📝 What is The Next Best Fling about?:
Librarian Marcela Ortiz has secretly loved her best friend for years, but when he gets engaged, she knows she needs to move on. Things get complicated when Theo Young, the ex-NFL player and brother of her best friend, plans to confess his feelings for the bride-to-be, and Marcela convinces him to fake a relationship with her instead. As they navigate their pretend romance, they uncover a surprising attraction and face complex feelings and family dynamics that threaten to unravel their newfound connection.
📚 Genre: ROMANCE
🎧 Format: ARC E-Book
💞 Feels: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Marcela was a great protagonist. Who wouldn’t love a librarian? And she’s prone to quote Ember in the Ashes on her Tinder bio – somehow she earned even more points with me.
I’m starting to notice that most of the female protagonists in the romance books I’m choosing have people pleasing issues. Not sure if it’s me or a trend. Marcela is very similar to Meghna from Say You’ll Be Mine, in temperament, infatuation with her best friend and essentially being played by him. I found the deception of Marcela less easy for me to suss out, though. Like the book was more interesting due to the mystery of it all. Why were the brothers fighting, aside from the love square?
I think I like the strangers-to-lovers trope, or maybe I should call it acquaintance-to-lovers trope. Of course, there’s some outlandish fake dating/engagement happening to put them in this situation in the first place. But if the fake dating of it all hadn’t occurred it almost feels like they still would’ve ended up together – the fake dating is just their meet cute.
Getting technical
I think a knock on the book is more due to my reading habits. I just happened to have read a few too many fake dating romances lately, so I’m starting to compare them. And at this point I’m just judging how well the misinterpretation of the guy’s feelings are portrayed. Getting tired of the low self-esteem and the convincing herself that he’s just playing along with the fake dating. Like, lady, he just said to your face he’s into you and is also jumping through hoops showing off all the other love languages…and she’s like wow he’s really good at acting. I can’t stand the cluelessness.
Aside, from getting annoyed by the convergence of tropes. Miscommunication being the one I detest – or thinking when he says he’ll be honest with you and then he is that he must be just playing along with the lie. Outside of that, I really did like Marcela and Theo. Getting to see through her eyes what about him was so special, since she didn’t really know him and had some misconceptions about their past interactions.
You’ll like this book, if…
This book was like Say You’ll Be Mine and Funny Story had a baby, and sprinkled in some sports romance on top. Haven’t read any sports romance, yet, so I’m guessing. But I felt more chemistry between Marcela and Theo. Their fling was boundary breaking from the very beginning…and I still got a little My Best Friend’s Wedding chaos.
✅ Spinoff novella nomination:
I would nominate Angela for a novella spinoff. I want to see what romance she’ll find with her newly discovered asexuality. Also how will Alice do in New York City? The next book coming from Gabrielle Gamez just said coming in 2025…with no details on what the book would be about.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.