The Netgalley format of this made this incredibly difficult to read. I'm positive that if the format was better, I would have enjoyed this better.

Two people forced into writing a book together..... and obviously it is going to be steamy..... honestly could this book have a better plot?? I could not and would not put this one down. I needed to see how Aiden and Rosie could make it work!

Now we all know romance is my bag and enemies to lovers makes me weak at the knees but WRITERS!

Writers being the enemies to lovers - foaming at the mouth. I really enjoyed this it’s a fabulous debut I’m only sad theres no books I can binge in anticipation for another release by Katie.

Thank you to Random House UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Ok. So I think for some people this is going to work really well. It’s being compared to The Hating Game in the blurb and I think that’s pretty fair, but I think these two are maybe meaner to each other than those two. And that was my problem: they’re awful to each other and although I enjoyed it once they started getting along, as soon as there is any hint of conflict they revert to saying the most hurtful things they can to each other, and that’s just not my thing. So it didn’t work for me - it’s the end enemies to lovers that I find hard to get on board with.

This was a really good debut novel and I'm so glad I read it. thank you for the early copy.

I am a sucker for enemies to lovers and forced proximity and this was just amazing. Both Rosie and Aiden were great characters, both had their flaws and trust issues and they felt real. I loved how Rosie fought for romance novels, never backing down, never succumbing to the hatred other people have of them.

The story itself was so good. I loved that the characters were writing a romance but without a HEA despite Rosie's desire for a HEA and Aiden's dislike of them. The author's writing was easy to read, addictive and beautiful. I was close to tears at some of the declarations, laughing out loud at points and feeling the same emotions the characters were.

What I found very disbelieving was the hatred the characters had for each other that made it enemies to lovers. It felt extreme and unbelievable, and the explanations from each MC didn't really help. But it didn't put me off the book. The third act breakup was cheesy but again, I wasn't put off the story because of it.

I could have done with some chapters from Aiden's POV - that being said, we did see some of Hunter's POV which reflected Aiden's thoughts and feelings so it helped you connect more to him as a character.

Overall, a very sweet - with just the right amount of spice - debut romance. Would recommend.

This is probably one of the best enemies to lovers book that I have read in a long time. My god did they hate each other, like really, really hate! I despised the guy myself for a while, but I loved how the author slowly revealed how his past demons had affected his character. Spoiler….Towards the end I got a bit frustrated because of his asshole move (no cheating) but I’m glad I carried on as the misunderstanding was just that, a misunderstanding.

This is a wonderful book, heaped with chemistry and a decent sprinkling of spice.

Firstly, a big thank you to NetGalley / Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows Rosie and Aiden, who aren’t exactly fond of each other, as they are forced to work together on a book project after some tension and harsh words. Their professor gives them an ultimatum: either write the book together or leave her class permanently.

It took me about a third of the way through the book to really get into it. At first, I found their animosity and behavior a bit immature. The pacing also felt inconsistent, with some parts rushing through important moments while others dragged on, making it hard to get fully hooked.

That said, I really enjoyed the concept of the story. The unique premise was fun, and I especially loved the inserts at the end of each chapter from the book Rosie and Aiden were writing together.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I was invested in seeing where Rosie and Aiden’s story would go. I would definitely read more from Katie Holt in the future.

Review time:
Title: Not in my Book
Author: Katie Holt
Release date 9th January 2025
Rating 4 stars Weighted rating 8.5
This book was something I needed to spend the new year this is the first book of 2025 and I am so happy it was because it was exactly how I needed to spend 2025, this book is about Rosie who is writing a book and when Aiden says he will write with her there is a feeling of enemies to lovers and that these both although you sometimes want to bang their heads together you know that they are going to end up together. They are people who find their voice on how they feel about each other they are writing and is that not what so many of us do in our day to day lives we process our emotions through lyrics through the writing we write most of them will never see the light of day but because these two are writing they are doing it to each other. Each chapter starts with a exert from the book they are writing that means they have to often face their feelings head on.
This book has it all the times, when you laugh because both of them have moments that are painstakingly sweet and then other times you want to shout that they are not people who should be having the miscommunication, trope but of course like most writers we like to spin the stories in heads which then create the miscommunication.
I cannot believe that this is Katie Holt’s first book and I cannot wait to see how much more she brings and I cannot wait to read more from her. Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to review this book and as stated before it was something I needed to start 2025 how we need to go on and this made me so happy to be allowed to do this.
This will go up on Instagram 3rd January 2025

