This book is very cute, featuring a sunshine x sunshine pairing. I did like both characters and I was rooting for them to get together, but I did feel the story dragged in places.

I absolutely loved this book! This is a friends to lovers romance with a smidgen of Korean food and words thrown in for good measure, resulting in a book that you just can’t put down. I’m hoping the author writes a follow up about the brother, Alex, so we can hear more about these characters, as well as the other secondary characters from this story, as they were all so good! 10/10

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

I wanted to love this because I love books with bookstores in it but Lizzie annoyed me. She was "burned out" and was supposed to rest for three weeks but instead helps the bookstore. This rubbed me the wrong way big time because I've been burned out and it took me over two years to come back to work, so don't write that someone is being burned out and just needs to rest for a few weeks. I know this is fiction but it still sends a message that burned out is nothing serious. Ugh.

Thank you to Netgalley and Headline for a copy of this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I love the friends to lovers trope, and with the setting being around a bookstore, I was eager to pick up this book. Booked on a Feeling is wholesome and adorable and was very easy to consume.

I enjoyed the friendship and connection between Jack and Lizzy. It felt natural even with Jack's longstanding feelings for Lizzy. When there was sexual tension brewing, they were still able to be there for each other as a friend, which I felt was important.

Although this is part of a series, I found it easy to navigate. The story isn't anything new and frankly is quite predictable. I knew what the outcome would be very early on, but that didn't cheapen the journey to reach the end goal, which I appreciated. There was enough humour to keep it light, which I found vital considering how deeply Jack and Lizzy contemplate their feelings and the situation of going from more than friends to lovers, along with their personal life changes.

The romance was surprisingly spicy, which given how cute everything was, I hadn't been expecting. Things get pretty heated between the characters which fed into their connection and natural chemistry. I have to admit that this level of spice made it easier to continue reading during some of the tedious lulls this book held.

The mental health representation was also balanced well within this novel, and I liked the level of self-growth and independence incorporated into it. Watching both Jack and Lizzy reach out for their own path in life, along with each other, was rewarding.

That said, I did find this novel to just be okay. It wasn't anything new, and it didn't have to be. It didn't always hold my attention as strongly as in other parts, and whilst I have a great interest in Korean culture, I didn't find myself immersed in the familial scenes. I also found the issue of Jack's feelings and how hard it was to ride them out in Lizzy's company quite repetitive.

If you're looking for a fun, spicy little read with two characters that reach out for what they deserve, then this will be a good book to pick up.

Thank you to Netgalley and Headline Books for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

1.5/5

Based on the description, I really thought I would enjoy this book. Booked on a Feeling is a childhood best friends to lovers story that focuses around burnout and a bookstore. Unfortunately, this book really fell flat for me. The main characters, Lizzy and Jack, had no depth. Throughout the book we are constantly told that they are best friends for 20 years. However, we know absolutely nothing about their friendship which leads the trope to fall short. While Lizzy is 29 and Jack is 30, they both felt extremely juvenile. Not only that, but they had zero character development and the same exact story arc. I wish we would have seen Lizzy struggle more with her career as a lawyer. It just felt extremely sudden and out of the blue for her to want to quit and move. There were some good steamy bits, but it always stopped exactly when you wished it would continue. Also why did we need so many in depth descriptions of food? Overall, just bleh.

3⭐️
This is an ARC review (I always forget to say that…sorry) and while I expect typos in ARCs, I will say there was a lot of clunky repetition of words etc at the beginning of this book that I’m hoping will be ironed out for publication.

First off, I really wish trad publishers would use content warnings in their books – anxiety and panic attacks play a big part in this book and while usually I’m okay with that sort of thing, I found the MC passing out and the way the attacks were described to actually effect me quite a lot. So a heads up would have been nice.

I almost DNFd this about a million times but decided to push through because 1. I thought it was going to be spicy and 2. I thought it would get better. Unfortunately, while there was some spice it wasn’t knock-your-socks-off sexy in the way this has been marketed to be. I also just found it boring. I don’t know if it’s because it was dual POV but I found the characters so dumb, especially when you get the insight into ‘I love her but she doesn’t want me’ and ‘I love him but he doesn’t want me’ – this book felt like one big long miscommunication trope.

It was technically well-written but I do think it lacked personality, or that quality that just makes you want to continue reading a book, which is a shame. However, I did like the food descriptions, that all sounded amazing. I could see this making a cute summer movie but as a book it just wasn’t for me.

First of all, I am a firm believer in friends-to-lovers supremacy. My favourite romance trope ever, I adore it with all my heart, so I was so excited to go into this, expecting it to be the perfect mix of friends-to-lovers and bookishness.

