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Sizzle Reel
For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her—but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that’s-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway.
When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she’s found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut—and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy’s help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life—impress Valeria’s DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.
But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble—straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she’s destined to end up on the cutting room floor.
When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she’s found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut—and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy’s help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life—impress Valeria’s DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.
But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble—straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she’s destined to end up on the cutting room floor.
327 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 18, 2023
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December 27, 2022
This book was an absolute wreck and I have a lot to say about it. But first since I still have your attention I want to say that I have read the ARC in November 2022 and I have noticed a few lines I am hoping will be changed. For a book that tries so hard to use progressive lingo, it misses the mark several time:
- The misuse of the word "allosexual" that I think should be changed into "horny". Late in the book Luna says: "I just wanna have sex like every allosexual human on Earth." This line implies that people who on the asexual spectrum do not want sex which is not true for all of them. It also implies that all allosexual want sex which again isn't true (shocking but true: some people don't want sex regardless of their sexuality, sex isn't the only thing in the world). Again I believe that this line could truly benefit from swapping allosexual for horny. It just makes Luna sounds like a fake progressive who doesn't know the meaning of the words she uses.
- Luna's best friend Romy is a nonbinary lesbian. As a nonbinary lesbian I was overjoyed to see more books with on-page representation. However as the author is a cis (from what I gather on her Twitter) bi woman who probably had a sensitivity reader (I assume, since it's becoming more of a trend when writing trans characters) and I was a bit bothered by some descriptions of Romy. Two pages after being introduced to Romy and being told she's nonbinary (btw I was very excited to see a nby character using she/ her), a really awkward paragraph is dumped on us where Luna quotes Romy explaining her gender/sexuality. This whole paragraph is just weird, sounds like a preachy twitter thread and feels like being spoon-fed information but anyway as much as I agree with the idea behind I and others found the line "mostly identify as lesbian" a bit concerning and I was wondering what was the thought process behind it
I have other criticism but I absolutely hated the writing so I am afraid more bullet points would not be made out of genuine desire for the book to feature less "problematic" lines. Shoutout to that horrible dialogue where Val says that strap on sex two months after coming out is too early, there is absolutely 0 link between those two facts.
Now the romance... I would need to get into spoilers to explain why I disliked it so much but the premise of this book is that Luna came out to herself as bi 4 days ago and is insecure about her sexuality so she is rushing to get a girlfriend. She meets an actress who seems potentially gay and tries very hard to get with her ignoring all potential HR issues it could cause. The other love interest - who really becomes a LI in the last third - is the best friend/roommate, so we have very classic love triangle between cool girl/bff. Speaking of love triangle this book fails at making an interesting one and there's no tension or meaningful conflict. I won't tell you the end but that romance was not well-developped. (if we are going into spoilers territory: this is very 90's movie bff gets the girl because he loved her all along despite the protagonist never showing signs of reciprocation. Although I can tell the author tried to convey sexual attraction by making Luna describe Romy's physical features but this came off as awkward writing more than anything else)
I have kept my biggest criticism for the end because I don't know how fair it is to judge the author on that. She's said on Twitter that she's writing flawed characters making mistakes but the virginity quest left a bitter taste in my mouth. First of all Luna is described as a virgin which she is not. Her entire arc is about realising that real sex is not about penetration. Keep in mind that this is a 24 yo bi woman in Hollywood who's best friend is a lesbian and who finally realises that penetration isn't the only type of sex after 2 talks from two different lesbians, a sex scene that didn't involve penetration and a sex scene that did involve it. Luna is obsessed with trying to get gay laid to prove her sexuality to others but she's looking for penetration and refuses to accept it when she's told she's misguided. Twice.
See the problem is that the main character is progressive. Super progressive. She talks like Twitter queer discourse and gives you a presentation on biphobia in every chapter. And you are telling me that part of her character arc is accepting that sex does not just mean penetrative sex? Are you telling me that this super progressive character who definitely pretend she's read feminist theory has to be told at least twice by two different partners that sex isn't just penetrative sex? You know what it checks out and if the author was more self-aware it could have been a good criticism of the shallowness of queer liberals who have not unlearned their patriarchal bias. But it's not.
Since nobody ever mentions it in the book I am going to say it: it is okay to be a virgin (which she's not but anyway) at 24. It is okay to not actively pursue sex during a time of your life when you are still building yourself, it is okay if you are waiting for the right person or you are afraid to put yourself out there. 24 is young and it's not rare to be still a virgin at 24. You still have your whole life ahead of you. Also its okay if you don't want penetrative sex it doesn't make it less sex
As for the Hollywood part... I am not an American, I don't know anything about the film industry and the whole thing was so full of acronyms I couldn't follow the plotline.
- The misuse of the word "allosexual" that I think should be changed into "horny". Late in the book Luna says: "I just wanna have sex like every allosexual human on Earth." This line implies that people who on the asexual spectrum do not want sex which is not true for all of them. It also implies that all allosexual want sex which again isn't true (shocking but true: some people don't want sex regardless of their sexuality, sex isn't the only thing in the world). Again I believe that this line could truly benefit from swapping allosexual for horny. It just makes Luna sounds like a fake progressive who doesn't know the meaning of the words she uses.
- Luna's best friend Romy is a nonbinary lesbian. As a nonbinary lesbian I was overjoyed to see more books with on-page representation. However as the author is a cis (from what I gather on her Twitter) bi woman who probably had a sensitivity reader (I assume, since it's becoming more of a trend when writing trans characters) and I was a bit bothered by some descriptions of Romy. Two pages after being introduced to Romy and being told she's nonbinary (btw I was very excited to see a nby character using she/ her), a really awkward paragraph is dumped on us where Luna quotes Romy explaining her gender/sexuality. This whole paragraph is just weird, sounds like a preachy twitter thread and feels like being spoon-fed information but anyway as much as I agree with the idea behind I and others found the line "mostly identify as lesbian" a bit concerning and I was wondering what was the thought process behind it
I have other criticism but I absolutely hated the writing so I am afraid more bullet points would not be made out of genuine desire for the book to feature less "problematic" lines. Shoutout to that horrible dialogue where Val says that strap on sex two months after coming out is too early, there is absolutely 0 link between those two facts.
Now the romance... I would need to get into spoilers to explain why I disliked it so much but the premise of this book is that Luna came out to herself as bi 4 days ago and is insecure about her sexuality so she is rushing to get a girlfriend. She meets an actress who seems potentially gay and tries very hard to get with her ignoring all potential HR issues it could cause. The other love interest - who really becomes a LI in the last third - is the best friend/roommate, so we have very classic love triangle between cool girl/bff. Speaking of love triangle this book fails at making an interesting one and there's no tension or meaningful conflict. I won't tell you the end but that romance was not well-developped. (if we are going into spoilers territory: this is very 90's movie bff gets the girl because he loved her all along despite the protagonist never showing signs of reciprocation. Although I can tell the author tried to convey sexual attraction by making Luna describe Romy's physical features but this came off as awkward writing more than anything else)
I have kept my biggest criticism for the end because I don't know how fair it is to judge the author on that. She's said on Twitter that she's writing flawed characters making mistakes but the virginity quest left a bitter taste in my mouth. First of all Luna is described as a virgin which she is not. Her entire arc is about realising that real sex is not about penetration. Keep in mind that this is a 24 yo bi woman in Hollywood who's best friend is a lesbian and who finally realises that penetration isn't the only type of sex after 2 talks from two different lesbians, a sex scene that didn't involve penetration and a sex scene that did involve it. Luna is obsessed with trying to get gay laid to prove her sexuality to others but she's looking for penetration and refuses to accept it when she's told she's misguided. Twice.
See the problem is that the main character is progressive. Super progressive. She talks like Twitter queer discourse and gives you a presentation on biphobia in every chapter. And you are telling me that part of her character arc is accepting that sex does not just mean penetrative sex? Are you telling me that this super progressive character who definitely pretend she's read feminist theory has to be told at least twice by two different partners that sex isn't just penetrative sex? You know what it checks out and if the author was more self-aware it could have been a good criticism of the shallowness of queer liberals who have not unlearned their patriarchal bias. But it's not.
Since nobody ever mentions it in the book I am going to say it: it is okay to be a virgin (which she's not but anyway) at 24. It is okay to not actively pursue sex during a time of your life when you are still building yourself, it is okay if you are waiting for the right person or you are afraid to put yourself out there. 24 is young and it's not rare to be still a virgin at 24. You still have your whole life ahead of you. Also its okay if you don't want penetrative sex it doesn't make it less sex
As for the Hollywood part... I am not an American, I don't know anything about the film industry and the whole thing was so full of acronyms I couldn't follow the plotline.
October 10, 2025
Hi everyone! In lieu of trying to self deprecatingly write a review of my own debut/book of my heart, I'd love to give a little preview of what you can expect that may or may not be obvious with the description. Sizzle Reel is a queer adult romantic comedy that's Booksmart meets The Devil Wears Prada by way of an insider look into Hollywood. It contains:
- an anxious, Jewish bisexual MC
- an f/f/nonbinary love triangle (cis lesbian and nonbinary lesbian love interests)
- on the page sex scenes (3 total)
- and they were roommates
- celebrity romance
- "I just need to lose my virginity" + unpacking why that's a silly concept
- messy, messy queers
- the coming out in your 20s baby gay experience
- insider Hollywood vibes (I worked in assistant roles in Hollywood on and off for 5 years)
- a love letter to my favorite parts of LA, quirky, glamorous, and everywhere in between
- found family
I'll probably add in more TWs as I think of them, but worth noting. TW for: biphobia (including internalized), homophobia discussed and briefly shown throughout, a small-scale outing scene, one non-graphic vomiting scene
- an anxious, Jewish bisexual MC
- an f/f/nonbinary love triangle (cis lesbian and nonbinary lesbian love interests)
- on the page sex scenes (3 total)
- and they were roommates
- celebrity romance
- "I just need to lose my virginity" + unpacking why that's a silly concept
- messy, messy queers
- the coming out in your 20s baby gay experience
- insider Hollywood vibes (I worked in assistant roles in Hollywood on and off for 5 years)
- a love letter to my favorite parts of LA, quirky, glamorous, and everywhere in between
- found family
I'll probably add in more TWs as I think of them, but worth noting. TW for: biphobia (including internalized), homophobia discussed and briefly shown throughout, a small-scale outing scene, one non-graphic vomiting scene
January 12, 2023
The blurb made this book sound like it would be exactly my kind of jam. Not only am I the same age as the main protagonist, but we’re both queer and interested in Hollywood, films, and cinematography! Oh, if only my reading experience had matched my expectations.
My first major issue lies with the plot. Luna just came out as bisexual, and when she meets celebrity actor Valeria Sullivan at the talent agency she works at, she is instantly smitten and falls hard for her. As readers, we’re supposed to buy into that and root for her… which is pretty hard to do considering that as early as CHAPTER 1, we’re met with early hints of ‘love triangle’ and set on the path of a storyline whose course any half-seasoned YA/romance reader could deduce without so much as reading chapter 2.
