Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Work in Progress

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Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Work in Progress by Kat Mackenzie

3 reviews

musiclikesme's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

abbey_marie's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Read This Book If You Like:
🐢 Slow-Burn Romance
⚔️ Enemies to Lovers Trope
🇬🇧 British Vibes and Places
🗣️ Miscommunication Trope
📚 Bookish Books
👭 Female Friendships
📝 Reflective Vibes & Life Stories
🧘‍♀️ Self-Discovery

I quite liked this book. It took me forever to get through, I think because there’s a lot to digest and I really felt like I needed to pause between chapters to fully appreciate the story, so I took my time with it. That said, I appreciated the book’s focus on self-discovery and how much the characters grew throughout the novel, the emphasis on storytelling and the beautiful places we got to visit through the pages. It was a fun ride!

WHAT I LOVED:

Humor - This book made me laugh out loud so many times! I appreciated the way that this came off almost as a rom-com (with a little less rom and more self-discovery thrown in), the ladies (especially Flossie, Berrta, and Doris!), and the back-and-forth banter between Alice and Robbie. It made the book lighter in areas where heavier subjects were thrown in and added a certain charm to the book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Ladies - Speaking of the ladies, I really loved them. The diverse cast of characters, all with different personalities and stories, really came to life on the page and I loved the bond that grew between all of them and Alice. Helena especially, though really almost all of them were so interesting to read about and hear from throughout the book. Their advice and stories were inspiring and therapeutic to read. Getting to know their stories slowly and witness their friendships develop was wonderful!
Bookish Places & Travel - I know this book is centered around a UK bus tour, but I hadn’t expected how many historical landmarks and beautiful places were going to be thrown into the plot. The vivid descriptions and name drops of significant places (particularly in literary history) made this book feel like a fun exploration of the UL and I loved looking up images of the places along the way.
Self-Discovery - I love this theme! Alice’s journey throughout this book is amazing to watch and I feel like even without the romantic subplot, it still would have been great to read about and really resonated with me as someone in her twenties still trying to figure it all out.
The Writing Style - I really loved the Bridget Jones Tally, the lists at the beginning of the book, and the lessons in each chapter. They were pretty funny to read at times and set the tone for the feeling of the chapter, which made me curious to read more. I also loved how the author slowly fazed out the lists as Alice grew throughout the book and became more spontaneous. It was an interesting way to demonstrate character growth throughout the story.

WHAT I LIKED:

Alice’s Personality - OK, hear me out lol! I know a lot of people felt like she was too pissed off in the beginning of the book and I totally agree (more on that below), but I also loved seeing her character’s inner dialogue. She’s funny, relatable, and pretty fun to listen to provided you give her a chance to overcome her initial grumpiness.
Robbie - The MMC is quite funny and I really liked his character overall. He’s a good guy, generally respectful and kind (save for trading some barbs with Alice, though not unjustified), and pretty likeable overall.

MIXED FEELINGS:

Tristan Storyline - I have mixed feelings about Tristan. I go back and forth between whether I like that he was included because it made the story feel more real and whether I didn’t like that he was included because it introduced unnecessary tension to the story and seems to have mostly been there as a plot device to move the story along rather than as an actual side character. But I dunno! 🤷‍♀️ I think he made the story more real, but I wish he hadn’t been included later in the book and had just stayed more in the middle and faded out from there.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

