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caitie578's review
3.0
I was very meh about this one. While I was really into Truly and just couldn't wait to see what would happen, I couldn't wait for this one to finish.
Not only was the the way Allie and Winston met on the same level as May and Ben, but the same issues that was in May's brain happened to Allie. Plus the author is obsessed with Wisconsin. I am from Wisconsin, and I don't talk about it as much as Allie did. I found myself not really caring what happened to Allie and her issues with her sister and her mom. I was actually more interested in Winston. His past and his relationship with his ex and his daughter actually felt tangible.
I did really enjoy the mailman idea, that you pour your heart out to someone you barely know because you won't really see them around.
It just felt like this was book 1 rehashed. Kind of like what Star Wars did in The Force Awakens. The same story, yet some what different.
Am I interested in book 3? Of course, I already pre ordered it, but I definitely am partial to Book 1 vs. this one.
Not only was the the way Allie and Winston met on the same level as May and Ben, but the same issues that was in May's brain happened to Allie. Plus the author is obsessed with Wisconsin. I am from Wisconsin, and I don't talk about it as much as Allie did. I found myself not really caring what happened to Allie and her issues with her sister and her mom. I was actually more interested in Winston. His past and his relationship with his ex and his daughter actually felt tangible.
I did really enjoy the mailman idea, that you pour your heart out to someone you barely know because you won't really see them around.
It just felt like this was book 1 rehashed. Kind of like what Star Wars did in The Force Awakens. The same story, yet some what different.
Am I interested in book 3? Of course, I already pre ordered it, but I definitely am partial to Book 1 vs. this one.
whiskeyinthejar's review
3.0
I did a buddy read for this which can be found here: Madly Buddy Read
My comments, quotes, and thoughts can more fully be found there.
If I had to sum this book up in one word it would be, exhausted. I liked it with its raw, oof, delve into emotions, but also all those emotions of anger, hurt, and pain, exhausted the hell out of me. These were not perfect characters and at times I wanted understanding and forgiveness for teenage actions, still bothering now adults, to play a bigger part.
The romance lacked a bit for me, it moved pretty quick and I just didn't feel the story threads were there to support it.
This was very much about family dynamics, pain, and human connectivity, putting your own wants and desires on people, and secret desires versus what the world/people tell you what kind of and how you should live your life.
Deep oof stuff at times but I'm exhausted.
My comments, quotes, and thoughts can more fully be found there.
If I had to sum this book up in one word it would be, exhausted. I liked it with its raw, oof, delve into emotions, but also all those emotions of anger, hurt, and pain, exhausted the hell out of me. These were not perfect characters and at times I wanted understanding and forgiveness for teenage actions, still bothering now adults, to play a bigger part.
The romance lacked a bit for me, it moved pretty quick and I just didn't feel the story threads were there to support it.
This was very much about family dynamics, pain, and human connectivity, putting your own wants and desires on people, and secret desires versus what the world/people tell you what kind of and how you should live your life.
Deep oof stuff at times but I'm exhausted.
nononanette's review
2.0
Some of Ruthie Knox's writing is fabulous. But this time I didn't really care for the characters or their hangups. And the plot was kind of silly and hard to get behind.
bananatricky's review
4.0
Allie Frederick is May Frederick's younger sister from [b:Truly|18481904|Truly (New York, #1)|Ruthie Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1378919026s/18481904.jpg|26157435]. She is supposed to be in Wisconsin organising her parents' wedding anniversary party but instead she has flown to New York to spy on her mother and another man. Throughout her childhood Allie's mother has taken off for days or weeks at a time, her father has always tried to gloss over her mother's absences but early on Allie learnt to hack her mother's computer and read her private papers. The kicker is that the man her mother is meeting is a well-known artist who goes under the pseudonym "Justice" and is Allie's biological father. Allie feels like the family screw-up, an entrepreneur extraordinaire she runs a business buying and selling bric a brac (although we soon find out that is just the tip of the iceberg). Since splitting from her ex Allie has indulged her eclectic fashion sense by wearing some of the vintage clothes she sells online.