When the reader is introduced to Romy, Luna’s nonbinary long-term bestie and roommate, Luna describes her as having “rose-covered cupid’s lips”; when Romy hands her a coffee, Luna can “clearly see the tattoo behind her ear”; and brushing their hands makes Luna’s “stomach flip”. Is it just me, or is anyone else capable of predicting the entire rest of the novel based on these lines alone?
“But romance books aren’t about figuring out the plot! It’s about the journey of self-discovery and change the characters go on!”, some of you might say. Yeah, let me tell you, I have zero interest in a character’s journey if I can see every hurdle they have to overcome to achieve their HEA from MILES away. Not if I can accurately predict every major plot point, and the only thing I have to do to confirm my prognostication is wade through a slog of semi-interesting-verging-on-the-mediocre writing.
It's also super funny how the ‘tension’ between Romy and Luna was so covert and passive that it took me 7 days to realise that what I’d read was basically a friends-to-lovers book???? Friends-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes, but what does it say about a book if it can’t even get across its FtL theme to someone who loves that trope???
Second major issue: writing and supporting characters 🤩
The writing wasn’t to my taste at all. I find it difficult to describe what exactly I didn’t like about the style other than it felt very choppy. I was often missing thematical links and connections between the sentences. The book is also very obviously meant to appeal to today’s generation of 20-something queers which seems to be the reason why the author threw in trendy terms like ‘bisexual disaster’ or ‘gay crisis’ and whatnot ever so often. It’s giving TikTok and tumblr and made this read like a YA novel instead of an adult novel. It also feels weird to see those terms used outside of internet speak.
Luna, Romy and Valeria were the most three-dimensional characters of the bunch. The rest was just meh:
As a queer reader who couldn’t care less about sex, I was also annoyed by how for Luna, everything queer seemed to revolve around sex and/or sexual intercourse. There are interesting tidbits in there, especially when Romy and Luna discuss the concept of straight vs queer virginity and how it shouldn’t be that when two straight people of the opposite sex sleep with each other and the woman is penetrated, it counts as having had ‘real sex’ even though she might not have climaxed while when two members of the same sex sleep with each other without penetration, yet still orgasm, it doesn’t count as ‘real sex’ but serious discussions in the nature of this topic fell too short for my taste. That’s where the novel could have shone, but it was too often reduced to Luna’s internal dialogue about how “it sucks being a virgin”. Maybe I just felt this way because I’m ace, and it seems like own-voices readers could empathise and connect with Luna, but I wish there had been more exploration of queer life through a non-sexual lens.
I did like Luna’s internal dialogue whenever she thought about how she would frame her surroundings, what lighting she would use, where she would position the camera, etc. It all felt very natural and real, so you get the impression the author really knows what she’s talking about in terms of writing about and describing cinematography. Also huge bonus points for the scene where Romy gives Luna a list of all the films starring lesbians/women that women interested in women love. My lesbian friend and I, too, love watching Cate Blanchett, Florence Pugh, Gillian Anderson, Tessa Thompson, and Sarah Paulson, and so does the entire wlw internet community.
Given that these are the only good things I have to say about “Sizzle Reel”, I can't in good faith give this novel more than two stars. The blurb sounded interesting, and the subject matter initially enticed me, but I ended up not enjoying this very much.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
________________
initial review: Oh, my average goodreads rating is DROPPING
My first major issue lies with the plot. Luna just came out as bisexual, and when she meets celebrity actor Valeria Sullivan at the talent agency she works at, she is instantly smitten and falls hard for her. As readers, we’re supposed to buy into that and root for her… which is pretty hard to do considering that as early as CHAPTER 1, we’re met with early hints of ‘love triangle’ and set on the path of a storyline whose course any half-seasoned YA/romance reader could deduce without so much as reading chapter 2.
When the reader is introduced to Romy, Luna’s nonbinary long-term bestie and roommate, Luna describes her as having “rose-covered cupid’s lips”; when Romy hands her a coffee, Luna can “clearly see the tattoo behind her ear”; and brushing their hands makes Luna’s “stomach flip”. Is it just me, or is anyone else capable of predicting the entire rest of the novel based on these lines alone?
“But romance books aren’t about figuring out the plot! It’s about the journey of self-discovery and change the characters go on!”, some of you might say. Yeah, let me tell you, I have zero interest in a character’s journey if I can see every hurdle they have to overcome to achieve their HEA from MILES away. Not if I can accurately predict every major plot point, and the only thing I have to do to confirm my prognostication is wade through a slog of semi-interesting-verging-on-the-mediocre writing.
It's also super funny how the ‘tension’ between Romy and Luna was so covert and passive that it took me 7 days to realise that what I’d read was basically a friends-to-lovers book???? Friends-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes, but what does it say about a book if it can’t even get across its FtL theme to someone who loves that trope???
Second major issue: writing and supporting characters 🤩
The writing wasn’t to my taste at all. I find it difficult to describe what exactly I didn’t like about the style other than it felt very choppy. I was often missing thematical links and connections between the sentences. The book is also very obviously meant to appeal to today’s generation of 20-something queers which seems to be the reason why the author threw in trendy terms like ‘bisexual disaster’ or ‘gay crisis’ and whatnot ever so often. It’s giving TikTok and tumblr and made this read like a YA novel instead of an adult novel. It also feels weird to see those terms used outside of internet speak.
Luna, Romy and Valeria were the most three-dimensional characters of the bunch. The rest was just meh:
Luna’s boss, for example, just had to be the ice-cold office manager bitch à la Miranda Priestly. Her character traits are treating people like shit, being ignorant, and homophobic, and shouting when something doesn’t go her way. If there’s anything I’m tired of it’s the “main character’s boss is so mean, boohoo” trope. 🥱
The relationship between Wyatt, the third person in the friendship group, and Luna was also super weird. They used to date but are already broken up at the start of the novel. Does it have any relevance to the plot? No. Could this have been left out? Yes. It comes up once or twice that Luna feels a bit jealous when she hears Wyatt is dating other girls, but for the rest of the novel, he and she behave like good friends, and whatever her unresolved issues with her relationship with him are; they are dropped pretty soon.
Luna’s relationship with her brother felt forced, and their dialogues were very stilted and unnatural. A completely unbelievable sister-brother relationship based on awkward and forced communication.
As a queer reader who couldn’t care less about sex, I was also annoyed by how for Luna, everything queer seemed to revolve around sex and/or sexual intercourse. There are interesting tidbits in there, especially when Romy and Luna discuss the concept of straight vs queer virginity and how it shouldn’t be that when two straight people of the opposite sex sleep with each other and the woman is penetrated, it counts as having had ‘real sex’ even though she might not have climaxed while when two members of the same sex sleep with each other without penetration, yet still orgasm, it doesn’t count as ‘real sex’ but serious discussions in the nature of this topic fell too short for my taste. That’s where the novel could have shone, but it was too often reduced to Luna’s internal dialogue about how “it sucks being a virgin”. Maybe I just felt this way because I’m ace, and it seems like own-voices readers could empathise and connect with Luna, but I wish there had been more exploration of queer life through a non-sexual lens.
I did like Luna’s internal dialogue whenever she thought about how she would frame her surroundings, what lighting she would use, where she would position the camera, etc. It all felt very natural and real, so you get the impression the author really knows what she’s talking about in terms of writing about and describing cinematography. Also huge bonus points for the scene where Romy gives Luna a list of all the films starring lesbians/women that women interested in women love. My lesbian friend and I, too, love watching Cate Blanchett, Florence Pugh, Gillian Anderson, Tessa Thompson, and Sarah Paulson, and so does the entire wlw internet community.
Given that these are the only good things I have to say about “Sizzle Reel”, I can't in good faith give this novel more than two stars. The blurb sounded interesting, and the subject matter initially enticed me, but I ended up not enjoying this very much.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
________________
initial review: Oh, my average goodreads rating is DROPPING
February 6, 2023
rep: jewish bi mc
romance: f/f + f/nb
okay. I understand (kinda) how the author wanted to present this book. It focuses on Luna who is completely a mess and questioning everything about her sexuality. This comes with a TON of internalized homophobia/biphobia/acephobia all that. Not even internalized, she openly expresses it with her VERY OUT & QUEER LESBIAN NONBINARY BEST FRIEND. The insensitivity is wild and isn't touched on until the end.
So what's the issue? It's the constant, and I mean CONSTANT conversation (internal and external) about how "you aren't gay unless you have gay sex", "you're not bi if you haven't had sex with a woman", "the only real sex is straight sex, gay sex doesn't count" blah blah blah. It's exhausting. I know Luna is struggling with the heteronormative structures of society but I promise you there is a better way to handle it. It's excruciating to have to dump all these homophobic/biphobic thoughts onto her non-binary best friend, Romy, and then immediately shut Romy down when she criticizes her. I don't think Luna actually ever acknowledges that her thoughts are wrong or hurtful, just accepts that her sex won't include penetration.
I wish I was joking.
Oh and the fact that she "wants to have sex like every other allosexual person on Earth." Essentially, "allosexual" is a controversial term used to describe people who are not asexual or people who don't experience sexual attraction. My problem with this is that it completely excludes people who fall under the asexual umbrella and DO experience sexual attraction (i.e. demisexuals). I understand the author's intentions with the sentence, but please do basic research on a term before you use it in a published book. Or even sensitivity readers!
Luna's whole quest in this book is to have sapphic sex to confirm her sexuality. That is it. It's not even a romance because all the romance that happens is in the last three chapters of the book. The book would work AMAZINGLY as an f/nb best friends to lovers book that it tried to be at the end.
I was so excited to read this book and just disappointed.
P.S. there is a very dramatic scene of public outing at the beginning. It comes out of nowhere, so please be aware of that before reading!
Regardless of my feelings, thank you so much to the publisher and netgalley for the chance to read and review this early!
romance: f/f + f/nb
okay. I understand (kinda) how the author wanted to present this book. It focuses on Luna who is completely a mess and questioning everything about her sexuality. This comes with a TON of internalized homophobia/biphobia/acephobia all that. Not even internalized, she openly expresses it with her VERY OUT & QUEER LESBIAN NONBINARY BEST FRIEND. The insensitivity is wild and isn't touched on until the end.
So what's the issue? It's the constant, and I mean CONSTANT conversation (internal and external) about how "you aren't gay unless you have gay sex", "you're not bi if you haven't had sex with a woman", "the only real sex is straight sex, gay sex doesn't count" blah blah blah. It's exhausting. I know Luna is struggling with the heteronormative structures of society but I promise you there is a better way to handle it. It's excruciating to have to dump all these homophobic/biphobic thoughts onto her non-binary best friend, Romy, and then immediately shut Romy down when she criticizes her. I don't think Luna actually ever acknowledges that her thoughts are wrong or hurtful, just accepts that her sex won't include penetration.
I wish I was joking.
Oh and the fact that she "wants to have sex like every other allosexual person on Earth." Essentially, "allosexual" is a controversial term used to describe people who are not asexual or people who don't experience sexual attraction. My problem with this is that it completely excludes people who fall under the asexual umbrella and DO experience sexual attraction (i.e. demisexuals). I understand the author's intentions with the sentence, but please do basic research on a term before you use it in a published book. Or even sensitivity readers!
