Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Blue Hawaiian by Carla Luna

2 reviews

mels_reading_log's review

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emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

This was a really cute friends to lovers, second chance romance. Jess has been in love with Connor since she was 12, their short tryst  when she was 18 just solidified her love for the playboy. But he had ghosted her after a couple weeks and broke her heart. Now her sister and his cousin are getting married in the Maui, and they are being forced to interact. Has he grown up any? Can she forgive him? Will the wedding be perfect? 
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lacyparrish's review

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4.0

Jess Chavez is having a bad day, well more like a bad few months. She is the backup maid of honor for her perfection-obsessed, almost bridezilla of an older sister and her plane to the destination wedding is late. Running into her former crush and flame at the airport after travelling for nearly a day is the last thing she needs, especially after the way he broke her heart years ago. Guess whose luggage was also lost and who didn't pack anything in her carry-on except for the duplicate copy of the wedding notebook from h*ll? Since they are going to be at the same wedding, Connor offers Jess a ride in his rental car in place of a ride-share at nearly midnight - an olive branch to start the week off. 

I appreciated the third-person, dual-POV set-up of this novel because it allowed us to see the same scenes from both perspectives.
Connor is a disappointment to his gaslighting father and older brother, but he has a plan to break away from the family business ... all inspired by the spontaneity of the girl whose heart he broke years ago that he still misses being in his life. Jess's world in Chicago has flamed out - catching your boyfriend cheating on you, getting kicked out of the apartment and being laid off from your job will do that to a girl. But she's not going to ruin her sister's wedding by letting anyone know that she's planning to move back home to California in a few months. Wedding shenanigans, cake drama, and a drive up the coast to Hana bring these two back into each other's orbit and force them to team up to keep this event on track ... all with some no-strings-attached sex to decompress. Simple, right? These two end up falling all over again and possibly harder than they did when they were younger. Add in a drunken rehearsal dinner speech to spill all the secrets and I couldn't wait to see how the author was going to pivot out of that. She did so well and I appreciated the way that these two ended up working on themselves before rushing back to each other.


Full Rating (out of 10 possible): 8.429 (based on a modified CAWPILE system)
Romance level (out of 5 possible): 3 (for on-page, intimacy scenes with some details) 
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