Slightly cute, steamy romcom novella. It’s okay. I’m really hesitant to give it the three stars since it really wasn’t that great but I’ll let it slide this time. 

Alex is a romance writer writing under the pen name, Lexi, so his readers don’t know he’s a man. Mia is an anonymous book reviewer/blogger. She’s a klutz and he’s this self assured chiseled divorcée. They *literally* run into each other at a bookstore and he offers to buy her books (a million book nerds scream into the void that is their romance fantasy). They click instantly and start dating and fall in love rather quickly. This is all fine except Mia doesn’t know that Alex is Lexi. And that’s a problem since they’re friends via their anonymous online personalities. Mia, as the blogger, has befriended “Lexi” online months ago. And neither Mia or Alex are aware they already know each other, until after their second date when Mia (as the blogger) gushes to “Lexi” about their date and Alex realizes that Mia is the blogger. 

Instead of coming clean , Alex just tries to avoid talking to Mia about him as Lexi. But of course it bites him in the ass and they have their classic romance crisis moment then their HEA. Boom all done. 

This book is just classic, sickly sweet instalove. I like a meet cute and that instant connection, but this was just too much. Too serious and dramatic too quickly. And what the hell is Mia’s sister’s problem? Mia makes excuses for how her sister talks to her but her sister is a straight up bitch. I grew up with a mom and grandmother who used those “passive slights” and now I have body image issues. So no thanks. 

And it REALLY bothered me that Alex kept their online friendship a secret. It would’ve been waaaay better is Mia the Blogger was not friends with Lexi the Author. And that maybe she was just a fan or even a tough critic of the books. It’s the added element that Mia confided in Alex thinking she was a friend and a woman. It’s basically cat fishing no matter the intention. And she was confiding in her girlfriend about Alex. Granted he didn’t use what she said against her or to manipulate her, but it’s still so gross. 

Then the ending was just so complicated and annoying with the whole “book within a book” situation. Just bleh. No thanks. 

And I’ve yet to read a book that has kids in it and it doesn’t irritate the hell out of me. Just the writing of young children is so cringe and annoying. 

Regardless, it had its moments. The spice is decent, use of condom throughout (practice safe sex y’all), and it a bit PG-13 compared to how BookTok described the spice. It also had its funny and entertaining moments. But by the end, I was just skimming.