Luna's whole quest in this book is to have sapphic sex to confirm her sexuality. That is it. It's not even a romance because all the romance that happens is in the last three chapters of the book. The book would work AMAZINGLY as an f/nb best friends to lovers book that it tried to be at the end.
I was so excited to read this book and just disappointed.
P.S. there is a very dramatic scene of public outing at the beginning. It comes out of nowhere, so please be aware of that before reading!
Regardless of my feelings, thank you so much to the publisher and netgalley for the chance to read and review this early!
November 12, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Unfortunately, my rating: 1 star
There were many things that didn't work for me with this book, starting with the fact that we do not share the same humor, I didn't connect with the writing and the characters almost at all, and I really do not understand any of their logic and the conclusions they reach. Having said that, since this is an ARC, I hope the author and publisher read my criticism and use it to improve the book before it's released- which is still possible!!!!
I'll start with the good and then move on to the bad.
The good:
Valeria, Valeria, Valeria and again Valeria!!! The only character in this book I can well and truly say I loved!!! She's great!! Almost any scene she's in is fun and something I was waiting for!
Another good thing in this book is that the sex scenes are written really really well (*when* they are intended to be good!!!! Be warned there is one specific instance where that is not the case and could be triggering!)
Now the bad:
1. I personally think this is the most important one and seriously hope this will be changed by the time the book is released!!!! - according to the current synopsis of this book, Luna, the main character of this book is a 24 year old bisexual virgin with "no sexual history to build off" who is looking for a "route to losing her virginity". These are quotes taken directly from the published synopsis. It's also blatantly a lie.
Whoever wrote that in the synopsis quite frankly hasn't read the book. The main character of this book for some unclear reason in today's world, especially considering she's into women, defines losing her virginity specifically as penetration with the male appendage/strap-on. Other than doing specifically that, she did anything she possibly could do with guys, including penetration done in other ways, and actually has plenty of sexual history to build off! It is very unclear to me why the synopsis claims otherwise.
The biggest problem with this - is that it targets the book at the wrong audience!
I'm going to get personal now - I am a 24 year old bisexual virgin.
Yes, a real one with no sexual history to build off. Yes, you'd be surprised we do exist.
As you can imagine, when I read the synopsis of this book, I was really excited and pleasantly surprised! a book with a character *my age*, with *no sexual history*, who has *my fears* - wow. That's the kind of book I was waiting a long time for, because yeah, virgin girls my age (who aren't asexual) really are non-existent in media and at some point, you do start to feel a bit like a freak. Only apparently, we ARE freaks, cause even this book doesn't believe we exist if they define a character who has so much sexual experience as a virgin with "no sexual history to build off", just because she's 24 and hasn't had someone put a very specific male appendage in her. I cannot emphasize how I was *seriously personally offended* reading this book, and even if I ignore my own personal feelings about this subject, I do not believe lesbians reading this book will appreciate virginity being defined around the male appendage either.
Personally, I would rewrite anything and everything in this book relating to this plotline, but at the very least change the synopsis and issue some clarifications and trigger warnings on the subject because as it is the book is being targeted at the wrong audience and I really hope no other 20+ virgins will end up reading this.
I personally, while seriously offended and angry, know better than to believe the harmful opinions this book perpetuates and is built around, but someone in my situation with lower self-esteem or confidence in her virginity - will be absolutely destroyed while reading this book and possibly sent spiraling into harmful activities and situations!! If you don't want to take responsibility for that, you need to make some very serious changes and fast, starting with immediately deleting the current synopsis and writing a clarification that the book actually deals with a sexually experienced girl who has very wrong opinions about how virginity is defined + adding a trigger warning explaining the harmful stereotypes around virginity that this book deals with.
2. The wokeness. Believe it or not, there is apparently such a thing as being TOO WOKE. The number of times this book referred to cis het white men and how awful they are is at this point honestly appalling.
I'm a bisexual woman with many queer friends so you bet that me and my friends joke about cis het white men from time to time. So when the first reference to cis het white men and how they suck showed up I laughed. And when the 2nd one showed up, I laughed. Then it happened for the 3rd time and I thought a bit repetitive but ok. But then it happened again and it wasn't funny anymore. And again, and again and again, I honestly lost count. Believe it or not, when I read a book about a sapphic couple, it's not because I want to read about men and how much we should hate them if they are cis and white. Especially considering the main character is presented as bisexual and supposedly the love interest could've been a man just as much as a woman.
3. Talking about repetitiveness, Luna is Jewish. She mentions that in the first chapter. As well as almost every chapter after that. For no reason. Seriously, FOR NO REASON.
I am Jewish. When she first mentioned she's Jewish I thought it was very cool - another thing we have in common! And even though I'm secular, being Jewish is a very important part of my identity, actually - even more than my sexuality and that means A LOT. But then it just kept being mentioned again and again for just no reason, really no reason. As far as I could tell, being Jewish isn't significant at all in Luna's life other than her struggle with the fact her parents want her to find a Jewish man, and it's ok she isn't as connected to her roots as me, but then why does she keep randomly mentioning she's Jewish?? I just don't get it. At some point it started to feel like Jews aren't just normal human beings like everyone else.
4. Luna's parents. Talking about Judaism, any Jew will tell you that the most important law in Judaism is "respect thy mother and thy father".
Any Jew besides Luna that is because it certainly didn't seem like she was familiar with the concept. And yeah - not every parent deserves to be respected, respect needs to be earned. But Luna's parents, as far as we've seen, are wonderful! Sure, they annoy her sometimes like every parent does, and they try to push her a bit in regards to finding a job and a man, again like every parent does, but mostly they just really really care about her and want her to be happy. They make sure to call her and ask how she's doing, they help her financially, they let her know when they see something they think she'll like, they try to give her advice (some really good ones too!), and when they push her in regards to her job or relationships it is very clear they are only doing it out of worry and concern for her happiness because they know (and are right) that she isn't happy. They also have no bad intentions with it in regards to her sexuality, since they have no idea she isn't straight and at no point make any kind of homophobic comment. Basically, as far as we as readers can tell - Luna couldn't have asked for better parents. And she is AWARE of it too.
So if that's the case, why does she keep treating them like they are nothing but a bother?? Usually, when a character is angry at their parents, you are angry at them too and you relate because who isn't angry at their parents sometimes? But Luna doesn't actually have anything to be angry ABOUT, she's just plainly ungrateful and disrespectful over and over again while all her parents want is to just talk to her cause they miss her. I honestly felt really, really, bad for them.
5. Luna's brother. There was this one specific scene . Cue another scene that I really don't understand. In case you are wondering, . WHAT????
6. As I've said Val was my favorite character and so every scene with her was fun. The other side of that is that I just didn't enjoy almost any scene she wasn't in, which happened more often than you would expect. I didn't actually like any character other than her, some of them I even hated, especially one character - Luna.
Luna is privileged, shallow, spoilt, ungrateful, opportunistic, disrespectful, indecisive, greedy, ignorant, irresponsible, judgmental, stubborn, selfish and thinks she's better than everyone and entitled to everything and cannot deal with any hardship. I hated her.
The fact she at times also mistreated the only character I actually liked in this book didn't help. I couldn't stand the fact that one second it seemed like she actually cared and was interested in Val and the next she was just interested in losing her supposed virginity and Val was just coincidently the person along for the ride, and she just kept going over and over again between these two states, which leads me to firstly say Val deserves better, and secondly what the hell do you want??? She also didn't start liking Val because she got to know her, she started liking Val because she saw her movies. Again, Val deserves better.
7. Romi. Romi ends up being a pretty important character in this book, but there are several problems with that.
First, we don't know her and Val's history. It is mentioned vaguely several times throughout the book, but it's not like we actually see it, there aren't any actual flashbacks or any proper building of their relationship that we get to see.
We simply take it at face value that they are best friends and that any time Luna needs some sort of advice she goes to Romi.
Second, Romi is unlikeable. Not because of her personality, but because people reading this book are obviously simping for Val and so when Romi you inevitably start disliking her. At certain points even Luna starts noticing it and getting angry with Romi because that's how it is purposely written - you are intended to dislike Romi.
Third, there is no proper building of Luna's and Romi's relationship in the present as well. There are no deep talks between them and really all of their scenes alone together are based on Luna needing advice in regards to Val, which as I've said, are scenes that only cause you to dislike Romi. There is no building of their relationship because it was already built by the time the book starts and we have no real connection or sympathy for Romi. All of this doesn't work well for Romi's eventual role in this book.
8. Unrealistic and crude dialog, that just makes you feel like all the characters are fake. Considering Luna has "no sexual history" she actually has a lot of sexual history to tell her friends about. And so do her friends. And wow do they talk about it and VERY explicitly. I don't know who in their right mind will tell someone who isn't their sexual partner the things that they just seem to talk about freely, for example, But seriously, my friends and I talk sometimes about certain sexual experiences, specifically if we need advice, but we don't do it this detailed nor this explicit, nor and especially not if we don't actually need any kind of advice. I'm sorry but all of these overtly sexual talks were just unrealistic, and don't even get me started on going with your friends to a sex shop because your vibrator broke and you need them to help you pick a new one???? (and she's supposed to be a virgin with no experience you say???)
9. Who comes out 4 days after realizing their sexuality while they are evidently still really REALLY confused. I'll tell you who - no one. I'm sorry but the way that was presented was just very unrealistic. Coming out is hard, it takes time, it takes some soul searching with yourself - all things that Luna clearly feels and needs throughout the book, so it's just unrealistic that wasn't the case before she came out. Maybe there are people who are capable of that, but Luna just isn't one of them.
10. There were all kinds of abbreviations thrown around of terms used in the film industry. The problem is people who aren't part of that industry don't know those terms and abbreviations and most of them were just used without being properly explained. The terms A.P., A.D. and D.P. for example, tell me nothing. Why do I have to google them to understand the book?
11. There were all kinds of weird logic and conclusions used in this book. Some of them include (but aren't limited to): and unfortunately there are many more examples where these came from...
12. Luna is described as Jewish and "white". Jews aren't white - the entire holocaust is literally based on the fact that we aren't white. We can be white-passing sometimes, but Jews being white is a misconception and I would've expected a Jewish character to know better.
Jews are not Caucasians and we are not Europeans, we are our own separate ethnicity that originates in the middle east and that has been haunted and persecuted for centuries for no reason besides our ethnicity and are unfortunately still being targeted for reasons of racial prejudice even today, including in the US in general and in LA specifically. So no, we are not white.
-So. In conclusion, I came to this book with high expectations. I was supposedly the exact person this book was intended for, and at face value according to the synopsis - am basically the exact person Luna is described as. But the truth is, the description is highly misleading and actually makes this book *really harmful!*
I really hope the author and publication will go over all the things I pointed out and fix them, and most importantly make sure this book doesn't end up causing real harm to its audience.
