Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this before publication

Tropes include:
*Grumpy X Sunshine
*Forced Proximity
*Fake dating
*Opposites attract


I really enjoyed this book it has is a hilarious romantic comedy featuring opposites attract romance between Mabel and Alfie.
Mabel who is a bubbalicious, funny beautiful curvy gaal who doubts herself more than she should. She is hired to ghost write Alfie's memoir who is a retired very loved and steamy hot football player. Mabel soon finds out that Alfie actually as though he may be grumpy on the surface he has a lot about him that runs deep for example he never wanted to be a football player he wanted to be something else completely and Mabel can relate to this.
Love the twitter references I think this makes the book very contemporary.
This book had me hooked within the first 30 pages and laughing with Mabel's banter.
I feel like the first 60% of this book is fantastic and the only real issue I have is there was just slightly to much filler and then felt like the ending was just slightly rushed.

It took me some time to get into this book, the pacing was a little off and the chemistry not quite there but I appreciated that the auth was trying to do. I wouldn't write her off and look forward to giving her next novel a go.

I love the grumpy/sunshine fake dating troupe so much. Although Alfie didn't stay grumpy for long, he was more misunderstood than grumpy, which made him instantly loveable.

The chemistry between Alfie and Mabel was lovely to watch playout. This is my kind of book to escape to and I enjoyed it very much.

Alfie Harding (Grumpy) is a famous retired footballer looking to find a ghost writer to help write his memoir, enter Mabel (Sunshine).

Mixed feedings with this one, I found that it wasn’t very Grumpy & Sunshine really as Alfie seemed to already be becoming undone after the first interaction with Mabel in from chapter 3. Personally, I would have loved this to have been played out longer, and to keep Alfie more mysterious/grumpy longer. He was giving me male Bridget jones vibes with some of the scenarios he was ending up in which was funny.

I liked Mabel, she’s kind and bold with speaking her mind even if she does belittle herself a lot. Saying this though, the miscommunication throughout I was not a fan of, they both seemed to be able to understand each other and know what another was thinking except for when it mattered and Mabel was in complete denial despite many many many assurances from Alfie.

There was a lot of dialogue and internal monologues, many of which included repetitive phrases which was a bit distracting, and my biggest frustration was with the swearing. SO MUCH SWEARING, I don’t mind some but I found it to be unnecessary, especially as this was an audio book so it just stood out even more. Also the use of the C word is just not for me 🫣

Saying this though, I did enjoy this audiobook overall. It was still fun, the steamy scenes were STEAMING, and I found myself wanting to listen as the story developed.

This was such a fun read.

I always feel like I need to go on and on in these reviews but for this book, I’d prefer to keep it as light and enjoyable as the story itself.

If you like a good romance that wears its trope on its sleeve (cover), you should give this one a go. Even better, the audiobook is expressive, interesting and adds a lot to the story.

I need to read something that isn’t romance now because I can’t with those books. especially this one tbh because as I listened it progressively got worse and worse. the characters had barely any chemistry, everything was just cringe and I couldn’t care less about them. 1.5⭐️ for I don’t know what to be honest.

I really really wanted to love this one as the description gave me complete Ted Lasso vibes but unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

There were some really funny bits and I can definitely see this as being a big hit with some but for me the funny stuff went too far into the spicy moments and just made them cringe. I also get really frustrated by MC who just cant be honest with each other so I spend the last half of the book annoyed.

Thank you netgalley for the arc of the audiobook.
This grumpyxsunshine book was a lot of fun, there's a lot of miscommunication between the two main characters. I thought it was a fun book and I really enjoyed the Audiobook of it

Love these characters, but dang… they are not the best communicators. I guess that’s part of their charm? Excellent character building that really helps to amp up the angst of a hella slow burn. Would definitely recommend!

I absolutely loved the concept of this story, grumpy x sunshine is one of my favourite romance tropes and I love Ted Lasso, so I was so excited to listen to this audiobook!

I loved the first 70% of this book, the fun and flirty banter between Mabel and Alfie was absolutely hilarious and made this book such an easy read, and the plus-size representation and discussion of topics like fatphobia in the media were really great! However, I feel around 70% of the way through the plot just seemed to vanish and it was all just the spice (don't get me wrong, the spice was fun, I just would have loved to see more of them getting to know each other on a deeper level during this time too).

Overall, it was a fun and cute book, and the audiobook narrator did an excellent job!

An hilarious rom-com between a grumpy ex footballer and his sunshiny ghost writer.
Mabel is a bit thrown when she is asked to ghost-write for famously tight lipped ex footballer Alfie, but soon they go from hating each other to fake dating, as they try to hide the fact that she is helping him to write him memoir.
I laughed out loud on many occasions whilst listening to this one, some of the interactions between the two were just so funny. I do feel that the humour at times took away from the romance though.
I liked how the book dealt with fatphobia, how the media treats people and how social media in general takes over.
I would have really liked this to be dual POV, I felt I needed Alfies view on things, for the book to be more balanced.
If you want a book that will cheer you up and that has some decent spicy scenes this one is for you.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein, an audiobook narrated by Emily Spowage is a romantic comedy with some spicy details. All in general it was a good book but something was missing. I thought about it but could not recognize the missing thing... But, as I said, it was generally a good book. Some parts make you laugh loud some are bittersweet and some are romantic. I literally can imagine this book as a film with Amy Schumer or Rebel Wilson as Mabel!

