Georgie, All Along

DNF

Just slow, few characters and a somewhat shallow plot.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this one, other than it made me happy, and I didn't want to stop reading it. Every character was so lovely and real. 4.5 stars.

TW: I did have a panic moment about Bel's pregnancy, when she started having early labor/Braxton Hicks contractions, but needn't have worried.

Okay, the first 2 or 3 chapters were rough for me, but after that I was into the story. It is an absolute gem and I loved it. The characters are fantastic, the conflicts made sense, and nothing felt overly dramatic. Oh, and the communication between characters felt so natural. My heart hurts from the raw love I feel for this book.
Will definitely read more by this author in the future ^_^

Overall this was a super cute, relaxing read. I love the grumpy/sunshine trope, so I knew I'd enjoy this.

2.5 ⭐

I'm so disappointed I didn't like this book more. I really liked all the characters, but it was just so completely forgettable.

I don't know how I'm feeling about this one. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either. 

Georgie finds herself back home and reevaluating her life. Having spent a life of people pleasing, she's ready to start figuring out her own wants and needs after rediscovering a ‘friendfic' she wrote as a teenager. An old high school acquaintance, Levi, helps her along on her journey of self-discovery. 

The concept of this book is wonderful. I had really high hopes. Unfortunately, it felt like a strange mishmash of genres. The main plot felt like it wanted to be literary, but it was not written in a literary style. The romance plot felt like it wanted to be a romcom, but it wasn't comedic. While I liked the Georgie/Levi pairing, I grew bored of them quickly. I also found some of their romance scenes far too graphic for my taste. Disappointing overall, but ultimately comes down to a matter of preference and wrong assumptions of what the book was going to be. 

This was what I thought Honey Girl was going to be. More romance than mid life crisis. I loved all the romance elements and it didn't have the miscommunication trope, so brownie points for that

Georgie and Levi are both ne'er-do-wells. Levi's got the reputation of being trouble, and Georgie just can't seem to get focused. When Georgie returns to her hometown after losing her job, she finds an old notebook full of things she had planned to do in high school, and she decides to take on those tasks now. And then she meets up with Levi...

I'm definitely not the target audience for this book, and it honestly did not work for me, but I've seen lots of other positive reviews, so I generously nudged my rating up a bit.

This is the first book in a long time that I've finished in a single night.

Georgie, 28 years old, in spite of being highly successful at her job as a personal assistant has recently been let go by her latest employer. She takes a break and comes home to her rural hometown due to feeling like huge parts of her are simply “blank”. She finds an old notebook she created when she was 13, shortly before entering high school. So what's a successful 28 year old to do? She decides to do what her thirteen year old self considered great ideas: Like jumping into a river from a dock that was probably “safe enough” some 15 years ago but has been neglected since... What could possibly go wrong, eh?In the process, Georgie meets Levi and proceeds in her teenage rampage with him - including heavy petting and extensive dry-humping on her parents' couch... I could certainly relate to that - not at 28, though.Then there's Levi. For most of the book, Levi “who is very nearly in [his] midthirties” is brooding, angsty, anxious and insecure. He, too, has come a long way: From local troublemaker to local dock builder, Levi rose to many occasions - just not confronting his toxic father and, thus, he's also estranged from his siblings for no good reason at all.Yes, I get it, it's certainly possible to deeply and thoroughly internalise parental abuse but Levi is in therapy and yet never addressed his daddy issues?! Sorry, that's hard to believe...Also, dear Levi acts immensely immature at a certain point. That scene was so mind-numbingly stupid I could hardly believe what I had read. The “big reveal” about the “blankness” Georgie feels was another major let-down; the explanation of it all is so ridiculously simple that only our 28-year-old going on 13 could come up with it.At several points I wondered how those two people had even made it alive to 28 and mid-thirties respectively...Thankfully, there are some redeeming qualities: Once everyone starts actually talking with each other, things start making some sense at least. A certain scene between Levi and his brother actually felt real and believable.All in all, this read like a shallow “dramedy” rather than the romantic comedy I expected but this novel failed to realise its potential.A generous three stars out of five. Blog Facebook Twitter Mastodon Instagram Pinterest Medium Matrix TumblrCeterum censeo Putin esse delendam

Thank you Kensington Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We are still in the beginning of the year, and this would certainly be one of my favourite romances to be released on 2023 (being one of the all-time favourites as well).

The story follows Georgie, who returns to her small town after loosing her job, to help her pregnant best friend Bel, and to try to find what she wants to do with her life. Georgie is very good regarding satisfying other people needs but finds herself lost regarding her personal desires and dreams

While helping her friend going through old boxes from their childhood and adolescence, they found an old notebook of all the things they wanted to do in high school. Georgie feels inspired by her younger self, who had so many ideas and things she wanted to do and decides to fulfil the items of her list, hoping it would help her find her way now.

I enjoyed everything about this book: the writing style, double POV (with the approximately the same number of chapters for each character, which makes us connect at the same time, and with the same depth with both), the characters development, the vulnerability of the MC's, the impact of toxic masculinity on men growth and development, the way they work through their problems and try to be a better version of themselves, the way the MC's communicate, even if sometimes with a bit of a delay.