P.s. Romi is an Hebrew name while Luna is a Spanish one. So why is Luna Jewish and "white" while Romi is Christian and Spanish??? It's not a bad thing, just something I found really weird??
Unfortunately, my rating: 1 star
There were many things that didn't work for me with this book, starting with the fact that we do not share the same humor, I didn't connect with the writing and the characters almost at all, and I really do not understand any of their logic and the conclusions they reach. Having said that, since this is an ARC, I hope the author and publisher read my criticism and use it to improve the book before it's released- which is still possible!!!!
I'll start with the good and then move on to the bad.
The good:
Valeria, Valeria, Valeria and again Valeria!!! The only character in this book I can well and truly say I loved!!! She's great!! Almost any scene she's in is fun and something I was waiting for!
Another good thing in this book is that the sex scenes are written really really well (*when* they are intended to be good!!!! Be warned there is one specific instance where that is not the case and could be triggering!)
Now the bad:
1. I personally think this is the most important one and seriously hope this will be changed by the time the book is released!!!! - according to the current synopsis of this book, Luna, the main character of this book is a 24 year old bisexual virgin with "no sexual history to build off" who is looking for a "route to losing her virginity". These are quotes taken directly from the published synopsis. It's also blatantly a lie.
Whoever wrote that in the synopsis quite frankly hasn't read the book. The main character of this book for some unclear reason in today's world, especially considering she's into women, defines losing her virginity specifically as penetration with the male appendage/strap-on. Other than doing specifically that, she did anything she possibly could do with guys, including penetration done in other ways, and actually has plenty of sexual history to build off! It is very unclear to me why the synopsis claims otherwise.
The biggest problem with this - is that it targets the book at the wrong audience!
I'm going to get personal now - I am a 24 year old bisexual virgin.
Yes, a real one with no sexual history to build off. Yes, you'd be surprised we do exist.
As you can imagine, when I read the synopsis of this book, I was really excited and pleasantly surprised! a book with a character *my age*, with *no sexual history*, who has *my fears* - wow. That's the kind of book I was waiting a long time for, because yeah, virgin girls my age (who aren't asexual) really are non-existent in media and at some point, you do start to feel a bit like a freak. Only apparently, we ARE freaks, cause even this book doesn't believe we exist if they define a character who has so much sexual experience as a virgin with "no sexual history to build off", just because she's 24 and hasn't had someone put a very specific male appendage in her. I cannot emphasize how I was *seriously personally offended* reading this book, and even if I ignore my own personal feelings about this subject, I do not believe lesbians reading this book will appreciate virginity being defined around the male appendage either.
Personally, I would rewrite anything and everything in this book relating to this plotline, but at the very least change the synopsis and issue some clarifications and trigger warnings on the subject because as it is the book is being targeted at the wrong audience and I really hope no other 20+ virgins will end up reading this.
I personally, while seriously offended and angry, know better than to believe the harmful opinions this book perpetuates and is built around, but someone in my situation with lower self-esteem or confidence in her virginity - will be absolutely destroyed while reading this book and possibly sent spiraling into harmful activities and situations!! If you don't want to take responsibility for that, you need to make some very serious changes and fast, starting with immediately deleting the current synopsis and writing a clarification that the book actually deals with a sexually experienced girl who has very wrong opinions about how virginity is defined + adding a trigger warning explaining the harmful stereotypes around virginity that this book deals with.
2. The wokeness. Believe it or not, there is apparently such a thing as being TOO WOKE. The number of times this book referred to cis het white men and how awful they are is at this point honestly appalling.
I'm a bisexual woman with many queer friends so you bet that me and my friends joke about cis het white men from time to time. So when the first reference to cis het white men and how they suck showed up I laughed. And when the 2nd one showed up, I laughed. Then it happened for the 3rd time and I thought a bit repetitive but ok. But then it happened again and it wasn't funny anymore. And again, and again and again, I honestly lost count. Believe it or not, when I read a book about a sapphic couple, it's not because I want to read about men and how much we should hate them if they are cis and white. Especially considering the main character is presented as bisexual and supposedly the love interest could've been a man just as much as a woman.
3. Talking about repetitiveness, Luna is Jewish. She mentions that in the first chapter. As well as almost every chapter after that. For no reason. Seriously, FOR NO REASON.
I am Jewish. When she first mentioned she's Jewish I thought it was very cool - another thing we have in common! And even though I'm secular, being Jewish is a very important part of my identity, actually - even more than my sexuality and that means A LOT. But then it just kept being mentioned again and again for just no reason, really no reason. As far as I could tell, being Jewish isn't significant at all in Luna's life other than her struggle with the fact her parents want her to find a Jewish man, and it's ok she isn't as connected to her roots as me, but then why does she keep randomly mentioning she's Jewish?? I just don't get it. At some point it started to feel like Jews aren't just normal human beings like everyone else.
4. Luna's parents. Talking about Judaism, any Jew will tell you that the most important law in Judaism is "respect thy mother and thy father".
Any Jew besides Luna that is because it certainly didn't seem like she was familiar with the concept. And yeah - not every parent deserves to be respected, respect needs to be earned. But Luna's parents, as far as we've seen, are wonderful! Sure, they annoy her sometimes like every parent does, and they try to push her a bit in regards to finding a job and a man, again like every parent does, but mostly they just really really care about her and want her to be happy. They make sure to call her and ask how she's doing, they help her financially, they let her know when they see something they think she'll like, they try to give her advice (some really good ones too!), and when they push her in regards to her job or relationships it is very clear they are only doing it out of worry and concern for her happiness because they know (and are right) that she isn't happy. They also have no bad intentions with it in regards to her sexuality, since they have no idea she isn't straight and at no point make any kind of homophobic comment. Basically, as far as we as readers can tell - Luna couldn't have asked for better parents. And she is AWARE of it too.
So if that's the case, why does she keep treating them like they are nothing but a bother?? Usually, when a character is angry at their parents, you are angry at them too and you relate because who isn't angry at their parents sometimes? But Luna doesn't actually have anything to be angry ABOUT, she's just plainly ungrateful and disrespectful over and over again while all her parents want is to just talk to her cause they miss her. I honestly felt really, really, bad for them.
5. Luna's brother. There was this one specific scene . Cue another scene that I really don't understand. In case you are wondering, . WHAT????
6. As I've said Val was my favorite character and so every scene with her was fun. The other side of that is that I just didn't enjoy almost any scene she wasn't in, which happened more often than you would expect. I didn't actually like any character other than her, some of them I even hated, especially one character - Luna.
Luna is privileged, shallow, spoilt, ungrateful, opportunistic, disrespectful, indecisive, greedy, ignorant, irresponsible, judgmental, stubborn, selfish and thinks she's better than everyone and entitled to everything and cannot deal with any hardship. I hated her.
The fact she at times also mistreated the only character I actually liked in this book didn't help. I couldn't stand the fact that one second it seemed like she actually cared and was interested in Val and the next she was just interested in losing her supposed virginity and Val was just coincidently the person along for the ride, and she just kept going over and over again between these two states, which leads me to firstly say Val deserves better, and secondly what the hell do you want??? She also didn't start liking Val because she got to know her, she started liking Val because she saw her movies. Again, Val deserves better.
7. Romi. Romi ends up being a pretty important character in this book, but there are several problems with that.
First, we don't know her and Val's history. It is mentioned vaguely several times throughout the book, but it's not like we actually see it, there aren't any actual flashbacks or any proper building of their relationship that we get to see.
We simply take it at face value that they are best friends and that any time Luna needs some sort of advice she goes to Romi.
Second, Romi is unlikeable. Not because of her personality, but because people reading this book are obviously simping for Val and so when Romi you inevitably start disliking her. At certain points even Luna starts noticing it and getting angry with Romi because that's how it is purposely written - you are intended to dislike Romi.
Third, there is no proper building of Luna's and Romi's relationship in the present as well. There are no deep talks between them and really all of their scenes alone together are based on Luna needing advice in regards to Val, which as I've said, are scenes that only cause you to dislike Romi. There is no building of their relationship because it was already built by the time the book starts and we have no real connection or sympathy for Romi. All of this doesn't work well for Romi's eventual role in this book.
8. Unrealistic and crude dialog, that just makes you feel like all the characters are fake. Considering Luna has "no sexual history" she actually has a lot of sexual history to tell her friends about. And so do her friends. And wow do they talk about it and VERY explicitly. I don't know who in their right mind will tell someone who isn't their sexual partner the things that they just seem to talk about freely, for example, But seriously, my friends and I talk sometimes about certain sexual experiences, specifically if we need advice, but we don't do it this detailed nor this explicit, nor and especially not if we don't actually need any kind of advice. I'm sorry but all of these overtly sexual talks were just unrealistic, and don't even get me started on going with your friends to a sex shop because your vibrator broke and you need them to help you pick a new one???? (and she's supposed to be a virgin with no experience you say???)
9. Who comes out 4 days after realizing their sexuality while they are evidently still really REALLY confused. I'll tell you who - no one. I'm sorry but the way that was presented was just very unrealistic. Coming out is hard, it takes time, it takes some soul searching with yourself - all things that Luna clearly feels and needs throughout the book, so it's just unrealistic that wasn't the case before she came out. Maybe there are people who are capable of that, but Luna just isn't one of them.
10. There were all kinds of abbreviations thrown around of terms used in the film industry. The problem is people who aren't part of that industry don't know those terms and abbreviations and most of them were just used without being properly explained. The terms A.P., A.D. and D.P. for example, tell me nothing. Why do I have to google them to understand the book?
11. There were all kinds of weird logic and conclusions used in this book. Some of them include (but aren't limited to): and unfortunately there are many more examples where these came from...
12. Luna is described as Jewish and "white". Jews aren't white - the entire holocaust is literally based on the fact that we aren't white. We can be white-passing sometimes, but Jews being white is a misconception and I would've expected a Jewish character to know better.
Jews are not Caucasians and we are not Europeans, we are our own separate ethnicity that originates in the middle east and that has been haunted and persecuted for centuries for no reason besides our ethnicity and are unfortunately still being targeted for reasons of racial prejudice even today, including in the US in general and in LA specifically. So no, we are not white.
-So. In conclusion, I came to this book with high expectations. I was supposedly the exact person this book was intended for, and at face value according to the synopsis - am basically the exact person Luna is described as. But the truth is, the description is highly misleading and actually makes this book *really harmful!*
I really hope the author and publication will go over all the things I pointed out and fix them, and most importantly make sure this book doesn't end up causing real harm to its audience.
P.s. Romi is an Hebrew name while Luna is a Spanish one. So why is Luna Jewish and "white" while Romi is Christian and Spanish??? It's not a bad thing, just something I found really weird??
February 4, 2023
If you are looking for a fun, coming of age rom com without much interference from any other side character, this one is for you I would say!
A touch of humour, a very confused yet so sure about who they are kind of young characters, a rom com that a rom com should be. I went into this book without any unrealistic expectations or with an intention to question everything the characters would do or say (that’s just not my thing when I pick up books. I can enjoy a lot of books like this much more than I thought I would).