I honestly did not expect to like this book. I was really worried about the romance because I had no idea how I could ever root for a guy that was such an elitist about genre fiction. But the emotional vulnerability truly won me over. Both Rosie and Aiden had their hearts and their trust broken previously, leading to immediate defences being built against each other. It created a lot of work for Katie Holt to authentically break those barriers down, and I think she did it expertly. I loved how they used the story they were writing together to guide them towards trusting a new romance with each other, and I thought the chapter snippets were such an interesting and innovative way to give me Aiden’s POV while essentially keeping the bulk of the story single POV. The combative nature of their interactions was so fiery and sometimes funny too, and I never felt like it was overdone or creating an insurmountable barrier for the romance. I thought the third act conflict was complex in terms of the feeling of pride in the one character’s accomplishments that the other would have, but also betrayal that it evoked, and the tension of the break up and grovelling was genuine perfection. The smut was perfection too, especially the way they wrote it together before experiencing it in real life. Seriously amazing foreplay! I loved the side romances and the friendship group, and I thought the commentary around elitism in fiction and attitudes/prejudice towards the romance genre was so insightful. An amazing debut!

4/5 stars - I absolutely recommend picking it up, especially if you're a hopeless romantic and want to see one get their HEA.

This made me so giddy when I was reading. It literally feels like the starting stages of getting a crush, in the ways of getting butterflies in your stomach and that tingly feeling in your heart. This was just really cute overall, and honestly, I enjoyed it a lot.The pacing was great, and you get that classic 'just get together already' energy, and it was just so... frustrating but in the best way possible.

They weren't 'perfect,' but flawed in the ways that we can often observe in others we interact with—basically, they were quite realistic portrayals of real, layered people.The height difference was mentioned a bit too much for my liking at the beginning, but it stopped being mentioned as much/at all as the story progressed.

This is just an adorable little palette cleanser romance, with an added bonus of a book inside of the book, and let me tell you, I was eating up those excerpts. When they communicated through their writing... oh my goodness, just take my heart already. I love them so much.

Overall, I recommend this very strongly to all the romance lovers who want a quick, sweet little treat of a book.

Not in My Book is the fantastic debut from Katie Holt. If you love enemies to lovers and
books within books you are not going to want to miss out on this one, it was so good.

Not in My Book is Rosie and Aiden’s story; they’re NYU grad students who end up in the same writing workshop, much to Rosie’s chagrin. Aiden may be both handsome and talented but he has no patience for Rosie’s beloved romance or indeed it seems her! Exhausted by their constant verbal sparring, their professor tasks them with cowriting a novel, or else leave her class. They need to try and put their differences aside, and figure out what that mutual attraction means. But when a potentially career/ changing opportunity reignites their old rivalry they’ll need to figure out how to salvage their very own HEA.

I genuinely really enjoyed this novel, all the more so when Rosie and Aiden began cowriting their novel. I loved the book within it a book, it worked so perfectly in parallel to Rosie and Aiden’s own story. We were able to see them explore their feelings through Max and Hunter when they still felt unable to do so with one another. Given it’s a single POV novel this worked especially well as we could learn even more about what Aiden was feeling through his chapters.

As an enemies to lovers this one worked so well. Without giving anything away it’s the perfect I hate you, and yet it’s always been you type of novel. Rosie and Aiden are so very different and yet work so well to balance each other out, but it sure took them time to get there! The slow burn enemies to friends to lovers was brilliant, with the chemistry there and tension building throughout.

I really felt for both MCs, the more we learn about them the more it makes sense as to why they are the way they are. I also loved the wider cast of characters, particularly Rosie’s family and her friendship group.

This was such an enjoyable read and I can’t wait to see what Holt writes next.

3,5/5
Not in my book by Katie Holt is about Rosie, a romance writer and Aiden, who writes literary fiction and doesn’t believe in happy endings. They are in the same workshop and verbally fight with each other, which leads to their professor assigning them to cowrite a book that blends their genres.

It was really nice seeing them going from rivals to friends to lovers. I liked how they started to open up to one another through the characters they were writing for their novel. The tension and banter were great and I really enjoyed reading the scene where Rosie protected him and helped him out! It was nice to see how both cared for each other more and more through the book. I wasn’t a fan of the drama at the end though.

Reading the book they were writing was really interesting too and I liked how they wrote some chapters together!

Thank you to Katie Holt, NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

absolutely loved this from start to finish! Such a great debut novel romance read, will definitely be picking this up again to read

I admit: I wasn’t sure I was going to like this to begin with, because the sniping and arguments in class between Rosie and Aiden? Severe second-hand embarrassment. That, and their tutor’s solution to it, seemed a little far-fetched but it did set up some excellent character development, a romance chock-full of chemistry, and a lot of fun playing with the “book within a book” idea. The concept of seeing Aiden’s point of view via “fictional” extracts was very clever, and I loved the way their relationship built through their writing (including a very hot real-time joint writing session!) before it truly progressed in person. The eventual conflict felt very signposted to me, but there was still interest in how it played out - overall this feels like a very accomplished debut and I’m definitely here for whatever the author comes up with next.

