Stripped by Zoey Castile was one of my most anticipated romances this year and it really is a perfect read for fans of Magic Mike. However, it was the wrong book for me at the time that I read it, given that I was going through some really aggravating personal stuff.

Robyn Flores is a fifth grade teacher whose life is an utter shitshow at the moment. She’s constantly late for work and fate has delivered her another blow by getting her laundry bag mixed up with someone else’s. She doesn’t wear American flag thongs. Turns out, the laundry belongs to her new downstairs neighbor, Zac Fallon, and he’s disarmingly attractive. He also has a precocious husky puppy! Talk about a wonderful meet cute that really sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Fallon is immediately interested in Robyn, but she turns him down, which Fallon thinks is for the best. He’s a male revue dancer, keeps odd hours, and is still healing from being used in his previous relationship. But this is a romance here! And the pair keep being thrown together and that often leads to some smooching.

This book is a lot of fun, and I mean that. The Magic Mike comparison is definitely obvious. There were shirtless men and dancers to appease any and every individual. Like ‘em big and bulky? You got it. Prefer them lean with a chiseled jawline? Coming right up! (I’m a Matt Bomer as Ken kind of girl.) Fallon’s fellow dancers will have you fighting over which is your favorite and then hastily refreshing the series’ Goodreads page to see when your dancer will get his book. There’s the ringleader, who does his best to manage all the guys, while smoothing over any conflicts. There’s the young upstart who isn’t a fan of romantic attachments. You will be salivating with all the excellent sequel bait!

Robyn was a great heroine and one whom I identified with a lot. Her best friend is getting married and she’s having some major feelings of abandonment. She wants to be happy for her friend, but still harbors these very complicated emotions. With a wedding looming, Robyn knows she can’t really drop that bombshell on her friend when she’s knee deep in nuptial stress.

Fallon is a real sweetheart. He really loves his job because he likes making women happy, which lends himself to getting taken advantage of at times. There are also the negative connotations that come with stripping. His family doesn’t approve and, with Robyn coming from a more traditional upbringing, her family is unlikely to approve as well. If you prefer your heroes without too much baggage and angst, you’ll really like Fallon.

But while I loved both of the main characters and the large cast of charismatic dancers, I wanted more because I wanted something with more emotional stakes and angst. I wanted melodrama worthy of a General Hospital story arc. But Robyn and Fallon fall in love rather quickly and it leads to some pacing issues in the book. They’re a good match and, if I were in a better, less complicated headspace, I would have had different feelings about their whirlwind relationship. Instead, I wanted more angst and more drama, but I know this is definitely a reader error.

I did have one issue with the book and that was Fallon’s past relationship. He’s clearly torn up over how things ended, but I didn’t feel it was that deep. While Fallon’s revue show was in Miami, he met a younger woman who just used him for his money. It took him a while to realize that. But despite his recounting the events and our learning about it through the course of the book, I didn’t feel this had been a love match or that the relationship was even serious enough to give Fallon such grief later on.

There was a feature in the book that brought me a ton of joy, though, and that was the chapter titles. Each chapter is a song title or lyric that related to whatever scene was about to happen. It was a fun little game seeing how the text and title related and I definitely want to make a playlist of all the titles. I would love to see this continued in the next books. When I opened up the book and saw “The Thong th-thong thong thong” printed in bold, block letters, I smiled. Hard.

A note: For those readers who have strong feelings about love triangles, there is a whiff of one, but it’s obvious who Robyn will end up with. After all, he’s emblazoned on the cover.

Stripped is an uncomplicated romance between two goofy, sexy people. It has a sweetness to it that’s reminiscent of a contemporary friends to lovers trope. If that hits all of your buttons, do read this! But if you’re at all in the mood for anything darker because every single day produces a new moving problem and fifty minutes of therapy isn’t enough to exorcise your rage, save this one for a different headspace.