Book Review: Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson

Official Synopsis: Micah's relationship to music is complicated. As teenagers, her band took off after being featured on a popular TV show, but the group barely released their sophomore album before breaking up. Now, over a decade later, the band is reuniting for one more performance on a themed cruise, and Micah is determined to learn from her past mistakes -- no losing herself in the music, and no losing her heart along the way. 

John misses playing in a band, and mostly he misses Micah, who'd been his best friend until the music stopped. Back then, he didn't take the lead, either in his guitar parts or while he sat back and watched her date another bandmate. John's never been one to rock the boat, but he's faced with another chance now that this cruise has brought music -- and Micah -- back in his life.

Onboard, Micah can't help but see John with brand new eyes, and John's feelings only intensify as the discordant band's tension grows to a breaking point. With five days at sea, there's a ticking clock on anything that might develop between them, and they'll have to decide if their relationship is destined to be more than a one-hit wonder.

First of all, I love a good 'rockstar' romance, and in this one they are both members of the same band, or at least they were. Micah made a lot of wrong choices in the past, one of the them was dating their other bandmate Ryder, who was always looking to treat everyone like crap. The other was using the last album on their contract to do a solo album, without telling the rest of the band. This meant cutting them all off, even her best friend John, who she had had a connection with longer than they had even been in the band.

John has been playing in cover bands and waiting to see with Micah will ever reach out again, but it has been 8 years. He lives with a group of housemates who are nice and entertaining but it feels like a weird spot to bet in his early 30s. He grew up in an abusive household, with Micah as the only way to escape it. He never told her about his feelings for her, and he still regrets it.

When they, and the whole band, are invited to play a few songs on a cruise, they take it, even though most of them haven't seen each other in forever. As they try to get it together, John and Micah can't seem to avoid each other and start to talk about everything they've missed. Their reconnection isn't missed by anyone around them, including the others on the cruise. When they finally decide to jump the line from friends to lovers, its electric, but neither of them are ready to talk about if this is just for the cruise or forever.

I really like books by Alicia Thompson, and this one was no different. You can tell the slow burn has been since they were children, and both Micah and John were ready for this. There are also definitely a lot of conversations each of them needed to have with each other, to understand what made the band fall apart to begin with. I think both John and Micah needed the break in the band to understand what, and who, they wanted in the end.

I liked how the book was centered around music, and the way it connected them all from the beginning. The book definitely has many spicy scenes, so not really for teens, but the journey the characters take is really great and I like they all end up reconnecting in the end. There were a lot of vibes in the book that reminded me of Paramore and Twilight at times, which I appreciated.

I rated this book 5 out of 5 stars!

Never Been Shipped comes out Tuesday! June 10, 2025.

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