I can understand what our main character/s do what to do. Of course, they aren’t perfect but they are confused as everybody else when it comes to choices and emotions! I can very well see what the author is trying to portray in the writing and the character representation.
I would say the highlight for me would be the second half of the book where the characters become more real and accept themselves as they are much more than they were ready to. Loved the dialogues and how things wrapped up towards the end.
However, I feel the first half does take a wee bit long to get to the plot.
But I did enjoy the book and ended up reading it in one sitting!
Thank you, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, for the advance reading copy.
A touch of humour, a very confused yet so sure about who they are kind of young characters, a rom com that a rom com should be. I went into this book without any unrealistic expectations or with an intention to question everything the characters would do or say (that’s just not my thing when I pick up books. I can enjoy a lot of books like this much more than I thought I would).
I can understand what our main character/s do what to do. Of course, they aren’t perfect but they are confused as everybody else when it comes to choices and emotions! I can very well see what the author is trying to portray in the writing and the character representation.
I would say the highlight for me would be the second half of the book where the characters become more real and accept themselves as they are much more than they were ready to. Loved the dialogues and how things wrapped up towards the end.
However, I feel the first half does take a wee bit long to get to the plot.
But I did enjoy the book and ended up reading it in one sitting!
Thank you, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, for the advance reading copy.
December 4, 2023
girl bye
April 29, 2023
Relationships aren’t easy. Realizing you’re not straight isn’t easy. Coming out isn’t easy, falling in love isn’t easy, distinguishing between lust and love and what’s exciting because it’s new and what’s exciting in itself isn’t easy. It’s all a mess and it can be scary and exhausting but damn is it worth it when it works out.
I came out in 1993 and met my wife a few months later so all this uncertainty is very much in the past for me but Carlyn Greenwald brought all these feelings back to the surface. The good and the bad. And she did so with a very cute book full of relatable characters, flawed and real.
Set in Los Angeles, the story begins with Luna Roth, a twenty-four-year-old aspiring director of photography with anxiety, newly aware that she’s bisexual, coming out to her best friends, straight boy Wyatt (whom she very briefly dated a few months ago) and nonbinary sapphic Romy. Soon after, she develops a crush on Valeria Sullivan, an Oscar-winning actress directing her first indie film. The attraction seems mutual and with the help of her friends, Luna tries to get closer to Valeria, for both professional and lusty reasons.
This is the second book I read in a relatively short period of time in which the MC is an assistant to someone who works with celebrities and falls for one of these celebrities. While I had found the first one a tad bland, this one made me laugh quickly and I liked the MC from the beginning.
I don’t know what about Luna makes her so endearing. Maybe her cluelessness as to what she wants and what she’s experiencing is so cute and relatable that my heart felt like it was growing as I was reading. I have to say, however, her idea of what constitutes sex and what doesn’t is disturbing. Her obsession with losing her virginity, whatever that means, made me uncomfortable at times but there’s enough I liked in this book to overlook it and focus on the positive.
Other reviewers felt too much time was spent in Luna’s thoughts but I rather enjoyed it. Because the story is told in first person and present time and because Luna is going through the very first days of acknowledging that she’s not attracted only to men, getting to read her thoughts and feelings as they progressively evolve made sense to me.
Sizzle Reel is a lot more complex and deep than it seems. And I love that. The execution is a bit messy but I like that it feels like light reading while pushing the lines. It’s also a love letter to Los Angeles that made me wish I’d visited all the cool urban sites it showcases.
I received a copy from the publisher and I am voluntarily leaving a review.
Read all my reviews on my blog (and please buy from the affiliation links!): Jude in the Stars
July 28, 2023
The cover was better than the book actually...and it wasn't bad, just kinda meh. But to be honest, I was annoyed with this, the storyline, the characters, the aphobia...Also I don't think enough time was given to the endgame ship, vs the other one.
Because Luna spends the whole book with this other person and then suddenly she's with the person she ends up with and that's it? Where's the development?
I really wish I liked this more, I'm so disappointed that I don't even feel like ranting about it.
Because Luna spends the whole book with this other person and then suddenly she's with the person she ends up with and that's it? Where's the development?
I really wish I liked this more, I'm so disappointed that I don't even feel like ranting about it.
February 17, 2023
thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for providing me with an eARC of this book for an honest review!
1/5 stars
this book was entirely so disappointing :( im always looking for a new adult sapphic novel, and I was really excited to read this one! however, I think this book was trying so hard to do too many things at the same time.
the story follows our MC Luna Roth who has recently come to the realization that she is bisexual (yay!) and is navigating her sexuality and what this means to her. i know discovering you’re queer can be a complex process, so i tried to cut her some slack during the book for this reason, but there were so many instances where she drove me insane. for some reason, this book delved into becoming a sexuality quest, one where for the majority of the book, she kept pushing these misguided notions of what virginity is. she does finally realize that everyone, including her best friend (and later love interest), are right and that virginity is in fact a construct. while i recognize that this journey is a convoluted one, it felt so out of place in the storyline and just became a point of frustration for me.
aside from this, she develops a bit of a love triangle with her best friend, Romy, and famous actress Valeria Sullivan. the majority of the book is spent developing her interest in Valeria and their connection. but, she ultimately ends up with Romy. Luna and Romy are sweet, but there was SO much time wasted developing the connection between Luna and Valeria that Romy and Luna felt anticlimactic. this entire story might’ve been slightly salvageable if it was a friends-to-lovers type thing with Romy and Luna, and maybe Valeria as a friend and point of guidance for Luna as she becomes at the end. i really would’ve enjoyed some flashbacks to Romy and Luna meeting for the first time, some of those intimate moments in college, etc. to make their relationship feel plausible and not just like something that was thrown in for the sake of giving a different ending. their romance should’ve been more developed and just felt sloppy to me, making it so I struggled to root for them.
i also just had to check and see if the author was white, and ah-ha! they were, and it made so many things clear to me. white queer people (usually) tend to fit sexuality into such rigid roles, using stereotypes to continuously define what the queer experience is. and yes, there are similarities but stuffing queer people into these roles is just keeping up rigid binaries, which is against the very definition of queerness!!!!!! there was one part of the book where Luna was with Valeria and insinuated that Valeria driving was a “top” thing, and that they fit into their “roles” so quickly. things like this make me so infuriated because it continues to enforce heteropatriarchal stereotypes about gender roles that queerness works to subvert. dear authors writing queer characters, why do you feel like it is okay to do this!!!! queer people don't all listen to the same stuff or wear the same clothes or behave in the same way and that is okay!!! we are not a monolith, stop treating us like one.
overall, i didn’t really enjoy this book and found myself frustrated at the MC and the writing. the book tried really hard to use inclusive language and to be progressive but it really fell short and just ended up relying on queer stereotypes. it was immensely disappointing
EDIT: coming back to add something because I just remembered another thing that annoyed me- a lot of the time, it felt like Luna had this idealized image of a sapphic relationship being easier than a straight one, which is NOT TRUE!!!! a lot of people have this misconceived notion that being sapphic (especially being a lesbian, but I digress) is easier, but people are inherently flawed and all relationships take work. sigh.
1/5 stars
this book was entirely so disappointing :( im always looking for a new adult sapphic novel, and I was really excited to read this one! however, I think this book was trying so hard to do too many things at the same time.
the story follows our MC Luna Roth who has recently come to the realization that she is bisexual (yay!) and is navigating her sexuality and what this means to her. i know discovering you’re queer can be a complex process, so i tried to cut her some slack during the book for this reason, but there were so many instances where she drove me insane. for some reason, this book delved into becoming a sexuality quest, one where for the majority of the book, she kept pushing these misguided notions of what virginity is. she does finally realize that everyone, including her best friend (and later love interest), are right and that virginity is in fact a construct. while i recognize that this journey is a convoluted one, it felt so out of place in the storyline and just became a point of frustration for me.
aside from this, she develops a bit of a love triangle with her best friend, Romy, and famous actress Valeria Sullivan. the majority of the book is spent developing her interest in Valeria and their connection. but, she ultimately ends up with Romy. Luna and Romy are sweet, but there was SO much time wasted developing the connection between Luna and Valeria that Romy and Luna felt anticlimactic. this entire story might’ve been slightly salvageable if it was a friends-to-lovers type thing with Romy and Luna, and maybe Valeria as a friend and point of guidance for Luna as she becomes at the end. i really would’ve enjoyed some flashbacks to Romy and Luna meeting for the first time, some of those intimate moments in college, etc. to make their relationship feel plausible and not just like something that was thrown in for the sake of giving a different ending. their romance should’ve been more developed and just felt sloppy to me, making it so I struggled to root for them.
i also just had to check and see if the author was white, and ah-ha! they were, and it made so many things clear to me. white queer people (usually) tend to fit sexuality into such rigid roles, using stereotypes to continuously define what the queer experience is. and yes, there are similarities but stuffing queer people into these roles is just keeping up rigid binaries, which is against the very definition of queerness!!!!!! there was one part of the book where Luna was with Valeria and insinuated that Valeria driving was a “top” thing, and that they fit into their “roles” so quickly. things like this make me so infuriated because it continues to enforce heteropatriarchal stereotypes about gender roles that queerness works to subvert. dear authors writing queer characters, why do you feel like it is okay to do this!!!! queer people don't all listen to the same stuff or wear the same clothes or behave in the same way and that is okay!!! we are not a monolith, stop treating us like one.
overall, i didn’t really enjoy this book and found myself frustrated at the MC and the writing. the book tried really hard to use inclusive language and to be progressive but it really fell short and just ended up relying on queer stereotypes. it was immensely disappointing
EDIT: coming back to add something because I just remembered another thing that annoyed me- a lot of the time, it felt like Luna had this idealized image of a sapphic relationship being easier than a straight one, which is NOT TRUE!!!! a lot of people have this misconceived notion that being sapphic (especially being a lesbian, but I digress) is easier, but people are inherently flawed and all relationships take work. sigh.
September 21, 2022
Luna is going to become a cinematographer by paying her dues as a PA for a Hollywood talent agent. She is also in the process of coming to terms with her sexuality and had just come out to her best friends as bi. She meets, Valeria at work and is immediately enamored with the young Oscar winner. To her surprise, Valeria shows interest in Luna but as they get closer Luna's best friend Romy starts acting increasingly odd.
I enjoyed reading this and felt like it was well written for a debut author. There is a lot of angst on Luna's part which made it feel more like a YA story than I was expecting. I liked Romy and Valeria both and there were a lot of fun interactions amongst them. A lot of this book though was Luna's internal dialogue though and it felt a bit much. There was also a really big focus on what constitutes sex and virginity from Luna that I really didn't understand and took away from the story in my opinion. Overall it was a good book but it wasn't quite what I expected.
I enjoyed reading this and felt like it was well written for a debut author. There is a lot of angst on Luna's part which made it feel more like a YA story than I was expecting. I liked Romy and Valeria both and there were a lot of fun interactions amongst them. A lot of this book though was Luna's internal dialogue though and it felt a bit much. There was also a really big focus on what constitutes sex and virginity from Luna that I really didn't understand and took away from the story in my opinion. Overall it was a good book but it wasn't quite what I expected.
