Thanks for Listening Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A warm, funny YA ace romance with a stage manager narrator you’ll want to be friends with, undercut by a romance that jumps ahead too fast and a third act that leans on the very friend drama the premise promised to skip.

Best for: Teens and adults who want a sweet, low-heat sapphic romance with an asexual lead written from the inside, and who care more about voice and friendship than about a slow, step-by-step courtship.

Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5: young adult, nothing explicit on the page)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.4/5: a 3.47 Goodreads average that sits well below its starred Kirkus review)

Tropes: Secret identity, anonymous advice account, asexual lead, first love, new girl in town, theater kids, friendship fallout, senior year, twin sibling, communication done right.

Thanks for Listening by Molly Horan is a standalone contemporary sapphic romance for teens, published by HarperCollins in November 2024, set in a high school drama department where Mia, the stage manager everyone ignores, starts an anonymous advice account and then falls for Sadie, the piano prodigy who just transferred in.

It has a 3.47 average across 388 Goodreads ratings, four positive trade reviews including a Kirkus star, and a reader response that’s a lot cooler than the press. Almost four in ten Goodreads ratings are three stars. That gap between the critics and the readers is the thing worth understanding before you pick it up.

What Is Thanks for Listening About?

Thanks for Listening is a young adult contemporary romance with an asexual narrator, and it’s a theater book through and through. Mia runs the backstage side of every school show, which means she’s the person who notices everything and gets thanked for none of it. That job shapes the whole novel. She’s organized, a bit smug, and convinced she knows what’s best for everyone, and the book lets her be wrong about that.

Mia’s never dated. She knows she’s ace, but she hasn’t worked out what that means for a relationship, because she’s never had to. Sadie arrives with a lot more experience and none of Mia’s history with the drama crowd. The story stays in Mia’s first person the whole way through, so you get her running commentary on her friends, her twin brother and the strangers writing in to HereToHelp, plus her private panic about what Sadie might expect from her.

What Makes This YA Ace Romance Work

Asexual representation from the inside: This is the most praised element in every source I checked. Publishers Weekly calls the handling of the ace spectrum sensitive and astute, and reader after reader on Goodreads names the rep as why they picked it up and why they’d recommend it.
A couple who talk: Readers single out Mia and Sadie discussing boundaries and having them respected. For a lot of ace readers, that conversation is the whole point.
Mia’s voice: Kirkus praises her “strong, likable voice,” and Booklist calls her snarky and endearing. On Goodreads, “relatable” is the word that keeps coming back.
The theater setting: Former drama kids love it. Several reviewers mention nostalgia for their own stage crew years, and School Library Journal recommends it to theater-loving teens.
Low drama, mostly: Readers who came for comfort describe it as cozy and easy. Kirkus specifically credits Horan with skipping manufactured drama, though not every reader agrees about the last act.

Book Synopsis

Mia has opinions about everyone’s problems and nobody wants to hear them. Her best friends, Tally and Essie, nod along and then do whatever they were going to do anyway. Her twin brother tunes her out. Even the cast of the school musical, the people she keeps on schedule every night, treat her as furniture with a clipboard. Senior year is supposed to be the year she figures out what comes next, and she can’t even get anyone to take a suggestion.

So she stops attaching her name. With help from her cousin, Mia sets up HereToHelp, an anonymous social media advice account, and to her shock it takes off. The questions start rolling in, and some of them are plainly from people she knows. She can tell who’s writing from the way they phrase things. Now her friends and classmates are hanging on her every word, as long as they don’t know the words are hers. It’s the most listened to she’s ever felt, and it comes with a growing list of secrets she has to keep.

Then Sadie walks in. She’s new, she’s a gifted pianist, and she actually seems interested in what Mia has to say. Mia’s never been in a relationship, and Sadie has. Mia’s ace, and she has no idea how to say what she wants or doesn’t want from someone she’s falling for. For once, the girl with all the answers is the one who needs advice, and the only advisor she trusts is the one she can’t ask.

