ARC BOOK REVIEW | The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez

Toxic friendships, manipulation, parental abandonment, fatphobia

Mexican main character, Fat main character

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, Forever, and Gabriella Gamez for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Oh my gosh this has to be my favorite book of the year! I could not get enough of it, and I wish I could have called out of work to read it in one shot. Thank you so much for this opportunity again!

One of the things that appealed to me a lot about this book was that Marcela reminded me a bit of me. She has my dream job – being a librarian – and she was able to work on building a teen book club, something that I wanted to do while I was working at my local public library. The difference between us was that hers was actually successful, and I was super happy for her. She’s also more on the curvy side (re: fat, nothing is wrong with being fat and I’m hoping that I can also learn to not think of that word as always having a negative connotation) which so am I so it was nice to see a chubby girl getting some on the cover. Love it so much – oh also huge shout out to Leni Kauffman for such a bad ass cover job as always!

I was debating on whether I should put some of my favorite quotes in this review, but I think I’ll leave it out so that when people read it, they can enjoy it for the first time. So no more quotes in the review unless someone asks me for it directly!

Another thing that I personally really liked about this book was how Theo was really open and honest with Marcela and how even though he was really angry about something that Marcela lied about, he didn’t immediately turn her away and tell her he never wanted to see her again. He let her in and said that even though he was mad, they should still talk about it. I’ve been really liking the fact that more recently published romance novels have been showing their characters work on healthy communication with one another and showing that they are working on themselves and their relationships in a healthy way. Yes, I totally said “healthy” twice, but that’s how much I really appreciate it. There were so many moments in this book where – if this book was written maybe ten or so years ago – they would have had a major blow out, not talk to each other for a few days or even a couple of weeks, and then somehow come back together to talk about the miscommunication that happened with their argument. There wasn’t a moment where one character went “Wait! I can explain!” and then they don’t and the other one gets upsets and leaves before the first person can explain. That was honestly SO REFRESHING and it made me have hope that healthy communication between couples – regardless of status – is possible.

Another thing that I loved that I don’t know if I can say in this to avoid spoilers is what ends up happening between Marcela and Alice. Alice is the woman that Ben proposes to, and Ben is not only Theo’s brother but also the guy that Marcela was pining over for a decade. Marcela and Alice started off as friends but once Ben and Alice started dating, they drifted by the time the book starts. This fragile relationship could have gone in a number of ways, but the way that it did go was just stellar.

SHOUT OUT TO ANGELA! She is the best best friend that Marcela needs in her life. I hope that never changes, and I love that even though Angela doesn’t always agree with Marcela’s decisions, she still stands by her and supports her like a true friend. Honestly, Marcela and Angela have such a strong friendship throughout the course of this book that it’s beautiful to see. I love books that show positive and strong female friendships without any competition or pettiness.

Another way that I relate to Marcela is how hurt she is about her father abandoning her and her mother. That’s exactly how I feel about my own father and how he left my mother, and seeing my mother also single and being the independent boss she is but not finding another romantic love made Marcela’s situation feel pretty close to home. Marcela and her mom have such a close relationship too and it reminds me of my own with my mother. Marcela realizing that her reasons for not wanting to get into an official relationship with Theo because she’s still afraid of abandonment is so close to the chest for me, and I’m glad that she had a conversation with her mother about it.

Shout out to Theo for being one of the sweetest MMCs in a long time! While neither Marcela nor Theo start off perfect, they work together to make themselves better people, and also put in the effort to support each other. I really feel like Theo was one of the main driving forces to this growth with his honesty in a situation that he really didn’t need to be, and I think that Marcela was the reason why. She also held him accountable to change and while there were parts that she did that I didn’t agree with – but understood – knowing that she had Theo in her life to do this with helped her become a better person too. Basically they both worked together to become better, and even though I don’t know if they will show up somewhere in the sequel, I hope that we can continue to see this upward trend of positive change.

All in all, this is one of my all time favorite books that I’ve read, and it’s definitely my favorite book this year so far. It’s only March though, so we will see if it survives by the end of the year, but it was definitely amazing. I highly recommend this one to all the people that love to love love. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.