I absolutely loved Ramona and Nick’s story in Extracurricular by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Ramona is a feminine, flirty pop star who I kept picturing as Olivia Rodrigo. She was cast as a child in a Disney Channel–style show called Greta Lives and went on to have an incredibly successful pop career. But after years of nonstop work and extreme exhaustion, she decides to step away from the music industry and enroll at UCLA as a first-year student to try to live a normal life.
That’s where she meets Nick Navarro—her psychology professor. Nick is 36, divorced, and living with his sister and her daughter. He’s a caring, thoughtful professor who truly loves teaching and isn’t looking for love at all.
This book features an age-gap romance (Nick is 36 and Ramona is 26) and a professor/student dynamic. Normally that trope can feel uncomfortable because of the power imbalance, and it’s something I usually find pretty icky. But in this case, it worked for me. Ramona is independently wealthy and extremely famous, while Nick is very much not, which shifts the typical power dynamic and makes the relationship feel much more balanced and believable.
One of my favorite things about this book is that there’s no third-act breakup—which felt refreshing and let the story focus on the characters actually building something together. The banter between Ramona and Nick is incredible and made their chemistry feel so real.
The ending especially sealed the deal for me. There are two scenes near the end that had me making the full-on “this is so cute” face, 😍and they were so sweet that I bumped my rating up from 4 stars to 4.5.
I loved this book so much that I already preordered a finished copy—especially after seeing that it has sprayed edges and decorated inner and outer covers. This is definitely one I can see myself returning to again and again. I really believed in their love, and the chemistry between them was fantastic.
Content warnings (mild spoilers): off-page sexual assault prior to the timeline, panic attacks, and discussion of the stress, loneliness, and pressures of being a child star.
Thank you to Berkley for the ARC.
Extracurricular will be published July 14, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5 stars)
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