My Review

The best thing about this book is Mia, and I liked her from the first chapter. A stage manager narrator is such a smart choice. She’s the one who sees the whole production, she’s used to being invisible, and she’s a little too sure of herself. Horan gives her a dry, quick voice that reads like a real senior and not like an adult doing an impression of one. The advice account is a fun engine too, especially when Mia starts working out which of her friends is behind which anonymous question.

The second real strength is how the book handles Mia being ace. It doesn’t stop the story to give a lecture. Her worries come out the way they would for a teenager in her first relationship: through overthinking, through what she doesn’t say, and then through actually saying it. When Mia and Sadie talk about what each of them wants, it reads as a normal part of dating and not as a crisis. That’s rare in YA, and it’s why the trade reviews and the ace readers on Goodreads agree on this point more than any other.

Where it struggles is pacing, and this isn’t just me. The most repeated complaint in the reader reviews is that the romance moves too fast. At least four Goodreads reviewers say so in different words, and one points out the jump from a first date to two months of being girlfriends happens almost off the page. One reader found the start of the relationship hard to believe. Around that sit the smaller complaints: Mia’s friends come across as harsh, the middle slows down, and one blog reviewer says the late breakup nearly made them stop reading. A few readers wanted more space spent on where Mia sits on the ace spectrum. At 240 pages there isn’t much room, and the friend plot and the advice plot eat a lot of it.

One expectation to reset. The cover and the blurb sell a rom-com, and the trade reviews call it drama-free. Readers mostly agree it’s light, but the last third turns on a piece of Mia’s advice going badly wrong and on her friends hiding something big from her. If you want pure fluff, know that there’s a real sting near the end. If you were worried this would be heavy, it isn’t. It resolves warmly and quickly.

My honest note: A great narrator and a thoughtful ace romance squeezed into a book that’s a little too short for everything it’s juggling. If rushed relationships bug you, you’ll feel it. If you’re here for the ace rep and a funny theater kid voice, you’ll have a good time.

Element	In Thanks for Listening
Central relationship	Mia and Sadie: an ace stage manager who’s never dated and a more experienced transfer student who plays piano
Core tropes	Secret identity, anonymous advice account, first love, asexual lead, theater kids, friendship fallout
Setting	A contemporary American high school drama department during senior year
Heat level	1/5: young adult, nothing explicit on the page
Series	Standalone, with a happy ending for the couple
Content notes	A classmate is hospitalized after falling asleep at the wheel, friends keeping secrets, a third act breakup, anxiety about sexuality and dating

How Spicy Is Thanks for Listening?

A 1/5, and that’s a description, not a complaint. romance.io doesn’t list it, which is normal for YA, since that database tracks adult romance. HarperCollins markets it for ages 13 and up, Kirkus files it at 13 to 18, and School Library Journal puts it at grade 10 and up. No reader review I found describes anything sexual on the page, and the reviewers who talk about physical stuff talk about boundaries being discussed and respected.

That’s the whole point for an ace narrator, and it’s worth saying plainly: the book is about what Mia wants and doesn’t want, so the low heat is the subject, not a gap. If you want another sweet, closed-door YA sapphic read in the same band, The No-Girlfriend Rule sits at the same 1/5 with a senior year setting, and How to Excavate a Heart stays behind closed doors at 2/5.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want an ace lead who’s written with care, you were a theater kid or still are, you like a sharp, slightly know-it-all narrator, and you want a short, warm read with a happy ending.

You may want to skip it if: you need a romance that builds slowly and shows every step, friend groups who treat each other badly will put you off, you want a detailed exploration of the ace spectrum, or you’re after a longer, meatier book.

In short: a lovable narrator and real ace rep, packed into a book that rushes its own love story.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

There’s no viral moment behind this book. I didn’t find any BookTok traction, and web searches turned up no Reddit threads about it. What it does have is something most indie sapphic romance never gets: a full set of trade reviews. Kirkus gave it a starred review, and Publishers Weekly, Booklist and School Library Journal all reviewed it positively. Horan also talked about the book on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast in an episode on aromantic and asexual YA romance. That’s how it’s finding readers: libraries, school shelves and ace rep lists, not social media. The audiobook is narrated by Emma Love and runs 6 hours 33 minutes. Two Goodreads reviewers say they enjoyed it on audio, and one called listening to a book with this title “a very meta experience.”