It felt honest and real, and I am truly honoured to have had the opportunity to get earlier access to this book.
I recommend it to all the contemporary romance readers, and to anyone who is in need of a bit of comfort and joy in their lives.

For more of my reviews, check out my blog.

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Books for providing an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Georgie, All Along is a profoundly lovely story about self-discovery and figuring yourself out. Yes, it's a romance book, but I found that wasn't the most important part of it for me. Georgie is lost — she's been let go from her important assistant job out in Hollywood, and has found herself slinking back to her home town. She's supposed to be staying her parent's house while they're out vacationing, but the first night she's there a man walks right into the house while she's dancing in her robe and underwear. That night will forever change her life — in the best way possible.

I love, love, loved this book. Every character in it felt like someone I know in real life. They all were dynamic, and understandable and dang if they didn't just breathe right off the page. Georgie reminded me so much of myself I wanted to scream. She's such a lovely, bright, bubbly person but all she does is help everyone else. Once she realizes this, she's even more lost than she already was — who is she when she's just taking care of herself? Who is she when she has no one to help? Who is she when she looks forward and stops thinking about right now? Georgie finds the answers to all of these, and gah. I want to be her best friend, but that role is already taken by Bel, another fantastic character.

But even more than I loved Georgie, I loved Levi. What a strong person. What a horrible past. What god-awful parents. I loved that Clayborn gave him such a thorough backstory, but what was best was that she sort of peppered it in. You learn in bits and pieces and then when it all finally comes out you want to take Levi and hold him tight. I love that he took his hurt and used it it improve himself, and make a life that he wanted. I loved that he was silly with Georgie, but generally a quiet man. He took care of her without smothering her — Levi let Georgie be Georgie. He loved her — all of her, not just the palatable bits. Georgie and Levi fit together like puzzle pieces.

It's obvious I'm just gushing now, but I really adored this book. This one is one I'll come back to again and again, just hoping for more Georgie and Levi. Go pick this one up the second it comes out, okay?

I've been a huge Kate Clayborn fan since her breakout novel [b:Love Lettering 44792512 Love Lettering Kate Clayborn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558904735l/44792512.SY75.jpg 69446812], and Georgie, All Along is now my favorite Clayborn yet. In her talented hands, the cliched “good girl falls in love with the town's bad boy” gets a new twist: both MCs have reputations of being wild and (in Levi's case) dangerous. When Georgie Mulcahy loses her LA job as a personal assistant, she decides to come home to Virginia for the first time in a decade. She plans to stay just long enough to figure out the next steps, give the finger to the teachers and others who thought she'd never amount to anything, and help her BFF Bel, who is expecting her first child. An old notebook of “friend fiction” that the BFFs wrote as young teenagers, spelling out their fantasies of all the wonderful things they would do in high school, serves as Georgie's inspiration: she will do all of the things her younger self imagined, and that will somehow lead her to her true path, the antidote to her lack of vocational direction. Levi Fanning acted out all through his childhood, which led to some disastrously bad choices in the service of defying his controlling father, who tried unsuccessfully to mold Levi into his own preppy image. He's been back in Darentville for a few years, keeping his head down and running his small dock repair business. He still feels pretty broken inside, so his initial interactions with Georgie are surly and blunt. But when the two become unlikely housemates, Levi slowly starts to open up, and a spontaneous kiss from Georgie eventually becomes a passionate relationship. But his insecurities and Georgie's determination to pick a career path instead of drifting along might mean their affair is a short one.I really liked Georgie, who lives to be helpful to others, but only sees a blank space where her future is concerned. Clayborn always does good female friendship subplots; Georgie fears that her relationship with Bel is growing more distant, but the real reason for the change is unexpected. Georgie's parents are modern hippies whom Georgie views with one part embarrassment and two parts loving gratitude. Even Darentville is interesting; what was once a unremarkable, slightly shabby town is now a tourist attraction, so the “heroine returns to small town and finds love” trope collides head first with redevelopment and gentrification. But Levi just steals the book away. I'm so glad Clayborn uses dual POV so we can see what he is thinking and feeling even when he's silent. His stoic exterior hides a wounded but kind heart. You can see it when he interacts with his dog Hank (whose timely farts diffuse several tense situations), and as he supports Georgie's quest, even if he doesn't quite understand it. He experiences a lot of growth in the book, and Clayborn's unusual decision to let him narrate the last chapter (in dual POV the heroine usually wraps up the book) demonstrates that she's aware that Levi is one of her best, most complex, and lovable heroes.Clayborn writes with depth, humor, chemistry, and a talent for staging both the Third Act Breakup and the Big Groveling Gesture. The book feels grittier than either [b:Love Lettering 44792512 Love Lettering Kate Clayborn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558904735l/44792512.SY75.jpg 69446812] or [b:Love at First 54231816 Love at First Kate Clayborn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609237177l/54231816.SX50.jpg 84623334], which takes it out of the fairytale realm. But that just makes the love story that much more rewarding.ARC received by Netflix in exchange for honest review.