Emily Spowage did good narration, her reading was fast so I needed to turn it down to 1.75x (usually I am listening on 2x), so listeners that are listening at 1x speed probably will need to turn it down a little bit as well.

Alfie Harding is painted as a grumpy ex-footballer and ghostwriter Mabel Willicker as a sunshine, but from time to time they literally were opposite!
Alfie is a private person and is not excited about the idea of writing a memoir so Mabel is hired to write it for him. Mabel has certain opinions about Alfie based on what other wealthy footballers do and she will be so surprised to find out the completely different picture. Opposites attract is the saying but will this work in this combination?

I liked both main characters as they had cute personalities but some things were hard to believe especially in this generation. At the same time, who I am to judge?

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan UK Audio for this copy!

Really liked the description of this story and the narrator did a great job. The story itself was a bit of a slow starter and I found the swearing was used too much and detracted from a very good story. There were some very graphic scenes which readers/ listeners should be made aware of I think. Given the ages of Mabel and Alfie I did find the complete lack of communication and understanding of each other’s feelings were a bit odd. Overall it was an enjoyable listen. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to a review copy.

This is a difficult one for me because I so wanted to love it but sadly it just didn't hit the mark. I absolutely adored the plus size rep and the audiobook narrator but sadly the dialogues just didn't work for me.

I comsider myself very lucky to have received this audio arc of a interesting new rom com. The narrator does a good job of making rhe dialogue more understandable and relevant to each character.
The story itself will tug at the heart of the hardest non romantic. However it should come with a warning. It contains swearing and highly descripitive physical. Scenes which even when narated seem to be a tad ott and not totally sitting with the overal plot.
The characters i loved they were narrated and written true to life. I felt the ending was rushed and too emphasis was placed on the wrong parts of the story. This felt like iit just needed a bit of editing especially if you were reading as it works best as an audiobook.
I was more invested in the ending and felt not enough rmphasis was placed on it.
However I did throughly enjoy this i was taken back with the physixal descriptions and the level if swearing. I would recommended this to anyone as long as they are openminded and happy to listen as at tinesvitvfelt too long.
Thank you netgallery and publisher and narrator and author. As it is audio it is 4 star.

3 stars

The audiobook makes this book a lot of g9od because it gives it more emotion than just reading it physically.
The narration flows and you get wrapped instantly in the story.
This was a fun and quick read.
Really enjoyed it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Enjoyable romcom with a very sexy edge! I had the audiobook version of this and I thought the narrator was very good.

The main couple, Archie and Mabel is one of the cutest couples I have ever met in a book. There were so many points that had me giggling and kicking my feet. The banter between the two was out of this world, my only criticism would be that sometimes it dragged a bit, and it wasn’t all necessary. I was swooning over Archie’s protectiveness if Mabel, it makes me wish I was fake dating a famous grumpy ex-footballer. Sometimes I wanted to shake Mabel until she finally understood Archie’s feelings for her. The audiobook narrator was exceptional, it was amazing hearing a northern English accent when usually we're restricted to generic American and generic British, nothing else. I found this book really enjoyable to listen to so I would highly recommend the audio version. The plus size rep was amazing in this book. My heart melted every time Mabel tried to say something bad about herself and Archie shut her right up. This is one of the best grumpy x sunshine and fake dating books I have ever read. I love it so much and would recommend to any romance reader.

This is an opposites attract romantic comedy story. The story was ok, funny in places and rather steamy at times, along with frustrating in the way the characters were not communicating with each other. I found it slow to start off with but picked up towards the end. I had the audio version and the narration wasn’t the easiest to follow with the style of writing and the fact there was no change of tone for the different characters. It did also feel like the footballer Alfie Harding was a carbon copy of the footballer Roy Kent from Ted Lasso, so just had his persona in my mind for the whole story.

When Grumpy Met Sunshine is an opposites attract/grumpy x sunshine romantic comedy following Mabel who is a sweet, bubbly ghostwriter who has been hired by a retired football player Alfie Harding, who everyone is terrified off given his blunt and grumpy demeanour. Given Mabel has signed an NDA, no one knows she is his ghostwriter and the public starts thinking they are a couple, which they go along with until things are not so fake anymore.

Unfortunately despite the premise, I didn't love this book. I definitely enjoyed it and do recommend it but I just felt like it dragged in moments and the excessive swearing which I'm sure others won't mind but it did bug me a little.

Overall this was an adorable romcom full of banter so if you're looking for something cute (and steamy) this is the book for you!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review.