I really enjoyed this one - it was heart-warming with charming characters and a sweet premise. Would highly recommend.

I loved this book - I'd never considered the perspective of LGBTQ+ Armenian individuals. This book gives interesting perspectives on the Armenian American community while retaining a great sense of humour throughout.

i really wanted to like this book and i did, but one character kept ruining it for me and so i started hated reading it but i held out to the end.

the story itself is nice and rom-com style with a lot of history and the vibe is very much "finding yourself" the character are well written even if i did hate one of the main MC but that is just me,

over all a good book with a nice ending

This has great insights into Armenian culture and history, but it has a very different tone to what you'd want from a romance novel, and some of Nareh's decisions/actions were honestly pretty crappy. If you're looking for lighthearted romance, it's probably not the choice for you. If you're willing to take a chance on something a bit grittier then crack on!

Sorry to say this one was a DNF at about half way through. Didn’t take to any of the characters. I won’t be leaving a good reads review yet, but will try to re read later on in the year and see if I enjoy it anymore.

Thank you for my eARC of this book. I loved the premise of this but I just found it too slow and at times I lost interest, so I didn’t finish it unfortunately.

The cover of this book is so beautiful and I am obsessed with it. However, I didn't love the book as much as I love the cover.
Something about this book just didn't connect with me. I didn't really like the characters and could not find myself caring about Nar or the journey she goes on. I also found myself bored multiple times whilst reading this book and kind of forced myself to finish it so I could get it off my tbr.
I did really enjoy reading a book with a bisexual main character and found the representation to be really relatable.
I think the plot of the book was interesting but I just couldn't find myself caring about anything in the book when I actually started reading it.
I definitely think that this could be someone else's favourite book but it just isn't mine.

The story itself was okay, though I found it kinda hard to stay aborbed in, though Im not sure if that was just because Im not currently in the place to read contemporary. The MC grated on my nerves, and I wish I liked her more, but her winding me up made it harder to enjoy the general story as it was told from her perspective. Also, I am not Armenian myself so do not take my word on the subject, but I felt the way that the MC glossed over and made light of all the genocide in the history of Armenian culture felt very wrong.

Not a book for me personally, tho I wish I had liked it more, but I feel like other people would enjoy it!!

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me this book to read in return for a fair and honest review.

I thought this was a beautifully written story and I greatly enjoyed it. It is such a pleasure for a lgbtq story to not be all about erotica and sex scenes but the people themselves. I loved the journey our protagonist took into seeing, and becoming, who she really is. Would definitely read more by this author.

I received an E-ARC of Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni for free on NetGalley by Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited for this book! It was one of my most anticipated for the year, I mean look at that gorgeous cover and that title is amazing, I had to read it! Plus, I heard that it was perfect for fans of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and I LOVE that film - I went through a stage of watching it at least twice a week and to be completely honest I may still be in that phase 😂

I loved the characters and really enjoyed learning more about Armenian culture alongside Nar who was discovering more about her culture as well as her sexuality. This was such a beautiful story, full of love and family! It’s definitely become a new favourite of mine!

📚 Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni 📚

A debut #ownvoices romantic comedy that I absolutely loved reading. Nareh meets Erebuni at an Explore Armenia event and their connection is instant. Their friendship soon developes into something more but bisexual Nareh isn’t out to anyone so is her budding relationship with Erebuni complicated from the very beginning?

🇦🇲

I love a story with a strong friendship group and the friendships made made my heart warm. I also loved reading about Nareh’s relationship with her family; not just her mum but her cousin. It was just the book I needed to read, it truly filled my heart.

🇦🇲

This book is SO well written and I will happily read anything by Taleen Voskuni in the future!

Thank you #NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest (albeit late) review

I really don’t think that I read enough sapphic books, so I was really excited to see what this one had in store for me. I ended up getting some really great insights that I wasn’t particularly expecting, so I’m so glad I picked it up!

When Nar’s boyfriend proposes, she realises that perhaps things might be over between them. That’s when her Armenian mother unveils a spreadsheet of details of every local, eligible Armenian bachelor that she wants her daughter to meet. Nar agrees to attend Explore Armenia, a series of events that celebrates Armenian culture, and connect with other people of her culture. That’s where she meets the beautiful, kind Erebuni, who introduces Nar to the wonders of Armenian identity and shares her love of witchiness. Suddenly, Explore Armenia is much more fun but Nar isn’t out as bisexual, so how can she navigate her growing crush on Erebuni and please her family?

