everyone can read? Maybe not, depending on your current circumstances. I’m going to review this in two parts.

Part one - I loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the raw emotions, I loved the banter, I loved the conclusion, I loved the author’s note. I. Just. Loved. It. Our female lead is going through A LOT and while sometimes the decisions she makes seem a bit extreme, she’s trying to deal with years of issues all at once and make everything make sense. Nicole and Logan have the most fun banter I’ve read in a long time. The dual timeline in this one is perfection. The emotional baggage is written so well and never tipped to the unrealistic side. As I said, I loved it.

Part two - if you are part of the infertility/ivf/pregnancy loss community, be gentle with yourself. I will say that this book made me feel seen. That the minute Nicole discussed treatment and the emotional toll, I could immediately tell that this author had a personal stake in this. It felt like someone took my struggles and got them on paper. These hardships are written with care, not dragged out, but also so so so real. If you are at a place where you can read about these topics and not harm your mental health, it is by far worth the read. Pregnancy loss is also talked about and again, the way it’s written made feel like my experience was written into a book. It was not in great detail but the emotion of it was done perfectly. If I read this closer to the time of my miscarriage, I don’t know if I would have been okay. So again, think of yourself and if you are in a place to read about these topics.

All the stars.

Thank you Avon for this amazing arc. And thank you Lauren for writing this story.

The Best Worst Thing follows Nicole, a married woman whose world unravels when she learns she’ll never be able to carry a child. Heartbroken, she turns to surrogacy, but her emotionally unavailable husband, Gabe, offers little support. Nicole, once full of promise, now finds herself without a job, and even her podcast—centered around her fertility struggles—is losing steam.

Her life takes another unexpected turn when she discovers Gabe is cheating on her with the dog walker. In the wake of this betrayal, and in a moment of raw vulnerability, she reconnects with Logan—an old coworker who was always kind, funny, and quietly in awe of her. Logan is the kind of character who makes you root for second chances.

The novel does a great job of weaving together themes of loss, identity, betrayal, and new beginnings. I appreciated the emotional honesty, especially in Nicole and Logan’s journey toward healing and rediscovery. That said, I found Nicole’s constant inner turmoil and back-and-forth decision-making a bit much at times—it made the story feel a little drawn out.

Still, the connection between Nicole and Logan felt genuine and satisfying. Their relationship brought a hopeful and heartfelt layer to the story that made it worth the read.

This book deserves all the stars in the sky.

I finished it at 1am, rocking my toddler back to sleep for the millionth time, holding my breath so I wouldn’t start actively sobbing, and somehow it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Nicole and Logan. The Best Worst Thing was exquisite—heart-wrenching, deeply personal, and stunningly written. Every word hit with exacting precision, and by the end, I felt completely wrung out. I loved every second.

Nicole’s story hit so hard. The journey to motherhood is complicated as hell. We build up these expectations, and when things don’t go as planned (or even when they do), it rocks you to your very core. And yet, life just keeps moving forward. Watching Nicole navigate infertility, betrayal, and the grief of it all was rough, I’m not gonna lie. There was no easy resolution. She messed up a lot. She shut people out. Untangling her life was slow, extremely messy work. But in the end, her arc was one of the most healing and life-affirming I’ve ever read.

And then there was Logan—the true embodiment (CAD model, if you will) of steady, unconditional, golden retriever-level love. The kind of person who truly sees someone, even when they can’t see themselves. Their history made every interaction crackle with unspoken feelings, and the flashbacks only made the longing hit harder. Their dynamic was this perfect mix of humor, inside jokes, playful banter, deep understanding, and years of complicated emotions that made their connection feel inevitable.

Here’s where I’m going to get nerdy for a quick sec. Lauren Okie’s writing was masterful. The pacing, the sentence structure, the way she wove rhythm into her prose—it was truly lyrical. Short, clipped sentences landed like gut punches. Long, meandering ones built emotion so intensely that I occasionally had to pause and simply stare at a wall while I processed. The craftsmanship of Lauren's truly blew my mind, elevating an already incredible story into something actually unforgettable. And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get better, the epilogue delivered the most satisfying, quietly perfect ending.

By the time I reached the acknowledgments, I had nothing but awe for what Lauren Okie accomplished with this debut. Her voice is singular, her storytelling feels effortless, and her ability to translate grief, love, and healing onto the page is unlike anything I’ve read before. This wasn’t just one of my favorite books of the year—it’s one of the best I’ve ever read. I want a million more.

This book comes with an undoubted trigger warning for infertility and loss; there are many tears to be shed throughout this novel.

This book will repeatedly rip your heart out and then put it right back again. It’s messy, exciting, and filled with love.

Exploding with love.

The goofy, childish love. The serious love. The hard to face love. The passionate, perfect love.