Alice’s Initial Grumpiness - When the two MCs meet for the first time, it just feels so unrealistic to me that Alice would be so upset that she would physically try to stop a man from finding a lost elderly person - that just seems like too much to me because I feel like, knowing the rest of her personality throughout the book, she would stop once she knew that. She also seems to hang on to her anger and irritation for far too long and has a personal vendetta against Robbie for a long time. In my mind, she was in the wrong there and she should have felt bad about that and let it go. Instead, it felt more like she was being portrayed as a “typical American” and was more of a caricature than a real person. This continued almost 1/3 of the way into the book and she wouldn’t let it go, which made me out the book down a few times because although it was entertaining at first, I grew tired of it. But once we got into the rest of the book and her personality grew, I got interested again and it felt like a much better read after that. I feel like it would have been better if her reaction wasn’t so overblown and she was more reasonable. She could still be irritated he was rude at certain points, but it just seems unreasonable the way it was portrayed at the beginning of the story.
Miscommunication Trope - This trope isn’t my favorite, but it can be pulled off effectively. However, I don’t feel like it was really necessary here and was more used to add drama to the story. A simple, straightforward conversation would have resolved everything much sooner without people (specifically Alice) making so many assumptions. Granted, they weren’t all unwarranted - but again, why skip around the issue when you could just talk about it? I also didn’t like that she was basically still falling for him while she thought all of this was going on. I would’ve liked it more if she confronted him directly about it, especially because that feels more respectful
to the supposed “other girl.”
Alice & Robbie’s Mom’s Similarities -
Am I the only one who found it kind of weird or creepy that they had so much in common down to even her appearance? I know this was probably meant to be cute, and it was a minor mention, but I found that kind of weird/icky. I forgot about it since it was a quick mention in passing, but that made the miscommunication trope all the more weirder when finally revealed.
The Timeline - It’s hard to shove a bunch of self-discovery into three weeks, but this author managed to do it. The thing is - I kind of forgot about the timeline until the end of the book and then was thrown off guard - like, they got this close in THREE WEEKS? It seems unrealistic to me, even if they’re spending all that time together. But maybe I’m wrong, I dunno. 🤔 I think a two-month timeline or three month timeline would have been more realistic, particularly for the level of change and self-discovery that Alice experienced throughout the book. Three weeks just doesn’t seem like enough time for that to me.

Overall, I really loved this book! It was funny, charming, reflective, and relaxing to read. I related to a lot of Alice’s struggles to find herself and release planning and perfectionism. I loved seeing her grow and the ladies giving her advice to take more risks and become her own person. It was inspiring to me, even though I know it’s somewhat unrealistic (lol it’s a rom-com), and I feel like it was a book that made me think about the bigger questions in my life and how I want to live it. It’s reflective in a way that makes you think about it even after you finish reading, which to me makes it a great book. I’ll be excited to see more releases from this author soon, particularly if I’m in the mood for a slow burn romance with some travel vibes thrown in! 😊

Content Warnings

mcstressy's review against another edition

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lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

LIKED:

The setting & the premise. The idea of the bus your and whole basis of the tour was really fun
The old ladies. Having a gaggle of old ladies as a support system is something I always love
The goal of re-discovering oneself after a break-up or loss of some kind. I think that FMC (Alice) doesn’t start her journey *quite* early enough in the book for it to be the most worthwhile, but I do still think it was a good journey for her to be on for the sake of the book
The MMC (Robbie) was pretty charming and I enjoyed him (especially more than the FMC)

LOATHED:

Alice, the POV character for the entirety of the book, is exhausting to follow. She’s outright mean for the majority of the first act of the book and it’s frankly very unpleasant. She is just a stereotype of an American abroad to the Nth degree and it’s just infuriating to read AS an American
The "Bridget Jones" Tally was...not my favorite. Maybe it's just a generational thing, but I don't have a fondness for Bridget Jones. The tallies were...fine? They kind of spoiled what was going to happen in the chapter, which isn't the end of the world and has been done in the past. But these tallies were also under, like, a rule as well? It just made the start of the chapters really murky.
The Tristan plotline. Why is it there.
The culmination of the story of Robbie’s mom and the WHOLE miscommunication of it all. This version of miscommunication is my absolute least favorite where someone overhears something, jumps to a conclusion without talking to the other party, and then just…festers in their wrong assumptions for the whole thing. It’s drama for drama’s sake and it adds so little
Them being enemies of this caliber? Why was her attitude getting off the airplane and being rude enough for him, a businessman focusing in customer service, to hate her to this level? And they were *vicious* and I think it was for the sake of being able to truly call this an enemies-to-lovers which, to be fair, I do appreciate the effort. But I think it would have been more fun for them to have been more feisty than outright cruel

LONGED FOR:

A bit more differentiation between the ladies of the tour. Some of them felt very distinct and then some of them I just kept mixing up or misremembering or forgetting entirely
More of a hero’s journey design to the actual plot. This felt very meandering, even with the tour and it made the momentum a bit hard to get onboard with (pun unintended)
This is a bit minor, but more exploration with Alice’s backstory outside of her past relationship. I wanted to know who she was outside that relationship and if it was something she didn’t know herself (which I believe it was), I wish that had been a bit more incorporated into the third act growth.

Will I read the next one? : Probably not

*Thank you to Avon & Netgalley for providing this ARC!

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