Nar’s ex-boyfriend Trevor made me cringe and he didn’t even get that much page time. I’m glad that she took the time to eventually break things off with him in a nice way but I’m not sure I’d have left him hanging as long as she did. It was really obvious that she didn’t want to marry him, so I found myself wondering why she didn’t just say so immediately.

I adored the amount of Armenian culture that was packed into this book. It’s really not a heritage that I know much about and in fact, I think this is the first book I’ve read that features it so prominently. It was a real educational experience for me and I enjoyed the combination of history, food and family dynamics that I was introduced to.

I also really enjoyed the slow-burn but inevitable romance between Nar and Erebuni. I thought they were really well matched and I found myself pushing them to get together. One of my favourite kinds of sapphic relationships to read is when characters begin with a bit of awkwardness and then they start to pick up information that indicates that a deeper connection might be possible. It’s that gradual realisation that what they really want could be a reality that I just love and that’s exactly what happened in this book.

Of course, as a traditional Armenian mum, Nar’s mother doesn’t even consider that her daughter might not be interested in men. The idea that she is queer simply isn’t possible. This struggle haunts Nar throughout the book because she doesn’t want to keep such a huge part of herself from those closest to her but of course, like most closeted people, she’s terrified of mass rejection. I really loved how this was eventually resolved because I really wasn’t sure how her mother would take Nar’s coming out. It was a really lovely moment though!

Sorry, Bro is quite a strange title. It’s a phrase that some of Nar’s male friends say a few times and I’m guessing that it refers to Nar’s rejection of Trevor or possibly her choosing Erebuni over all the single men. I’m not sure it really suits the book though. However, it is an insightful read into Armenian identity and culture. It’s also a celebration of bisexuality and living your truth with a cute romance to boot.

First of all this book cover drew me in and it didn't disappoint with the story either. It made me cry laughing at times.. I raced through this, needing to know what happened next. It’s one of those books that you just want to escape into and live in the world of the book. It’s a must-read and I’ll be buying copies for friends!

[2.5]

This book went in one ear and out of the other, unfortunately.

If you're Armenian you might like this -- I've never seen that representation in literature before and that's great. Seeing yourself represented in literature is one of the best feelings, which is why I'm really happy this book exists, even though I didn't personally love it.

I don't remember a lot about it, if I'm honest. I remember that the writing was fairly simple, which some people like, but it's not personally to my taste (I'm more of an Erin Morgenstern, flowery writing sort of reader). I didn't really get on with our narrator or care for her particularly, until she starts to have some development towards the end, and then, yes, I wanted her succeed. (Mostly due to a certain insufferable character). The romance was...there. I can't say I thought it was particularly well developed, and calling it insta-love is a dreaded word at this point, but I think in this case it's justified.

All in all, I'm glad to see the Armenian culture represented in literature, but this book just wasn't for me.

I’m sad to say this this book became my first DNF of the year. This has such an interesting premise and I really liked the focus on Armenian culture. But I read over 100 pages of this book and in that time absolutely nothing happened, I kept waiting for the plot to pick up but it just wouldn’t I sadly couldn’t keep myself invested any longer.

DNF’ed at 45% - this had a nice premise but turned out not to be the book for me.

I couldn’t get along with Nareh’s voice, since there were things that pulled me out of the flow of reading because I’d be like ‘huh?’ Take these couple of quotes from a scene where Nareh is thinking about her bisexuality:
“So even with my mom being more ‘tolerant,’ I never came out to her or dad. Why would I? I know it’s not the modern way of thinking about things, and Gen Z would roast me for saying it.”
Huh? Why do I care about Gen Z hypothetically roasting her? And a few paragraphs later:
“So, for all my mom knows, I am as straight as Taylor Swift (my mortal enemy).”
Huh? What does Taylor Swift have to do with anything? This is the only mention I could find of Swift in the whole book, so it’s not like Nareh’s opinions on her music were an ongoing topic or something. So the ‘my mortal enemy’ comment came out of nowhere and was a bit odd in context.
[These quotes are from the eARC so are subject to change]

Another thing that dampened by enjoyment was the quick succession of diet culture-y stuff in the first few chapters. Eg. Nareh mentioning the time she’d posted a faceless photo to reddit for diet advice, the positioning of slimmer people as better, and “the time this same auntie informed me of my weight gain at a funeral. I was five.” Maybe it was deliberate commentary on being surrounded by a culture preoccupied with weight (it didn’t particularly feel like it) but I just don’t appreciate casual fatphobia in my romance books, thanks.