Prefer audio? Listen to Thanks for Listening on Libro.fm, the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The ace representation, first and most consistently. Readers who share Mia’s identity say it felt natural, and several praise the way her boundaries are set and respected without the book turning into a lesson. Then Mia herself. “Relatable” comes up again and again, and readers like that she’s flawed and a bit bossy. The theater setting gets a lot of love from former drama kids. Readers looking for comfort describe it as cozy and low stakes, and a few laughed out loud. One reviewer compares it to Dear Wendy, another YA novel with an ace lead, and several say it scratched the same itch. The friendship plot has fans too: more than one reader was glad Mia’s friends finally got called out.

What readers argue about and complain about: The pace of the romance, above everything. At least four Goodreads reviewers say Mia and Sadie get together too quickly, and the time jump from first date to established couple is the specific moment they point at. One reader said the start of the relationship felt so odd they never believed it. Second: the friends. Several readers found Tally and Essie harsh, and one asks why they kept something so serious from Mia. Third: the advice plot doesn’t always land. One reader thought a piece of Mia’s advice was out of character, and another expected the account to be a bigger part of the story. Beyond that, single readers mention the middle slowing down, a predictable arc, a breakup that soured the ending for them, and too little space for Mia’s ace identity. One reader found the identity labels on the cast a bit much. Publishers Weekly and Kirkus both note the main characters read as white. Opinions split on the late drama: Kirkus praises the lack of manufactured drama, while at least one blogger says the third act twist ruined their mood. That split is the most useful thing here, because it tells you the critics and the readers saw two different endings.

The standalone question worth asking first: it stands alone, and readers describe a happy, warm finish. Several reviewers say it worked out in the end, and Joyfully Jay recommends it as a nice YA with a happy ending. Horan’s other YA novel, Epically Earnest, a modern retelling of The Importance of Being Earnest, sits lower on Goodreads at 3.23, so this is the better place to start with her.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Thanks for Listening about a podcast?

No. Mia runs HereToHelp, an anonymous social media advice account, not a podcast. The author did discuss the book on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast.

Is the main character in Thanks for Listening asexual?

Yes. Mia is ace and has never been in a relationship before Sadie. The book is built around how she works out and talks about her boundaries, and Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal both single out the ace representation.

How spicy is Thanks for Listening?

A 1/5. It’s young adult, marketed for ages 13 and up, and no reader review I found describes anything sexual on the page. The focus is on boundaries and communication.

Does Thanks for Listening have a happy ending?

Yes. There’s a rough patch late in the book, but readers consistently describe a warm, happy resolution, and it’s a standalone with nothing left hanging.

Is there an audiobook of Thanks for Listening?

Yes. It’s narrated by Emma Love and runs 6 hours 33 minutes. Try the sample first to see if the narrator suits you.

If You Loved Thanks for Listening, Read These Next

If the ace lead is what you came for, Kiss Me, Maybe gives you an ace lesbian heroine in an adult rom-com, with more heat on the page. For the same senior year warmth and the same closed-door heat, The No-Girlfriend Rule swaps the theater for a tabletop gaming group. And Perfect Rhythm is still the best-known ace heroine in sapphic romance, for readers ready to move up to adult books.

For more like this, browse our asexual sapphic books list or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Thanks for Listening wants to be a funny theater kid rom-com and a thoughtful ace love story at once, and a lot of it works. Mia’s voice is a delight, the ace rep is handled with care, and the theater setting feels lived in. It’s also short for what it’s carrying, the romance skips ahead when it should slow down, and the friend drama in the last act is rougher than the cozy packaging suggests. If you want an ace narrator written with real understanding and you don’t mind a fast courtship, it’s worth your time. Check Thanks for Listening on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Thanks for Listening ranks as a charming, well-reviewed YA ace romance. It’s carried by Mia’s voice and careful representation, held back by a rushed romance and a crowded 240 pages, and best read for the narrator and the ace rep rather than for a slow-burn love story.