Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Neighbor Favor

Listen, I love a good epistolary romance and The Neighbor Favor has that! The entire first part is emails between Lily and Strick (Nick's secret author identity); it's 100% delightful! Of course, Nick's secret has to come out at some point, so I just had to know how it happened. A super fun time!

Kristina Forest gave us the book loving mcs we've all been hunting for. Every time a book was mentioned I smiled and the bookstore date had me swooning. Also, I'm a complete sucker for dating lessons and Nick's lessons were so fun! The romance was just so sweet.

There were a few moments that felt a bit slow, but overall I still enjoyed the book. Both Lily and Nick are struggling in their familial relationships. The conversations they had as a result are super relatable. The audio is definitely the way to go because Keylor Leigh and Malik Rashad did a phenomenal job bringing the characters to life.

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vlawton's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lestatsoul's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

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bernetteisqueen's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted slow-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

3.75

It was good overall, I felt like I wanted a bit more for the FMC. She was a bit too shy for me and did not have much of a backbone. The MMC was extremely unlikeable to me until like the last 10 chapters. There was some spice to the book as well. The writing was good, but I was stressed at the overuse of the word “grimace” LOL but I would still recommend the book because it’s a very cute and sweet read!

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tinysierra's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Neighbor Favor felt somewhat like Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert but for me it was lacking the charm that Talia’s characters have. I mean… Chloe Brown and Lily Greene both have color last names, a “near death experience” in the first chapter, two sisters, a cat, and a male love interest that hasn’t healed from past trauma yet. If you prefer less spice and less sass, I’d go with The Neighbor Favor.

I liked that our main characters were book nerds who were into contemporary high fantasy books. Too many book/movie protagonists are interested in only classics.

The email chain at the beginning of the book was fun. Probably my favorite part of the book. I also liked the side characters Yolanda and Henry. I did like the cute cheesy epilogue, but for much of the book I felt bored.

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auteaandtales's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.0

I had really high hopes for this but, unfortunately, this didn’t give me what I was looking for. There weren’t any real problems with the book, I don’t think, most of my issues stem from my personal dislikes and I will still be reading more from this author (especially when I learnt from the back of this book that this was a debut in adult romance and there will be other books focusing on the two sisters of Lily!)

There was a conflict in the book where Nick is Strick and he doesn’t want to tell Lily through fear that it’ll ruin any chance of a relationship with her, romantic or platonic. It was dragged out for a majority of the book and, when Lily eventually found out, she was (rightfully) very upset this information was kept from her and then…got over it? It was wrapped up so fast. I also didn’t think the conflict made sense in the first place, it was a really strange reason to suddenly cut contact with someone and then hold that secret for such a long time too. At the same time, kinda realistic, I’ve done silly things out of fear as well but I didn’t enjoy it.

My other main issue was that it felt very flat. I didn’t feel any chemistry and that was unfortunate. A lot of their emotional bonding happened via emails in a chapter right at the beginning which, for me, took a lot away from my emotional investment in them as a couple. We got all of that slow burn connection condensed into a few pages, and that didn’t work for me.

A lot also did work for me! I loved Lily and her sisters. They had a lot of fun interactions and silliness, especially from Violet, that I really liked and I also enjoyed that they were all named after flowers. It was a sweet little thing. They were so supportive and sisterly, I look forward to seeing them in future books.

I enjoyed that it was set in New York, I really want to visit there one day and whenever a romance especially is set in romance, I just love it. It added to the charm, because it was very charming.

I also loved that they were neighbours! This was a really cute way to have the characters bump back into each others’ lives. They were sweet as characters together and as individuals.

Overall, I enjoyed it but it didn’t meet the expectations I had going into this, and it was mainly ‘me’ issues rather than anything particularly wrong with this book. I look forward to reading more from this author in future.

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nikspandya's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I loved this so much more than I thought I would!!!! I was easily swept up in Lily and Nick’s story - an author and an editor form a connection over Black fantasy? Say lessss babes

The voice of this story is like a friend catching you up - which made it super easy to connect with these book loving characters. I really enjoyed the pacing of plot points, they happened naturally and never felt forced. Violet and Iris made a decent appearance in this book, and I’m excited for their own stories. Actually, The Partner Plot (bk 2) is on order at my library and I’m second on the holds list (to be so so clear on how much I enjoyed this book).

I have a small narrative nitpick that’s pretty unimportant here -

I think this story would have greatly benefited from a “hangout montage.” I understand they already technically knew each other for almost a year, but Lily wasn’t aware of that. They came back to the “I feel like I know you” thing twice, and I just think that if they had more off page experiences that were referenced to, it would have been a more well rounded romance.

Overall, I’m so happy I got to spend time with these characters and that we still have two more books to go!

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amyboughner's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

An easy read and a nice story with great characters

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