January 9, 2024
Well, I didn’t dislike this one as much as a lot of reviewers seem to have. Overall I had a good time.
I see a lot of complaints abt Luna’s thought process and confusion around her virginity and I just… wasn’t bothered by that? People contain multitudes; it’s not weird to me that an otherwise fairly knowledgeable and progressive person might have some sexual hang ups around what constitutes virginity for themselves or not. Esp if they are also attracted to men, where, for a very long time, the concept was considered by society to be largely straightforward. Luna’s confusion and hang ups and need to have something that felt real and tangible to affirm herself all made a lot of sense to me, and I actually related to that part of the novel more than I expected to. Also like… lol, her initial take of ‘penetration is the real eventual sexual that she wants to have, tho’ ISN’T her take by the end? She grows. Thats part of her arc and progression in the novel, so I just didn’t have any of the issues with it that other ppl seemed to.
Overall, I mostly enjoyed this and was having a good time… up until the end where it becomes apparent that this was a sort of love triangle and Romy is the main love interest all along. It’s more of a preference thing, but i just didn’t vibe with them as much. I was rooting for Luna and Val, and found them to be cute, and while I did pick up on Romy’s jealousy as the novel went further on, I found it more irritating and sort of thought that Luna’s flip into liking Romy back (kind of) came out of nowhere. I didn’t hate it and a concept or anything, but it wasn’t where I thought it was going and (for me) didn’t rlly feel fleshed out enough for me to care abt their relationship specifically. It’s def more abt Luna’s journey than a romance book. I found the novel sweet overall and generally had a good time.
I see a lot of complaints abt Luna’s thought process and confusion around her virginity and I just… wasn’t bothered by that? People contain multitudes; it’s not weird to me that an otherwise fairly knowledgeable and progressive person might have some sexual hang ups around what constitutes virginity for themselves or not. Esp if they are also attracted to men, where, for a very long time, the concept was considered by society to be largely straightforward. Luna’s confusion and hang ups and need to have something that felt real and tangible to affirm herself all made a lot of sense to me, and I actually related to that part of the novel more than I expected to. Also like… lol, her initial take of ‘penetration is the real eventual sexual that she wants to have, tho’ ISN’T her take by the end? She grows. Thats part of her arc and progression in the novel, so I just didn’t have any of the issues with it that other ppl seemed to.
Overall, I mostly enjoyed this and was having a good time… up until the end where it becomes apparent that this was a sort of love triangle and Romy is the main love interest all along. It’s more of a preference thing, but i just didn’t vibe with them as much. I was rooting for Luna and Val, and found them to be cute, and while I did pick up on Romy’s jealousy as the novel went further on, I found it more irritating and sort of thought that Luna’s flip into liking Romy back (kind of) came out of nowhere. I didn’t hate it and a concept or anything, but it wasn’t where I thought it was going and (for me) didn’t rlly feel fleshed out enough for me to care abt their relationship specifically. It’s def more abt Luna’s journey than a romance book. I found the novel sweet overall and generally had a good time.
March 23, 2022
I read this when it was a baby manuscript and it has only gotten better. I'm biased but I think this is a great book and I can't wait to see it on shelves. If you like coming of age stories about figuring out your sexuality in your 20s this is definitely the book for you. Our MC is a certified mess ™️ in the best way possible.
September 15, 2023
In my quest to read as many queer romances out there as I can, I came across SIZZLE REEL. Luna wants to be a cinematographer, though she's stuck working for a horrible talent manager boss instead. At work, she meets actress Valeria Sullivan and the two click, leading Luna to hope Valeria can get her a job on the set of her latest film. This plan is complicated slightly by the fact that Luna has just come out as bisexual--to her best friends only--and is falling head over heels for Valeria.
Major pros for this book having a queer Jewish protagonist. It does a good job of exploring all the nuances and issues of coming out, figuring out who you are, and how hard it can be to be queer and bisexual in today's society. It's a bit slow moving, though, with a lot of focus on Luna's career angst and so, so, so much talk about virginity. Luna seems hyper-focused on the topic and there's a lot of discussion on what exactly constitutes virginity, especially if she's with a woman, almost to the detriment to the plot. It was a little much.
A lot of SIZZLE REEL focuses on Hollywood and Luna's love of cinematography. I must admit I sort of glazed over the parts where she was mentally framing scenes. But if you're a movie buff, you'll love those. I did enjoy Valeria a lot. I'm a sucker for stories that include a regular person and a movie star getting together. Stars, they're just like us!
There's a good queer non-binary character in Luna's best friend and roommate, Romy. For the most part, Romy is the voice of reason in the book, whereas Luna comes across as whiny and irritating for much of the story. I would have loved to see all our characters a little more fleshed out. Things pick up at the end, and I was engaged in the outcome. No matter what, I'm excited these stories are being told, even if a little bit choppily. 3 stars.
Major pros for this book having a queer Jewish protagonist. It does a good job of exploring all the nuances and issues of coming out, figuring out who you are, and how hard it can be to be queer and bisexual in today's society. It's a bit slow moving, though, with a lot of focus on Luna's career angst and so, so, so much talk about virginity. Luna seems hyper-focused on the topic and there's a lot of discussion on what exactly constitutes virginity, especially if she's with a woman, almost to the detriment to the plot. It was a little much.
A lot of SIZZLE REEL focuses on Hollywood and Luna's love of cinematography. I must admit I sort of glazed over the parts where she was mentally framing scenes. But if you're a movie buff, you'll love those. I did enjoy Valeria a lot. I'm a sucker for stories that include a regular person and a movie star getting together. Stars, they're just like us!
There's a good queer non-binary character in Luna's best friend and roommate, Romy. For the most part, Romy is the voice of reason in the book, whereas Luna comes across as whiny and irritating for much of the story. I would have loved to see all our characters a little more fleshed out. Things pick up at the end, and I was engaged in the outcome. No matter what, I'm excited these stories are being told, even if a little bit choppily. 3 stars.
June 12, 2023
CW: Biphobia PUBLIC OUTING, (seriously why did none of the other reviews have this as a CW)
I am struggling with my rating on this one...
On one hand, I remember being a baby queer. Sometimes you over correct while deconstructing the hetero-normative narrative that we've all been taught. But at the same time, I think that some of this was harmful and not challenged enough.
So much of the main character's queer identity hinged on "having gay sex" as if she couldn't be bi unless she had sex with a girl.
There seemed to be a lot of righteous anger in this book, and while I get it, this book was probably cathartic to write, a lot of this should've been unpacked in therapy, not in a book for the world to read.
The Main Character is publicly outed early on in the book, and while it's talked about and she calls out the person, it's later glossed over and forgiven way too easily just to further the plot. That was unexpected and triggering, so please be safe.
I am struggling with my rating on this one...
On one hand, I remember being a baby queer. Sometimes you over correct while deconstructing the hetero-normative narrative that we've all been taught. But at the same time, I think that some of this was harmful and not challenged enough.
So much of the main character's queer identity hinged on "having gay sex" as if she couldn't be bi unless she had sex with a girl.
There seemed to be a lot of righteous anger in this book, and while I get it, this book was probably cathartic to write, a lot of this should've been unpacked in therapy, not in a book for the world to read.
The Main Character is publicly outed early on in the book, and while it's talked about and she calls out the person, it's later glossed over and forgiven way too easily just to further the plot. That was unexpected and triggering, so please be safe.
January 24, 2024
"i wAnT tO hAvE gAy sEx🤓"
June 17, 2024
TW// biphobia, public outing, brief aphobia
Sizzle Reel sounded like a perfect book to me when I read the synopsis, but I became disappointed by the story rather quickly.
My main issue is the relationship between Luna and Valeria. I personally wasn’t a fan of their relationship because I never saw it as more than Luna having an infatuation with Valeria. However, their relationship has a lot of problems that don’t involve me just not liking the two characters together. Luna comes off way younger than she’s supposed to be, which made the relationship between her and a woman five years older than her feel like it had a huge age gap. Furthermore, Valeria held somewhat of an idol position to Luna and she was Luna’s higher up at work. This made it so that there were some uncomfortable power dynamics at play in their relationship. The book starts to address these power dynamics at a couple points throughout the story, but the power difference is never fully addressed because a character would bring it up then Luna and Valeria would get intimate and all concerns for power dyanmics were ignored until another side character brought it up again later.
Then there’s the whole issue of how terribly Luna treated Romy because of her relationship with Valeria. Romy was without a doubt the best character in the story who deserved better than what this story gave her. She was always thinking of Luna’s best interests and treating Luna well, but Luna never treated Romy with the respect she deserved. This book should’ve spent a lot more time developing the relationship between Luna and Romy so that an inevitable apology would feel more realistic. Also, I’m not sure the whole “I was in love with my BFF the whole time even though I treated them terribly” is a trope that’s for me. This isn’t really that big of a spoiler considering the book makes it very clear from chapter one who the eventual endgame couple is. The one good thing this book did with Romy was her queer representation. She’s a nonbinary lesbian who uses she/her pronouns. This was handled really well in the story and I’m glad that there was a discussion of what her identity means in terms of language in the bedroom.
Speaking of characters, we have to address Wyatt. I don’t personally like his character arc and I don’t think any book should brush over how traumatic it is for someone to be publicly outed by one of their best friends. This book never took that leap into properly addressing how harmful his behavior was. There was no trigger warning at the start of this book and I was extremely triggered by the outing scene then by how quickly Luna forgave Wyatt. Besides the outing, Wyatt also reeks of biphobia and he says some gross things regarding women.
On another note, I found that a lot of the technical stuff about working behind the scenes on a film set went way over my head. I’m interested in film sets, so I think it was just the way things were written. I wasn’t a fan of this author’s writing style, so I think the combination of new film terminology and the writing made it so that the parts addressing the film stuff were challenging for me to get through.
There were some good conversations in this book about the definition of virginity and what it means for queer people. The conversations about it were a bit excessive at times, but I like that Carlyn Greenwald decided to start a discussion on what virginity means for people, especially queer people.
I’m really grateful I got a chance to read this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley, but unfortunately Sizzle Reel wasn’t a good fit for me.
Sizzle Reel sounded like a perfect book to me when I read the synopsis, but I became disappointed by the story rather quickly.
My main issue is the relationship between Luna and Valeria. I personally wasn’t a fan of their relationship because I never saw it as more than Luna having an infatuation with Valeria. However, their relationship has a lot of problems that don’t involve me just not liking the two characters together. Luna comes off way younger than she’s supposed to be, which made the relationship between her and a woman five years older than her feel like it had a huge age gap. Furthermore, Valeria held somewhat of an idol position to Luna and she was Luna’s higher up at work. This made it so that there were some uncomfortable power dynamics at play in their relationship. The book starts to address these power dynamics at a couple points throughout the story, but the power difference is never fully addressed because a character would bring it up then Luna and Valeria would get intimate and all concerns for power dyanmics were ignored until another side character brought it up again later.
