Reviews - Not Catching Love

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

442 reviews for:

Not Catching Love

Saxon James

4.13 AVERAGE

piperclover's review against another edition

3.75

emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm very torn on this. I was so excited and I do genuinely love Xander and the platonic relationship with Molly and Seven. Something about the 3 of them together just makes me feel so good and I love every scene of them.

Xander's anxiety, catastrophizing, emotional dysregulation, and OCD is so realistic that I cried multiple times and honestly I felt a little attacked by the portrayal. His extreme self-doubt and sincerely believing that everyone is going to get tired of him hits way too close to home.

I do feel like the relationship itself wasn't well paced or well structured. We see the switch from Derek being a medical provider who is enabling Xanders manipulative behaviors and refusal to get help and we see how difficult that is for both of them as well as for Molly and Seven but we don't really see building of the relationship. There's large time gaps where Derek is out of the country and while we see some text messages, it doesn't do enough for me to build the relationship out and make me feel like the relationship is genuine, heartfelt, and long lasting.

The first third of the book is great and the last 25 pages or so are great but they feel like 2 distinctly different books because the middle doesn't bridge them very well for me.

Content Warnings

boyer22j's review against another edition

4.25

emotional tense 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

A fantastic finish to the series!

Content Warnings

fabblair's review against another edition

4.0

hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

sofia_palacios1's review

4.0

Xander is one of the characters in this series whose story I was excited to read. He's a complicated person with clear traumas. I know his relationship with Seven is somewhat toxic, but having context about both of their pasts makes it easier to understand.

Derek is a special, essential, and important character in bringing this series to a close. The way he set his boundaries and understood that the time it would take to get to the life he wanted with Xander was nothing compared to what he knew they could have. The way he showed Xander worthwhile love and helped him want to heal himself is what I liked most about this book.

I also want to mention Seven. The love and loyalty he has for Xander is incredible. He feels Xander's pain as if it were his own, and I love seeing how Derek, and obviously Molly, helped him release some of the burden he's carried for so long. Derek making the decision to take him and Molly to live with them only shows how much he understands Xander's needs.

I loved how the story and plot are structured. It's very different from the others. I feel like there's so much to say about this book because I think it's not just a love story; it's more than that. On one hand, it shows the journey of the relationship between two people who love each other and know they're meant for each other, but who need time to be healthy together. And on the other, it sends the message that each person heals in their own time and opens the discussion about mental health.