An added side note: I love the authors writing style. As a mom who struggled to get back into reading postpartum, the chapters are short and sweet. It makes it easy to pick up for a few minutes and put it back down, and easy to keep dying “just one more chapter.”

The Best Worst Thing is a heartfelt, honest story about grief and healing. The characters felt real, and while some parts wrapped up a bit too neatly, the emotional moments landed beautifully. A quick, meaningful read that’s well worth your time.

This was a wonderfully written debut novel by Lauren Okie surrounding one woman’s infertility struggle.
Nicole and Gabe have been going through years of infertility, and are on their last attempt at a gestational pregnancy with a surrogate. Only for Nicole to come home one day from a trip to discover her husband having an affair with their dog walker. In her haze of her marriage blowing apart, she comes into contact with Logan, an old coworker who always held a torch for Nicole.

I learned so much and felt the emotional turmoil of this novel in my bones. The ache of her fertility struggle; the way that Nicole realizes that she doesn’t know who she was without her husband; who she was outside of being Gabe’s wife. I sometimes have issue with mutiple flashbacks in books, but it absolutely worked for this novel to have the full backstory.

Would recommend this novel!

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager & Netgalley for the ARC of this novel; all opinions are my own.

Short review?
For the love of all things good and holy in this world, it is my civic duty to tell you to read this immediately because it is soul alteringly beautiful and good and funny and mind numbingly sweet.

Long review?
I love this book so much my stomach hurts thinking about it. I am head over heels in love with Logan. I love everything about him- the yearning, the respect, the intelligence, the ADHD, the peanut butter jars. Logan is everything good and pure and loves Nicole in such a healthy and incredible way. We all deserve to be loved by a Logan, and we all have been Nicole when she wasn’t ready to accept that kind of love because we felt we didn’t deserve it.

And Nicole!!! My sweet, sweet, Nicole. I love this woman. I knew immediately that the author had put a part of herself into this story when the pain of infertility and trauma on the page was such an accurate representation of my own trauma. Nicole’s opinion of being broken and not good enough could have been pulled from my own brain. I KNOW her because I WAS her. I loved seeing her shine with confidence in ways that surprised me because it reminded me that I, too, can be confident. I, too, am more than the cards life has dealt me. I, too, can love big and deserve to be loved even bigger.

I am going to scream into the void about this release for years to come. This story feels tattooed onto my heart. If Nicole was 3D printed just for Logan, The Best Worst Thing feels like it is being printed just for me.

Lauren, thank you for writing this. Thank you for sharing yourself within these pages and for giving these characters life and setting them free to change hearts. And to Avon and Harper Collins- thank you for giving this broken but healing girl a chance to read this early because wow. WOW! What a gift.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publishers, and the author for an advanced copy of this book! This was a book that I had seen multiple times on instagram and I was so excited to read it! You know when you start to read a book and from the first few pages that you are going to absolutely love this book and will spend every waking moments thinking about it? That was me for this book, I could not get enough. The banter between Logan and Nicole was so entertaining, as well as all of Logan’s stream of consciousness thoughts. I felt the pacing of this book moved the story along well, without dwelling too long in one time period. The author does a good job of redeeming some of the worst behaved characters in the book, and I appreciated how it all came together in the end.

This book does deal with some heavy topics such as infertility and infidelity but it was written very well. I will be recommending this book to anyone who will listen for a very long time!

I was lucky enough to receive an e-arc of The Best Worst Thing on NetGalley and I was BLOWN AWAY. Not only does Lauren Okie deliver a compelling and incredible love story (the years and years of YEARNING!) via her own version of Jim & Pam's love story from The Office, but she dives into the realities of infertility and all of the ways it can make or break a relationship in a way that feels natural and not heavy (aka so, so well done). As someone who suffered in the infertility trenches for a long time, I related so much with Nicole's story and the feelings she felt. I have whole chunks of the book highlighted and I've preordered it so I can reread when it comes out in October (and so I can have a physical copy sitting on my shelves bc that cover is beautiful!)... I'll probably be shouting about it until then.

For years all Nicole has ever wanted was to have a baby with her husband Gabe. She even started a podcast to document their journey. When she finds out he's cheated she plans to end the marriage and ends up in the doorstep of her old boss. A strange pull she's had to him for years has her feeling like her old self. When she finds out the transfer worked and their surrogate is finally pregnant she realizes she has choices to make and her dream of being a mom will finally come true.

I was incredibly proud of Nicole's character. She's strong and funny and so sure of herself for the most part. I loved that she asked the hard questions and didn't just give in because she thought life would be easy and stick out with her family.

I loved Nicole and Logan's relationship. Logan was such a good guy and those are hard to find in books. Their relationship was fun and laid back but also just so emotional that it felt so real.

