Julie's Review: Love Buzz

Author: Neely Tubati-Alexander
Series: None
Publication Date: May 2, 2023
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 304
Obtained: publisher via Netgalley
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 5/5
Bottom Line: Stunning debut
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab

Summary: A wretched maid of honor. A hangover from hell. Raucous Mardi Gras crowds. There isn’t much Serena Khan is enjoying about this four-day New Orleans destination bachelorette party for her semi-estranged cousin, the bride-to-be. UNTIL sparks fly with a handsome stranger, who—like her—is also from Seattle, at the ladies’ last stop of the evening, a Bourbon Street bar. After their conversation is cut short, Serena is overwhelmed by the desire to find the charming man with the brooding eyebrows, but her list of clues is pretty short:

His name is Julian

He lives on Chamber Hill

He works at a tech company

He loves Lil Wayne and Nirvana

The need to find him is, for Serena, both irresistible and totally irrational. In a few short weeks, her college alumni magazine is featuring her in a “Life at Thirty” feature, cementing her as a success story. She will have officially achieved the safe, stable life her late mother insisted upon. Julian is not part of the plan. As she combs Seattle for her New Orleans flame, stripping away the perfectly curated life that would have made her mother proud, Serena must decide if the pursuit of real passion is worth it, and fast, before she destroys the life she always thought she wanted. In a sharply funny, thoughtful, and romantic debut combining the wistfulness of Rebecca Serle with the witty sizzle of Emily Henry, Neely Tubati-Alexander prompts us all to ask if the life we’re living is a life worth loving. ~amazon.com

Review:  Love Buzz captured me from the opening lines and didn't let me go. If I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it or thinking about reading it. That says something to me about a debut novel, that it pulls you in so easily. What could have been a novel about only the "meet cute", it was so much more than that. Serena is on a trip that she didn't even want to take for a bachelorette who she hasn't been close to in 8 years but yet she's in New Orleans bored out of her mind. That is until a mysterious stranger approaches her at the bar and sets her life in a tail-spin. 

Serena has always played it safe. It is how she honors her mother and the hard work her mother had to do for her to go to college and make a better life for herself. She has a plan and that plan does not take into account meeting a handsome stranger and having feelings you've never had before. She is methodical and strategic definitely not whimsical and dreamy. 

I really can't tell you much more or I'll give away the whole story. Ms. Tubati-Alexander does a fantastic job of describing someone who is really having a total change of heart regarding her life. What it's like to question every choice you've made and who it is you are trying to make happy with those choice? It's also about letting go of the past and realizing that your view isn't the only one, especially when dealing with grief. 

I will tell you this, I'm buying a copy of this book and will pre-order anything Ms. Tubati-Alexander writes in the future. She knows how to tell a beautiful story.