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The Ex Talk

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The Ex Talk

Written by: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Narrated by: Emily Ellet
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An Instant Indie Bestseller

Public radio co-hosts navigate mixed signals in Rachel Lynn Solomon's sparkling romantic comedy debut.

Shay Goldstein has been a producer at her Seattle public radio station for nearly a decade, and she can't imagine working anywhere else. But lately it's been a constant clash between her and her newest colleague, Dominic Yun, who's fresh off a journalism master's program and convinced he knows everything about public radio.

When the struggling station needs a new concept, Shay proposes a show that her boss green-lights with excitement. On The Ex Talk, two exes will deliver relationship advice live, on air. Their boss decides Shay and Dominic are the perfect co-hosts, given how much they already despise each other. Neither loves the idea of lying to listeners, but it's this or unemployment. Their audience gets invested fast, and it's not long before The Ex Talk becomes a must-listen in Seattle and climbs podcast charts.

As the show gets bigger, so does their deception, especially when Shay and Dominic start to fall for each other. In an industry that values truth, getting caught could mean the end of more than just their careers. Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Romance Romantic Comedy Women's Fiction Comedy
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While overall this story was very good and I enjoyed it, I found the narrator to be extremely breathy and “panting” during romantic scenes or even emotional scenes and it was distracting and took me out of the story. The other problem I had was with the MCs boss, Kent. The bigger plot points in this novel are based around Kent making them do things that legally he had no basis to do. It just seemed a little unrealistic especially since these were the things that propelled the plot forward.
Overall though, I really did enjoy the banter between Shay and Dominic and even the side characters (looking at you, Ruthie). I will definitely be listening to/reading the authors other books.

great story but not wild about the narrator

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It was an easy and positive. I liked most parts of it, but I hated the ending.
Shay playing right into their hands and ‘helping’ them to raise their ratings and donations?? No way, She’s too smart for that. And the ending was just a little too cheesy for me.

The book has some important topics in an easy way. I liked the age gap trope, as it’s not that common.

It also gives me The Hating Game and The Spanish Love Deception vibes. So if you liked this one, you might like those too.

Easy-read

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5.57/10 CAWPILE score

Things I liked
-This had a pretty good atmosphere! I enjoyed that there was just enough description involved to set the tone of most settings without overloading on us and slowing down the pace too much.
-The Writing style was easy to get into and had an enjoyable, addictive, easy quality.
-The side characters have personalities and interests of their own and aren't completely ignored the whole time at the expense of our main couple.
-The story in and of itself was enjoyable most of the time.


Things I wasn't really a fan of:
-The Characters actions. Our main character has some unhealthy annoying thought patterns and sometimes is not a great person. Sometimes she acknowledges when she's being crappy but not always. I have no idea why she and her best friend are even friends because her best friend has several awful moments as well.
-The way this book handles the topic of racism. The rep included was very casual, and while I'm thankful that some is included, the book only really touches on some fairly shallow, broad experiences of poc characters and our mc seems really surprised about them which is not only annoying because it's some pretty basic stuff but especially weird because her best friend is not white. This also doesn't really touch on or acknowledge intersectionality and doesn't confront a couple of insensitivities.
-There were several things here that were just lacking in logic in general. One example of where this really stuck out to me is her boss setting her up for a completely inappropriate situation that is anything but professional but the narrative doesn't address how icky it is because it furthers the romance plot.
-The audiobook narrator has a different voice for all the romantic scenes which got annoying for me personally.
-The plot was pretty average & predictable.
-The Ex Talk shows have transcripts and tidbits included in the book which was nice but one of them was literally just a transcript of them reading an ad. :/

This was enjoyable but simultaneously annoying!!

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dominic pls let me suck your d—

i love this book sm i suddenly love romance

love is realll

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I'm so glad I read Weather Girl before reading this. If I had read this first I probably wouldn't have picked Weather Girl up. I haaaate enemies-to-lovers but for whatever reason it didn't occur to me that that was the trope in this book. 😂 How do you go from hating someone's guts to wanting to bang them five chapters later? It just doesn't feel realistic. Not to mention the reason for hating the other character is almost always petty. I did like Shay's background and hearing about the grief she experienced after the loss of a parent. But I felt like the rest of the plot was pretty dull. If I wasn't buddy reading this I probably would have DNFed, tbh.

A disappointing first buddy read

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