I already recommended this book to a friend and can't wait to tell more about it!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC. I saw an Instagram story about this book and immediately ran to NetGalley. After finishing chapter one, I knew that this would be a five star book. The banter between Nicole and Logan was fantastic and I wanted another 300 pages of it. The characters felt so raw and real and I could not put this down. As someone also struggled with infertility, I related so much to Nicole. The author clearly had experience with the topic based on how she tackled many aspects of infertility. I would probably classify this as second chance romance, which is my favorite trope. I was rooting for these characters from the very beginning.

I will be buying this one when it comes out in October for a re-read. I can’t wait for more people to read this so I can talk about it with someone!!!!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers and author for an advanced copy of this book,
The Best Worst Thing by Lauren Okie.
I absolutely devoured this book. I read it one sitting and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I loved Logan! He was so amazing to Nicole. I loved the banter between him and them. I don’t love a 3rd act breakup but I do understand it in this case. Nicole had so much going on, she definitely should have figured some of it out prior to pursing Logan. She frustrated me at times but I also liked how she was a realistic character. Loved the ending and epilogue.
4.5⭐️

Thank you Netgalley and Avon & Harper Voyager for this e-arc early copy!!

This book is centered around Nicole and her struggle with infertility, which was so raw and so real. Just when she thinks her life is as hard as it’ll get… it’s just turned completely upside down.

This book had me in tears, as well as just gigging the rest of the time. THE BANTER!! The two teasing as a love language is just so good and I never fail to eat it up. I just adored Nicole and Logan’s story going literal years back in time, like they were meant to be at some point or another.

She doesn’t see how worthy she is, she pushes despite the fact that he’s always pulling her closer. His patience and care is literally unmatched as he breathes Nic back to life in the midst of her grieving.

Second chance romance is really hit or miss for me, but this was done SO well. This was a romance, but more-so a story of self discovery, struggling, and growth!

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

Lauren Okie's debut novel The Best Worst Thing is an incredibly well written, gut-wrenching, and beautiful story of love, heartbreak, trauma, healing, and growth. Please check trigger warnings before reading! There are some heavy themes in this book, so please take care of yourself!

The Best Worst Thing follows Nicole as she navigates infertility, the destruction of her marriage & her life as she knew it. Throughout all of this, though, is a journey of healing, growth, and love. This story is incredibly raw, messy, beautiful, and vulnerable. Lauren Okie does an incredible job at conveying the difficult emotions, the female rage, and the fears & beauty of falling in love.

Nicole is such a complex and genuine character. For a fictional character, she feels incredibly human. Her emotions, her thought processes, her humor, her hopes, her heart. All of it is laid out for us to learn & understand her as she navigates the countless curveballs life throws at her. I loved her so much, I was rooting so hard for her. I hurt for her & with her. There were times where I wanted to reach through my kindle, shake her & ask "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???", but I think Nicole is a character that is meant to frustrate you at times. Because being a human is messy, it calls for mistakes, bad decisions, and complexities. That frustration exists because we are able to understand her so well.

Logan Milgram, the man that you are. Did someone say hot nerd? Here you go!!! Logan deserves a spotlight in this review because 1. I love him to death, 2. he is a wonderful beautiful, lovely character. Logan is a goofy, intelligent, caring and gentle man. Everytime he spoke I was kicking my feet in the air and twirling my hair. GOD I LOVE HIM.

Truthfully, I could talk about Gabe, but Gabe is just Gabe. You just have to read it to understand it.

The romance in this book is delectable. It's filled with undeniable tension, chemistry, and a connection between two people that is so raw it's practically indescribable. Literal SOULMATES. The banter, the yearning, the CHEMISTRY. My god I love them so much. They took me on an absolute rollercoaster ride but I loved every second of it. I loved the route Lauren Okie took in incorporating a bit of dual timeline into their story as well, giving us insight into their past!!!

Lauren Okie's handling of the topic of infertility was beautifully done. The way it can affect ones mental health, relationships, and everything in between. The hard, debilitating emotions, the pain, the despair, and the anger. The "why me?'s". It was a raw, emotional depiction of a reality so many face.

Overall, this is one of my favorite reads so far this year. It made me feel every single emotion. I knew from the first chapter that this book would be one that stuck with me. I can't recommend it enough, but I do want to emphasize the importance of checking the trigger warnings!!!

♾️⭐️
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I could tell in the first few chapters that this one was different. I know I’m a sucker for second-chance, but The Best Worst Thing is just straight-up god-tier. I could honestly go on and on forever about why I love it, but I’ll keep it to a couple main points…I hope.