Then there’s the whole issue of how terribly Luna treated Romy because of her relationship with Valeria. Romy was without a doubt the best character in the story who deserved better than what this story gave her. She was always thinking of Luna’s best interests and treating Luna well, but Luna never treated Romy with the respect she deserved. This book should’ve spent a lot more time developing the relationship between Luna and Romy so that an inevitable apology would feel more realistic. Also, I’m not sure the whole “I was in love with my BFF the whole time even though I treated them terribly” is a trope that’s for me. This isn’t really that big of a spoiler considering the book makes it very clear from chapter one who the eventual endgame couple is. The one good thing this book did with Romy was her queer representation. She’s a nonbinary lesbian who uses she/her pronouns. This was handled really well in the story and I’m glad that there was a discussion of what her identity means in terms of language in the bedroom.
Speaking of characters, we have to address Wyatt. I don’t personally like his character arc and I don’t think any book should brush over how traumatic it is for someone to be publicly outed by one of their best friends. This book never took that leap into properly addressing how harmful his behavior was. There was no trigger warning at the start of this book and I was extremely triggered by the outing scene then by how quickly Luna forgave Wyatt. Besides the outing, Wyatt also reeks of biphobia and he says some gross things regarding women.
On another note, I found that a lot of the technical stuff about working behind the scenes on a film set went way over my head. I’m interested in film sets, so I think it was just the way things were written. I wasn’t a fan of this author’s writing style, so I think the combination of new film terminology and the writing made it so that the parts addressing the film stuff were challenging for me to get through.
There were some good conversations in this book about the definition of virginity and what it means for queer people. The conversations about it were a bit excessive at times, but I like that Carlyn Greenwald decided to start a discussion on what virginity means for people, especially queer people.
I’m really grateful I got a chance to read this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley, but unfortunately Sizzle Reel wasn’t a good fit for me.
April 12, 2023
Things aren't quite going Luna's way: she's an assistant in a dead-end job rather than a rising star in the cinematography world, she's just barely come out to herself as bi and can't imagine coming out more broadly, and to add insult to injury she's convinced that she's the only virgin left in the world. Enter Valeria, one of Hollywood's new It girls...who happens to have a new project, and who is also tripping Luna's fledgling sense of gaydar.
Val is a highlight of the book—confident and funny and thoughtful. She's good at what she does, and she knows that she's good at what she does, but she's not precious about it. I also love that although there's a love triangle in the book, between Luna and Val and Luna's friend Romy, there's no bad guy here. So many love triangles in books end in "but actually, the wrong person is a terrible person!" which always feels to me like an unrealistic cop-out. And it's genuinely interesting to see Luna frame the world through the lens of a cinematographer: she looks at a moment and imagines it as a scene in a film, thinking about what she'd do with light and camera angles and focus.
In a lot of ways I think Sizzle Reel works best if you read it as being set not in the present day but a decade or so back. In the present day, we have Luna, who 1) is a raised-in-Cali liberal, 2) went to film school, again in California, 3) works in Hollywood, and 4) has a network of queer friends, including 5) her best friend and roommate, with whom she is used to discussing sex and romance. And in that context, I found it surprising that she has so little idea of how two women (or otherwise people without a certain piece of anatomy—they say "sapphics" a lot, perhaps to account for Romy being nonbinary) can have sex. It's more than ignorance, though; it's a real resistance to the numerous people who tell Luna throughout the book that there are more ways to have sex than Tab A into Slot B.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with being a twenty-something (or older!) in 2023 still trying to figure it out. (A man once told me that it wasn't sex if there wasn't the possibility of someone getting pregnant, which is wrong on so many levels that I still can't even begin to sort them out. I asked what that meant about the multiple years I had spent in a live-in relationship with another woman, and he concluded that sex had not been possible. That was in 2019, so I think it's safe to say that more education is needed.) But...it felt like so much of Sizzle Reel keeps circling back to "Okay, now I've done this and this and this and this and this, but none of that counts because it wasn't Tab A into Slot B, and I'm so inexperienced!"
So I'm left with something that is interesting but frustrating. Again, maybe best read as though it takes place a decade earlier, or as though the characters are—in a non-creepy, of-age-to-consent, smaller-age-gap-than-exists-in-the-book way—rather younger.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
Val is a highlight of the book—confident and funny and thoughtful. She's good at what she does, and she knows that she's good at what she does, but she's not precious about it. I also love that although there's a love triangle in the book, between Luna and Val and Luna's friend Romy, there's no bad guy here. So many love triangles in books end in "but actually, the wrong person is a terrible person!" which always feels to me like an unrealistic cop-out. And it's genuinely interesting to see Luna frame the world through the lens of a cinematographer: she looks at a moment and imagines it as a scene in a film, thinking about what she'd do with light and camera angles and focus.
In a lot of ways I think Sizzle Reel works best if you read it as being set not in the present day but a decade or so back. In the present day, we have Luna, who 1) is a raised-in-Cali liberal, 2) went to film school, again in California, 3) works in Hollywood, and 4) has a network of queer friends, including 5) her best friend and roommate, with whom she is used to discussing sex and romance. And in that context, I found it surprising that she has so little idea of how two women (or otherwise people without a certain piece of anatomy—they say "sapphics" a lot, perhaps to account for Romy being nonbinary) can have sex. It's more than ignorance, though; it's a real resistance to the numerous people who tell Luna throughout the book that there are more ways to have sex than Tab A into Slot B.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with being a twenty-something (or older!) in 2023 still trying to figure it out. (A man once told me that it wasn't sex if there wasn't the possibility of someone getting pregnant, which is wrong on so many levels that I still can't even begin to sort them out. I asked what that meant about the multiple years I had spent in a live-in relationship with another woman, and he concluded that sex had not been possible. That was in 2019, so I think it's safe to say that more education is needed.) But...it felt like so much of Sizzle Reel keeps circling back to "Okay, now I've done this and this and this and this and this, but none of that counts because it wasn't Tab A into Slot B, and I'm so inexperienced!"
So I'm left with something that is interesting but frustrating. Again, maybe best read as though it takes place a decade earlier, or as though the characters are—in a non-creepy, of-age-to-consent, smaller-age-gap-than-exists-in-the-book way—rather younger.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
June 15, 2023
i'm about to rail on this book pretty hard but i want to preface this with the fact that i get what the author was trying to do and i'm willing to give her another shot despite my qualms.
SO much went wrong with this. sizzle reel doesn't read like a new adult novel; it reads really young like lgbt+ twitter discourse every chapter and how people think gen z'ers and millennials argue online. there is SOOO much ignorance and i despised every minute of it. i know the protagonist is supposed to be a flawed character going on a journey of self-discovery and that's totally fine but constantly having the same conversation about not being a valid sapphic unless she's had sex with a woman is tiring. readers don't want to read the same thing over and over again. we need to be shown the journey where a flawed character believes these problematic things and unlearns those ideas vs the character telling us she believes those problematic things. not a chapter went by where i felt like i was reading a story about grown adults so much as a diary written by someone just starting college after high school and learning about the spectrum of sexuality through twitter.
i also hate the word "allosexual" and how it's used unchecked. in this case, she totally invalidates sexual ace/aro people by saying stuff like, "i wanna have sex like all the allosexuals!" not just that, i hate the word because it combines a marginalized group with their oppressors which is wrong on so many levels. lgbt+ people are violated in our safe spaces, thrown into asylums and conversion camps against our will, and still actively have our rights stripped away by straight people every day. so don't fucking lump me in with the same group of people that hate my existence and want me dead.
by the end of the book, i didn't believe in their "love." there was so much personal inner and external dialogue about the same things, there wasn't enough time to build a relationship with other characters. again, i'm willing to give the author another chance but only a gigantic sum of money—enough to buy a house in southern california—could get me to read this again.
SO much went wrong with this. sizzle reel doesn't read like a new adult novel; it reads really young like lgbt+ twitter discourse every chapter and how people think gen z'ers and millennials argue online. there is SOOO much ignorance and i despised every minute of it. i know the protagonist is supposed to be a flawed character going on a journey of self-discovery and that's totally fine but constantly having the same conversation about not being a valid sapphic unless she's had sex with a woman is tiring. readers don't want to read the same thing over and over again. we need to be shown the journey where a flawed character believes these problematic things and unlearns those ideas vs the character telling us she believes those problematic things. not a chapter went by where i felt like i was reading a story about grown adults so much as a diary written by someone just starting college after high school and learning about the spectrum of sexuality through twitter.
i also hate the word "allosexual" and how it's used unchecked. in this case, she totally invalidates sexual ace/aro people by saying stuff like, "i wanna have sex like all the allosexuals!" not just that, i hate the word because it combines a marginalized group with their oppressors which is wrong on so many levels. lgbt+ people are violated in our safe spaces, thrown into asylums and conversion camps against our will, and still actively have our rights stripped away by straight people every day. so don't fucking lump me in with the same group of people that hate my existence and want me dead.
by the end of the book, i didn't believe in their "love." there was so much personal inner and external dialogue about the same things, there wasn't enough time to build a relationship with other characters. again, i'm willing to give the author another chance but only a gigantic sum of money—enough to buy a house in southern california—could get me to read this again.
March 22, 2023
3.5/5
Somehow I missed that this was a love triangle and I’m glad I did cause I may not have even given it a chance if I had. They’re usually really not my thing at all because if the MC ends up with the person I don’t want them to it ruins everything for me. But it worked for me here! So just a head up on that I feel like you either love or hate that trope. Anyway, this was a really refreshing read for me. I love romance (obviously) but this felt like the author had a unique point of view which is always a nice change. As much as this is a romance it’s actually very much about Luna figuring out her sexual identity and it’s a messy process for her. I mean that in the best way though, because while she’s a huge mess it’s understandable because she young and she’s also really likable and endearing so that helps. It did take a little bit of time for things to get going here, I would say about halfway through is when I started to get invested so know it’s a slow start. But still worth a read for me, I liked the angst, the drama, the insider LA setting and the concept of found family. If you like sapphic romance/coming of age stories try this
Somehow I missed that this was a love triangle and I’m glad I did cause I may not have even given it a chance if I had. They’re usually really not my thing at all because if the MC ends up with the person I don’t want them to it ruins everything for me. But it worked for me here! So just a head up on that I feel like you either love or hate that trope. Anyway, this was a really refreshing read for me. I love romance (obviously) but this felt like the author had a unique point of view which is always a nice change. As much as this is a romance it’s actually very much about Luna figuring out her sexual identity and it’s a messy process for her. I mean that in the best way though, because while she’s a huge mess it’s understandable because she young and she’s also really likable and endearing so that helps. It did take a little bit of time for things to get going here, I would say about halfway through is when I started to get invested so know it’s a slow start. But still worth a read for me, I liked the angst, the drama, the insider LA setting and the concept of found family. If you like sapphic romance/coming of age stories try this
April 19, 2023
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH CAN WE NOT OUT PEOPLE AND THEN PUT THE ONUS ON THE QUEER PERSON TO EXPLAIN THEMSELVES.
(No, I don't care if the outing in this book was well intentioned. YOU. DON'T. OUT. PEOPLE. WITHOUT. THEIR. PERMISSION.)
