The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Narrated by Emily Ellet

Romantic Comedy. Stands Alone.

I picked up The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon because it sounded a little like The Hating Game, but there was a rare Jewish character. Being Jewish, I often don’t see my kind in books, so I thought it would make for a more relatable heroine. (Honestly, it didn’t make a difference, it was barely brought up).

“You two have this great chemistry, this natural conflict.”

Shay has been working at her local public radio station as a producer for 10 years. She grew up listening to radio with her dad and dreamed of having her own show since she was a kid, but she just didn’t have the radio voice. So she was happy to work behind the scenes and hopefully climb the ladder.

When Dominick, a new hot-shot hire who is 5 years younger and has a master’s degree (and never fails to let everyone know, multiple times per day) starts, Shay and him don’t hit it off well at all. He is suddenly the golden boy, while her 10 years of experience seem to count for nothing.

With ratings falling and layoffs happening at the station, when their boss sees their love/hate chemistry, he suggests a show hosted by exes, with them pretending to be exes. Neither likes the idea of lying, but they want to keep their jobs, so they reluctantly participate in the ruse.

With the show a huge success, their on-air banter travels, of course, to off-air, and these fake exes just may be getting “back together”. But the lie may blow up in their faces.

The Ex Talk is just the perfect kind of book for me. It’s not really a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, but it’s light and fun. I really enjoyed the first ¾ of it, but I must say, the ending conflict kind of petered out for me, it just didn’t wrap up in a satisfactory way, and the story that started so strong just kind of lost its way a little. At first, I thought it was me, so I peeked at some other reviews and saw I wasn’t alone in this assessment. Luckily the actual end was a satisfying HEA.

Likes:

Fun love/hate banter.
The radio setting.
A Jewish heroine and asian hero.
That she was older than him.
I loved their chemistry.
The dog was the best!
I liked listening to the podcast episodes.
Quirky and smart.
A little look into the radio industry.

Dislikes:

I really didn’t love how they lied to the public.
The last quarter of the book and the conflict just didn’t resolve well for me and fell a little flat in the end.

The Narration:

Emily Ellet is new to me and her narration was spot-on. In this particular book, especially because it’s about radio/podcasts, I think this one is meant to be listened to over reading.

The Down & Dirty:

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon was a smart, quirky, enjoyable listen. Hate-to-love, especially in the workplace is one of my favorite tropes because I absolutely LOVE banter, and there was plenty here. While The Ex Talk isn’t the most memorable book, and there are a few things I wasn’t thrilled about, it was a solidly good, light vacation read.