My excitement over the bookishness was definitely met - Lizzy is a total bookworm, and I thought she was so relatable (especially in her never-ending TBR pile that she keeps adding to because she keeps buying more and more books...). She volunteers to help a failing bookstore thrived, and honestly those scenes inside the bookstore were my favourite, I loved seeing Sparrow Books come to life on the page. I also found Lizzy to be really relatable in terms of anxiety representation; I thought that this was done really well, and I felt so strongly for her when she was experiencing panic attacks and going through her breathing exercises.

However, where my excitement was not met, sadly, was in the friends-to-lovers trope. There is no real establishment of this supposed 20-year-long friendship between Jack and Lizzy. Their parents are friends (despite Lizzy's parents moving back to Korea when she was a child), she had to stay in America for her education (but there is no explanation of how she managed to do this/where she stayed/who she stayed with - was it with Jack's family? No clue, we aren't told that), but at the same time Jack's childhood town is not Lizzy's childhood town??? I really wanted some flashbacks to their friendship over the past 20 years. There is just no proof that they have been best friends since they were 10 years old; we are just told that, and expected to believe it.
One example where I felt that there was no proof of their friendship was when they had to check with each other on the most basic of details about each other's families? Such as how much younger than the two of them Jack's sister is. If you've known each other and been best friends since you were 10 years old, surely you know that very basic detail?
Jack and Lizzy just felt oddly formal and awkward around each other the whole time; the banter didn't really flow like you would expect with friends-to-lovers, and overall I was just disappointed in the romance aspect sadly.

I am interested in picking up more from this author, and I really wish that I had loved this more than I ended up feeling!

I really enjoyed this friends to lovers story.

Lizzy is a great character - she's spent her whole life focused on what her mother wants for her, but after she takes a career break she starts to re-examine her happiness and high flying career with the help of her best friend Jack.

Jack has been in love with Lizzy for TWENTY YEARS, and when she rocks up to his small town for a three week visit and starts to view him as more than a friend he struggles to believe that being with Lizzy can last.

Set against the backdrop of a small town bookshop which lots of food chat this book hits my heart in lots of ways.

The character development is natural and their banter is fun and what you would expect from a 20 year friendship.

This is a lovely read that I flew through it in one afternoon

Thanks Netgallery for the ARC

Absolutely loved this one! Very relatable and a perfect beach read

Summary
Lizzy "Overachiever" Chung, Esq. has her life mapped out neatly:
* Become a lawyer. Check.
* Join a prestigious law firm. Check.
* Make partner. In progress.

If all goes to plan, she will check off that last box in a couple years, make her parents proud, and live a successful, fulfilled life in L.A. What was not in her plans was passing out from a panic attack during a pivotal moment in her career. A few deep breaths and a four-hour drive later, Lizzy is in Weldon for three weeks to shed the burnout and figure out what went wrong. And what better place to recharge than the small California town where she spent her childhood summers with her best friend, Jack Park.

Jack Park didn't expect to see Lizzy back in Weldon, but now he's got three weeks to spend with the girl of his dreams. Except she doesn't know of his decades-long crush on her - and he intends to keep it that way. She's a high-powered attorney who lives in L.A. and he's a bookkeeper at his family's brewery who never left his hometown. He can't risk their friendship on a long shot. Can he? When Lizzy decides that the local bookstore needs a little revamp, of course, Jack is going to help her bring it back to life. But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to ignore there might be more than just friendship among the dusty shelves and books . . .

Sometimes the path to the rest of your life has been in front of you all along.
................................................

5/5 cutest summer read perfect for someone that like to be an overachiever and just needs to take a breather


Summary
Lizzy "Overachiever" Chung, Esq. has her life mapped out neatly:
* Become a lawyer. Check.
* Join a prestigious law firm. Check.
* Make partner. In progress.

If all goes to plan, she will check off that last box in a couple years, make her parents proud, and live a successful, fulfilled life in L.A. What was not in her plans was passing out from a panic attack during a pivotal moment in her career. A few deep breaths and a four-hour drive later, Lizzy is in Weldon for three weeks to shed the burnout and figure out what went wrong. And what better place to recharge than the small California town where she spent her childhood summers with her best friend, Jack Park.

Jack Park didn't expect to see Lizzy back in Weldon, but now he's got three weeks to spend with the girl of his dreams. Except she doesn't know of his decades-long crush on her - and he intends to keep it that way. She's a high-powered attorney who lives in L.A. and he's a bookkeeper at his family's brewery who never left his hometown. He can't risk their friendship on a long shot. Can he? When Lizzy decides that the local bookstore needs a little revamp, of course, Jack is going to help her bring it back to life. But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to ignore there might be more than just friendship among the dusty shelves and books . . .

Sometimes the path to the rest of your life has been in front of you all along.
................................................