Very early on in reading, I messaged Lauren to tell her how amazed I was that in under 40 pages, she made me absolutely hate one man and completely adore another. Logan. LOGAN. What an absolute character, in every meaning of the word. Full of useless knowledge, cereal marketed toward children, endless genuine friendliness toward everyone he meets, and love for Nicole. Logan is the epitome of a golden retriever MMC and he might be my favorite to ever fit the trope. This man has yearned - respectfully and without hope - but boy, has he yearned. And when he sees this second chance, he still waits. He cares so much about Nicole, he doesn’t push her to tell him what she’s going through. He’s just there for her, constantly - maybe to a fault, but we love him for it!

Nicole! This woman has been through so much even before the events of the novel. I felt for her during every interaction, every new, crushing realization or infuriating confrontation. Part of the reason I love romance books so much is getting to experience and learn from these women as they develop strength through hardships. Having experienced only the barest fraction of Nicole’s issues, I can’t imagine how she was able to get up and stand on her own two feet, let alone deal with everything she has to in this book. The way she struggles to do the right thing during the actual best and worst moments of her life as they all happen at once is so heart-wrenching and believable.

Last thing - the setting, the weather, the moving parts of every scene, all create another layer of emotion to the story. A sudden downpour after an ultrasound, a whistling kettle on the stovetop, an appropriately timed heatwave. Each of these subtle elements add such depth and feeling to almost every scene whether it was heart-breaking, hopeful, steamy, or rage-inducing. It was these moments I found myself highlighting and mooning over the most.

Lauren, I don’t know where you’re been my whole life, but I am here for what is bound to be a long and successful career. Thank you for this book and for putting up with my messages about it over the last month. Gonna go cry and continue building my TBWT Pinterest board ✌️

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager for the early e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

reading this had me in tears for the main characters and what they went through. i was hooked from the beginning and I felt for the female main character.

while i was reading this book i was feeling all of the emotions! the romance had me hooked and their banter was playful and such a push and a pull. the tension was so delicious and the flashbacks really helped provide background for the relationship that logan and nicole had! their relationship at work was friendly, toeing the line towards flirty which made the stakes so much higher bc she was married! i think through the entire book we can see how much logan loved nicole. he was patient, kind, compassionate, a shoulder to cry on and continuously there for her when she needed it. he was one of the highlights of this book for me. he was so quippy and sarcastic and had this energy that had me loving him immediately!

nicole was really going through it and even though this is told in third person it’s so easy to empathize with her. her thoughts about how her body let her down and feeling like she lost everything in her life just to end up alone was devastating. when she finally stood up to gabe i CHEERED! gabe is truly one of the most despicable husbands i’ve ever read. even thought there’s reconciliation towards the end i simply couldn’t forgive him.

i think this book discussion topics of infertility and pregnancy and will touch so many people! the characters are messy and complex and this is a perfect imperfect story.

although a lot of of aspects worked for me there are a couple of things i can’t overlook. while nicole can’t get a divorce bc it could mess up her ability to get custody of her child and she is for all intents and purposes separated from her husband she is still married while with logan and he doesn’t know this for a majority of the book. i feel like she was unfair to him and a bit selfish. he constantly showed he was understanding and i wish she would have told him. additionally, i feel like we jump into her friendship with logan. yes they were coworkers but they weren’t even really friends. their initial friendship felt unrealistic and i just kept thinking about that. although i adored their relationship i can’t stop thinking about how the beginning felt so strange.

overall i did enjoy my reading experience but as i look back there are some issues i just can’t overlook. i do think so many people will like this and i will definitely read what lauren okie writes next!

3.75 ⭐️

read this at the recommendation of miss jessica joyce (read: stalking her goodreads reviews) and stumbled upon one of the most painfully brutal yet uplifting stories of infertility, infidelity, self-growth, and letting others support you.

from the get-go, i was crying my heart out 20% in. this handles some delicate topics with absolute finesse but if cheating or infertility are a trigger, id be so cautious. as someone with no experience of these things, i was an absolute mess and feel for every person who thinks their body is somehow letting them down or “required” to perform a certain way.

this is also in no way an utter doom and gloom sob fest, as as multiple points this had me putting the book down and cackling. her blooming romance truly had me giddy from the start and their banter is unrivaled. bullying is in fact a love language and i will subscribe to that belief until i die!

the only thing holding it back from a higher rating is how very tell-not-show it was. it was mostly the opposite which could be chalked up this being her debut, which i can overlook somewhat. i do feel though, that with the story she’s trying to tell here specifically, that we would’ve benefited from being SHOWN her previous love, her budding romance, her relationships with others, etc. it just seems like so much was explained to us as if we were friends catching up at brunch and i wanted to truly immerse myself in these moments!

thank you to netgalley and avon for the arc 💫

1 like

I absolutely ate this book up and couldn't put it down! It was a beautiful representation of infertility and miscarriage (Trigger Warning), yet somehow became a perfect love story. Logan is the real MVP and shows love to Nicole like you've never seen. The characters were so realistic and beautifully written. My heart ached, I laughed, I cried..and cried and cried. This book was perfect.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!