The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez

e-Audio, 10:14:06
Narrated by: Ruby Corazon
Release Date: July 9, 2024
Published by: Hachette Audio
Read from: July 15-17, 2024
Stand-Alone 
Source: Library’s Libby
Content Warning: Abandonment, Toxic Friendship, Fatphobia, Body Shaming, Injury/Injury Detail, Emotional Abuse, Alcohol (no over consumption)
For Readers Interested In: Romance, Racial/Ethnic Diversity (Latinx- Mexican), Sports Romance (Football), Adult, Books about Books, Realistic Fiction, Fat Leads

      Two broken hearts decide that the best way to get over their first loves is with a no-strings-attached relationship in this spicy and charming debut romance.
     Librarian Marcela Ortiz has been secretly in love with her best friend for years—and when he gets engaged, she knows it’s long past time to move on. But before she gets the chance, she has a bigger problem to contend with in the form of Theo Young, ex-NFL player and older brother of the man she’s in love with. When she discovers Theo’s plans to confess his feelings for his brother’s fiancée at their engagement party, Marcela is quick to stop him—despite how tempting it is to let him run away with the bride-to-be. She manages to convince Theo to sleep off his drunken almost-mistake at her place and when they arrive at a family brunch the next day together, everyone wrongly assumes they hooked up.
     Since Theo needs a cover for his feelings for the bride and Marcela needs a distraction from her unrequited feelings for the groom, they decide to roll with the lie. Until one late night at a bar, they take it a step further and discover a layer of attraction neither realized existed. Soon, they find themselves exploring the simmering chemistry between them, whether in library aisles or Marcela’s bed. There are no boundaries for the rebound relationship they form—just a host of complicated feelings, messy familial dynamics, and uncovered secrets that threaten to tear them apart before they can even admit to themselves that their rebound is working. Maybe a little too well.

*MY THOUGHTS*

As we all know I have been pining for this book since I heard about the series. And then I met the author at TLA and I knew it was going to be everything I wanted and more. And let me just tell you, I called it.

Ok so the first thing about this that sticks out to me is obviously the librarian, so I’ll start with the main characters. So Marcela is a librarian that has been in love with her best friend for over a decade. And he’s just announced that he’s getting married to their other mutual friend. And yes, it’s just as messy as it sounds lol It was so much going on in this book lol First off I was mad at her. Because 10 years?! GIRL. Why? She should have BEEN let that man go. But she is a librarian and I loved that about her, because obviously. She even was a YA librarian who read YA and I loved that. I loved even more so that she was talking about books in the book. If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for books about books so this was awesome.

As for Theo, he was also messy. He was the brother of Marcela’s crush/best friend but also the crush/best friend’s fiancée’s ex. Yes they made this really weird love square and even though I find triangles ridiculous, I was weirded out because I enjoyed this lol But other than that, I thought Theo was a bit clueless. I didn’t love him because when you’re in a situation like this, there’s no room for the person you actually do love to feel like you love them. Does that make sense? He should have been fucking crawling to her by the end of this book but he wasn’t and I didn’t like that. And I know you might say she didn’t want him to, but SHE DIDN’T WANT HIM TO BECAUSE HE WASN’T ACTUALLY ACTING LIKE HE WAS OVER THAT OTHER GIRL.

Ok so the plot tho was weird. It was fake dating, and they had the embarrassing thing that makes people start fake dating, but after that it was just a bunch of mess. I still can’t say for sure when they decided they were starting to like each other for real. It just felt like nothing was happening besides the trope. BUT the dates and their interactions were so cute! I really liked the one date they went on, but I won’t say because spoilers. But if you read this, you’ll know what I mean lol

This was cute! Definitely a solid debut. I will most definitely be on the lookout for the next book in this series. And yes as an Eagles fan, I read this a while ago and I’m STILL mad that out of two different football teams in this state, she chose THOSE EFFING GUYS. I hope we get to ignore them in the next book smh lol But I’ll be there to see it!

Overall, I give this