(No, I don't care if the outing in this book was well intentioned. YOU. DON'T. OUT. PEOPLE. WITHOUT. THEIR. PERMISSION.)
July 4, 2023
1.5 The author wants to cover so many different topics but then just doesn't and the ending I...
April 6, 2023
Such a raw, honest and funny coming of age story featuring a young Jewish newly out bisexual woman living life in L.A. and trying to make it as cinematographer. Luna has just come out as bi to her friends and is really struggling to figure out what being bisexual means for her while also being scared of what her parents might think if she ever gets brave enough to tell them.
This was one of the most relatable and real books about discovering and exploring sexuality I've ever read! I also really enjoyed the Hollywood setting and Luna's friendship with her nonbinary, queer bestie Romy. Great on audio and highly recommended for fans of Dahlia Adler or Meryl Wilsner. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and @prhaudio for complimentary digital copies in exchange for my honest review!
This was one of the most relatable and real books about discovering and exploring sexuality I've ever read! I also really enjoyed the Hollywood setting and Luna's friendship with her nonbinary, queer bestie Romy. Great on audio and highly recommended for fans of Dahlia Adler or Meryl Wilsner. Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and @prhaudio for complimentary digital copies in exchange for my honest review!
May 10, 2023
This story started out very promising to me but slowly started shifting towards a direction that made me feel increasingly uncomfortable as a queer woman who also realized they were queer and came out later in life that pushed this book into 2.5 star territory for me. There is so much I could say about this book but also at the same time I feel exhausted by the characters, the story, and much of the dialogue. I understand the author was trying to tell a story of a character coming out later in life but, wow. The heavy internalized biphobia was a lot to deal with over and over again, so much so that I the impression I am left with coloring the book more than any sort of satisfying resolve and education and remorse and growth and relearning is internalized biphobia and the obsessive insistence that only penetrative intercourse counts towards losing virginity. The obsession "losing virginity" to begin with made the story read much more Young Adult than New Adult, which was not at all what I was expecting given the ages of the characters and the setting of the story. The trope the book ultimately ends up being is one of my favorite romance tropes to read, but in this iteration of the trope, the pivot from where the story was going did not work for me at all. I’m happy for the characters finding happiness but this journey was just not for me. I will round my overall score up to 3 stars from 2.5 because the rating doesn’t allow half stars and Carlyn Greenwald is mother for giving us that Hot Ones training scene. Never have I ever felt so seen in a romance novel and I love her so much for giving the culture that scene. Iconic. I really enjoyed how seamlessly Greenwald incorporated inclusive phrases so that non-binary, trans, queer people can feel seen, respected, and held space for in a romance novel and do it well I really appreciated.
Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for providing an electronic advanced reader galley in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for providing an electronic advanced reader galley in exchange for my honest review.
June 1, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC.
Bullet pointing this "review" because I have emotionally abandoned this book and just cannot be bothered.
*I was into this for first 10%, despite the terrible choice to write in first person present tense.
*The blurb is extremely misleading. This is a friends to lovers romance. By the time I realized this was what was happening, it was too late for me to enjoy it, and my expectations and wishes wanted the MC to have a different love interest.
*The MC and her love interest have no chemistry.
*The plot where the MC is obsessed with losing her virginity (she is not a virgin, and the nuances of queer sex and virginity were never discussed to my satisfaction). The MC's views of lesbian sex were really irritating and this continues for most of the book.
*The behind the scenes view of Hollywood was mostly just depressing and not very fun.
I have more thoughts but again, can't be bothered. A lot of my reaction to this book was personal preference, but the poor marketing definitely led me to have expectations that were never going to be fulfilled by the actual book.
Bullet pointing this "review" because I have emotionally abandoned this book and just cannot be bothered.
*I was into this for first 10%, despite the terrible choice to write in first person present tense.
*The blurb is extremely misleading. This is a friends to lovers romance. By the time I realized this was what was happening, it was too late for me to enjoy it, and my expectations and wishes wanted the MC to have a different love interest.
*The MC and her love interest have no chemistry.
*The plot where the MC is obsessed with losing her virginity (she is not a virgin, and the nuances of queer sex and virginity were never discussed to my satisfaction). The MC's views of lesbian sex were really irritating and this continues for most of the book.
*The behind the scenes view of Hollywood was mostly just depressing and not very fun.
I have more thoughts but again, can't be bothered. A lot of my reaction to this book was personal preference, but the poor marketing definitely led me to have expectations that were never going to be fulfilled by the actual book.
September 26, 2022
3.5
A love triangle.
The blurb seems promising, and I was looking forward to this book. But as much as I love sapphic fic that involves celebrities, this one, however, wasn’t for me. I have a hard time engaging with the main characters. They all talk like teenager-ish...? And it feels more like a YA story to me. One thing that bothers me a lot is that there is too much Luna’s internal dialogue. It feels wordy. But maybe that’s just me.
I do recommend it if you want a light and fun read.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.
A love triangle.
The blurb seems promising, and I was looking forward to this book. But as much as I love sapphic fic that involves celebrities, this one, however, wasn’t for me. I have a hard time engaging with the main characters. They all talk like teenager-ish...? And it feels more like a YA story to me. One thing that bothers me a lot is that there is too much Luna’s internal dialogue. It feels wordy. But maybe that’s just me.
I do recommend it if you want a light and fun read.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.
May 4, 2023
🎬Sizzle Reel
Tropes: Roommates, losing virginity, love triangle, celebrity romance
Why I love it: It’s so f**ing sexy and sizzle is right. Also saw myself in queen Luna
Read if you love: Jewish rom com rep especially sapphic Jewish rom com rep, you love movies, a re coming of age book, just amazing main characters who you love to see grow into just beautiful amazing people
Emoji Reactions: 🥹🎥🥵🍔👩❤️💋👩💋🥰☀️🔥🥵
Taylor Swift Albulms that fit (in my opinion): Speak Now, Lover, Red
Tropes: Roommates, losing virginity, love triangle, celebrity romance
Why I love it: It’s so f**ing sexy and sizzle is right. Also saw myself in queen Luna
Read if you love: Jewish rom com rep especially sapphic Jewish rom com rep, you love movies, a re coming of age book, just amazing main characters who you love to see grow into just beautiful amazing people
Emoji Reactions: 🥹🎥🥵🍔👩❤️💋👩💋🥰☀️🔥🥵
Taylor Swift Albulms that fit (in my opinion): Speak Now, Lover, Red
February 23, 2023
It makes me so sad that I didn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to! First off, the pacing was unbalanced. Essentially, the characters were very two-dimensional and sure
there were some enjoyable(all Val scence) moments, but not enough of them. This was a miss for me.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
there were some enjoyable(all Val scence) moments, but not enough of them. This was a miss for me.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 7, 2022
First of all, i just wanna say how beautiful this book is. I got into it blind, like i always do, and i was blown away by the way the author portraits these characters and how true this story felt.
I don't think there's ever been a character in a romance book that i found myself relating so much to. what luna went though, her intrusive thoughts, her insecurities about her inexperience, her unwillingness to come out to her parents, everything she went through, every thought she had in her head, i felt it down to my bones. she's each and every one of us, scared and trying to figure everything out in such an uncertain world.
i liked val a lot, she was so nice from start to finish. she's a gay icon, i gotta say that.
and i loved romy! i love her so freaking much it's insane. she was nothing but supportive, helpful and was always there for luna, even when doing so hurt her. she's just such a hot mess, you know, with her rings and eyeliner and her tongue piercing. can she top me already????
this book was so good, I'm gonna make it my gay bible. it was the first book i read where the mc was genuinely lost trying to navigate her newly discovered bisexuality, where she didn't know everything and nothing became magically perfect once she met her someone. the first book that showed me you learn by trial and error, that you don't have to be scared to try new things but that also it's okay not to be ready and to take things slowly, that it's okay to be inexperienced.
i could go on and on about all the ways these book gave me comfort and peace, but I'll leave it to you to see for yourself once this gem comes out in April, 2023 ♥️
arc kindly provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review
I don't think there's ever been a character in a romance book that i found myself relating so much to. what luna went though, her intrusive thoughts, her insecurities about her inexperience, her unwillingness to come out to her parents, everything she went through, every thought she had in her head, i felt it down to my bones. she's each and every one of us, scared and trying to figure everything out in such an uncertain world.
i liked val a lot, she was so nice from start to finish. she's a gay icon, i gotta say that.
and i loved romy! i love her so freaking much it's insane. she was nothing but supportive, helpful and was always there for luna, even when doing so hurt her. she's just such a hot mess, you know, with her rings and eyeliner and her tongue piercing. can she top me already????
this book was so good, I'm gonna make it my gay bible. it was the first book i read where the mc was genuinely lost trying to navigate her newly discovered bisexuality, where she didn't know everything and nothing became magically perfect once she met her someone. the first book that showed me you learn by trial and error, that you don't have to be scared to try new things but that also it's okay not to be ready and to take things slowly, that it's okay to be inexperienced.
i could go on and on about all the ways these book gave me comfort and peace, but I'll leave it to you to see for yourself once this gem comes out in April, 2023 ♥️
arc kindly provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review
April 4, 2023
Recently, I have been enjoying books set in Hollywood and was looking forward to this a lot for this reason. Even though this got me out of a reading slump, it ultimately didn't work for me.
Much of the narrative centers around Luna, who is trying to figure out both her sexuality and how to break into the industry as a cinematographer. Both of these endeavors are chaotic and we spend much of the first half of the book watching her deal with a terrible job. The plot finally ramps up when she finally quits the dead-end job and gets a break as a production assistant on an indie starring Hollywood's new it girl whom she also happens to have a major crush on.
I will say that, to its credit, this book doesn't quite follow the standard romance plotline, which was refreshing but did, unfortunately, leave the main romance rather underdeveloped and rushed. Also as other reviews have pointed out, the conversations that the characters have in this book and the internal dialogue the main character has felt like weird wordy explainers about queer and gender identity. It was as if the author just wanted to explain or interrogate certain ideas by writing how they viewed them instead of just letting this happen through actual plot or meaningful character development.
Ultimately I would give this 2.5 stars but would still be interested to see what this author writes next.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Vintage for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Much of the narrative centers around Luna, who is trying to figure out both her sexuality and how to break into the industry as a cinematographer. Both of these endeavors are chaotic and we spend much of the first half of the book watching her deal with a terrible job. The plot finally ramps up when she finally quits the dead-end job and gets a break as a production assistant on an indie starring Hollywood's new it girl whom she also happens to have a major crush on.
I will say that, to its credit, this book doesn't quite follow the standard romance plotline, which was refreshing but did, unfortunately, leave the main romance rather underdeveloped and rushed. Also as other reviews have pointed out, the conversations that the characters have in this book and the internal dialogue the main character has felt like weird wordy explainers about queer and gender identity. It was as if the author just wanted to explain or interrogate certain ideas by writing how they viewed them instead of just letting this happen through actual plot or meaningful character development.
Ultimately I would give this 2.5 stars but would still be interested to see what this author writes next.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Vintage for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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