I didn’t want to keep slogging through it, and knew that if I stopped reading I’d never pick it up again, so I decided to concede and just put it down.

Sorry, Bro tells the story of Nareh, an Armenian American woman who breaks up with her long-term boyfriend in the opening chapters of the story and then goes on a journey of self-discovery and ultimately self-acceptance, exploring both her bisexual identity and her identity as an Armenian American woman. Giving in to her mother’s insistence that she settles down with a nice Armenian boy, Nareh attends a local festival called 'Explore Armenia' with the aim of meeting some of the men on her mother’s approved list. But instead she meets Erebuni, a young bisexual woman fully in touch with her Armenian heritage who helps Nareh to explore her identity as both a queer woman and an Armenian. In Erebuni, Taleen Voskuni has created the love interest of queer fiction dreams and fellow fans of the friends to lovers trope will adore watching their friendship blossom into love.
Sorry, Bro explore societal attitudes to bisexuality in a really powerful way and much of the conflict in the story comes from Nareh being torn between her blossoming love for Erebuni and the fact that she’s not ‘out’ to her family. The book also features parental loss and parental alcoholism in a subtle yet powerful way, exploring how the trauma of loosing a parent in a drink driving accident continues to have on Nareh's life even years later.
Although Sorry, Bro is at heart a beautiful queer romance, it isn’t all light-hearted as it also explores Armenian culture in depth and provides an important political commentary on American attitudes to the Armenian genocide. The author’s love of her heritage and culture seeps through the pages of the book and although I came to Sorry, Bro with very little knowledge of Armenian culture and history, reading such a beautiful exploration has inspired me to educate myself further on both Armenian culture and the history of Armenian Genocide.
Taleen Voskuni writes in such a beautiful way and creates characters with such depth and charm that it’s hard to believe this is her debut work. Humour is woven seamlessly into the story and she writes an engaging well-paced narrative which I found easy to devour in one sitting. Whilst I can’t put my finger on how a sequel could take place and where it could fit into Nareh and Erebuni’s love story, I don’t feel ready to part with such wonderful characters so I’d be one of the first to preorder a second book. But whether it’s through a return to Nareh’s world or in a new fictional universe, I can’t wait to read more works from Taleen Voskuni, she is definitely an author to watch.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
I have posted an extended review on my blog www.yourschloe.co.uk and the post is linked.

Bro

“From heart to heart there is a path.”
- Armenian Proverb

Sorry, Bro is my favourite queer (f/f) romcom ever!
Seriously, when you read this, I defy you not to fall in love with:

* Nareh. Oh, my days! She is brilliant. Funny, quirky, insecure, real and flawed!
* Armenian culture. It is richly illustrated in what I would call a ‘Love Letter’ to Armenia
* Nene & Nareh’s mum. Just read it. You’ll see why.
* Nareh and Erebuni. They blend together like a perfect cup of Haygagan sourj (Armenian coffee). Lol
* The writing. Beautiful flow, pace and story.
* Laugh-Out-Loud funny! That’s what I did. A lot!

My list could go on and on because, honestly, I loved it all.

Why do I love Nareh so much? Because of her journey of self discovery. The journey of her becoming her true authentic self.
I love that I am reading a story of a WOMAN (not a teenager) dealing with the inner turmoil she faces regarding her sexuality and the pressure to be a “Perfect Armenian Daughter”.
It is honestly so refreshing. And yes, I’m not Armenian or have had to deal with the traditions, culture or family pressures that so many do, but I have fought myself on my own sexuality, so this story really resonates with me.

Nothing more to say. I love it. Go read it! Simple! 🇦🇲☕️🏳️‍🌈♥️

P.S. I love that every chapter starts with an Armenian proverb. 🥰

Thank you, NetGalley & Pan Macmillan, for the eArc in return for an honest review.

I think insta-love in contemporary romance isn't for me.
the Armenian culture was the only strong aspect in this book and I liked it, other than that, nope.
This isn't romcom like the author said. romance yes, but not comedy. nothing was fun at all. the narration was serious and I was struggling to keep my focus since reading this was like reading the jumble thoughts of the main character's mind with all the randomness. so nope. sorry. not for me.

I really enjoyed this charming romance and really appreciated reading a book with bisexual representation.