Unfortunately, I found the book too childish and cringey to enjoy :/ the enemies to lovers was just being judgey and prejudice. It was impossible to like Aidan as a hero since all he does is shit on the validity of the romance genre… to the romance writer heroine and the romance reader reading the book. We get enough schtick in real life from men, saying romance isn’t real literature and doesn’t count as reading. I don’t want it in my romance books please and thank you.

This debut novel is so charming. It has a neat set up with a parallel story for Aidan and Rosie, who are at grad school studying creative writing and who have been getting up each other’s noses since the start of their course. After too much antagonism their tutor forces them to write a book together – a-romance/not-a-romance. That’s when the sparks fly and they create characters Maxine and Hunter. Of course, the lines blur and it becomes harder and harder to know if they are in their real lives or in the story they are writing together. It’s funny and a bit silly and so lovely. Rosie is stitched up, impulsive and at times deluded. Aidan is closed off and inordinately patient with her.

It’s classic enemies to lovers, with secrets, and miscommunication which is unravelled through their joint novel. It’s also a heartfelt tribute to New York City and I enjoyed looking up the settings to see what places were real and which weren’t.

I do have a few quibbles but as it’s Katie’s first book I won’t dwell on them, I’m just excited for her next move. So enjoy this for what it is - a light romance about romance.

Thank you NetGalley and Katie Holt for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

I thought this was sooo cute.

I really loved the book within a book element, and how it was used to progress the storyline forward. Although god help me, multiple times I wanted to scream at Aiden and Rosie. The love they had for each other was SO obvious, they were literally writing it!!

I really like the group of friends too and seeing Rosie’s family, I thought they were great additions to the story. In particular, I loved Rosie’s friendship with Jess, it reminded me a lot of a friendship I have so that was nice and funny to see.

Overall, I really loved this. I wasn’t a massive fun of the epilogue, although it was a time jump, it felt so sudden! But that didn’t really impact my enjoyment of the story, it was just a tad annoying.

Thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers | Penguin for this e-arc

This book and overall story just wasn't for me.

It was too simple, too predictable. I obviously don't read these types of books for plot twists, but I do read a lot of romance, and this just felt so unoriginal.

I didn't really like Rosie as a character, and didn't enjoy being in her head this much. It made no sense to me for her to be that dense, when all she craved was romance.

The book within a book aspect sounded good in theory, but I didn't fully like the execution. It actually made the characters seem even more dense and dumb, because it was so incredibly obvious they were writing about each other and it infuriated me to no end that they didn't see it. It made the whole story feel completely dragged out, which was kind of impressive, considering the low page count.

This is also a slow burn, and by the time it got to some spice, I was almost ready to give up and DNF. The first sex scene was just meh, and I didn't like that Rosie felt so self conscious and made a big deal out of never having an orgasm with a partner before, then just magically and easily coming twice. I did like Aiden's dirty talk though.

I am also a big fan of any sort of multicultural aspects in romance books, but I didn't like that none of the Spanish phrases were translated. My understanding of the language is basic, and I don't like feeling like I might be missing out on something, although I'm pretty sure I wasn't here.

The break up happened way too late in the story, and was actually a little idiotic. Aiden tricked her? LOL. This genuinely made me dislike Rosie even more.

I think this story would work much better as a movie, because as a book, it left me extremely disappointed.

3/5 Stars

Thank you to RBmedia and Penguin for providing me with an arc.

I dnfed this 7% in. I hated both of the characters and they were very annoying to me with their rivalry. It felt forced at times and the insults between the two really put me off from this one. I picked it up 3 times trying to get further into it and it just didn’t work for me sadly. I can see why it does work for a lot but these two were quickly getting on my nerves not in a fun way.

"Not in My Book" by Katie Holt is a delightful read that expertly weaves together themes of self-discovery and romance. The story follows the journey of a young woman who finds herself torn between her passion for literature and the complexities of real-life relationships. The author does a fantastic job of portraying the struggle between fantasy and reality, especially as the protagonist navigates her feelings for a charming yet mysterious love interest.

One of the standout tropes in this book is the "enemies to lovers" dynamic, which adds an exciting tension to the narrative. The witty banter and gradual shift from animosity to affection are beautifully executed, making their romance feel genuine and relatable. Additionally, the "bookish heroine" trope resonates with readers who appreciate a protagonist who is both relatable and aspirational, as she learns to balance her love for books with her desire for real-life connections.

Overall, Katie Holt has crafted a charming story that not only entertains but also encourages readers to embrace their own narratives. "Not in My Book" is a perfect pick for anyone who enjoys a mix of romance, humor, and a dash of literary flair. I highly recommend it to fans of contemporary romance and those who appreciate a good story about finding love in unexpected places.