Allie is trying to spy on her mother and Justice in a half-empty bar when Winston Chamberlain walks in. Allie enlists Winston in her madcap scheme by asking for his assistance in hiding her from her mother's gaze. After a drunken afternoon and evening in the bar, drinking whisky and spying on Allie's mother, Winston offers Allie the use of his daughter's flat for a couple of nights while she is in New York.
Winston is a very proper English lawyer, divorced with a daughter at college in New York, he has reached a kind of midlife crisis, he realises that he stifled his ex-wife's personality while they were married and spent his entire adult life doing what was expected, not even acknowledging that he didn't want to do those things (and neither did his ex). He has moved to New York to be with his daughter but she seems to avoid him as much as she can, he feels out-of-place, unwanted and irrelevant.
Allie decides to try an experiment that her friend Elvira calls talking to the mailman, where you unload all your deepest darkest secrets and issues on a complete stranger (or mailman), in the belief that it helps prepare you for maybe having those difficult conversations with someone you love. Allie confesses that she broke off her engagement at the altar and yet her ex-fiance is a constant presence in her life. Winston confesses the issues with his marriage. Together they draw up a TO DO list of things they never did with their other halves or wish they had done. It starts innocuously enough with a 30 second hug but gets more risque.
So we have a clash of opposites: Allie is an eccentric dresser, from Wisconsin, a small-town girl from a solid middle-class family. Winston is the sort of guy who wears a three-piece suit seven days a week, he's from a wealthy English family. And yet they find a connection.
Ruthie Knox writes such different romances and such fascinating characters with plots that defy expectations. Winston is desperate to find some passion in his life the way his ex-wife and daughter have done, he feels like he is sleep-walking through life. Allie feels that she is responsible for fixing her family, dragging her mother back to Wisconsin in time for her wedding anniversary party to make her father happy. Gradually they both begin to change their lives and their outlooks, but what future can they have when Allie is going back to Wisconsin and Winston wants to go back to England?
Well! I started this book and 7% in I was hating it. Allie seemed to be one of those "mad cap" heroines that [a:Elle Casey|5423648|Elle Casey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1427840300p2/5423648.jpg] writes (and I have now vowed not to read another Elle Casey book because 75% of them raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels). I was going to DNF this book but felt 7% was too little to read before throwing in the towel. Also, I had loved the previous book so much I had pre-ordered this one (before getting an ARC from NetGalley) so I should really try a bit harder. And just like that I became engrossed. EDIT: apparently I did actually buy this book in 2015 but didn't read it!
This was great, I loved Winston and his suits and cufflinks, I loved the story about Allie's mother, I loved the love/hate relationship between May and Allie that all sisters have. Now I'm off to buy the third book in the series!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Allie is trying to spy on her mother and Justice in a half-empty bar when Winston Chamberlain walks in. Allie enlists Winston in her madcap scheme by asking for his assistance in hiding her from her mother's gaze. After a drunken afternoon and evening in the bar, drinking whisky and spying on Allie's mother, Winston offers Allie the use of his daughter's flat for a couple of nights while she is in New York.
Winston is a very proper English lawyer, divorced with a daughter at college in New York, he has reached a kind of midlife crisis, he realises that he stifled his ex-wife's personality while they were married and spent his entire adult life doing what was expected, not even acknowledging that he didn't want to do those things (and neither did his ex). He has moved to New York to be with his daughter but she seems to avoid him as much as she can, he feels out-of-place, unwanted and irrelevant.
Allie decides to try an experiment that her friend Elvira calls talking to the mailman, where you unload all your deepest darkest secrets and issues on a complete stranger (or mailman), in the belief that it helps prepare you for maybe having those difficult conversations with someone you love. Allie confesses that she broke off her engagement at the altar and yet her ex-fiance is a constant presence in her life. Winston confesses the issues with his marriage. Together they draw up a TO DO list of things they never did with their other halves or wish they had done. It starts innocuously enough with a 30 second hug but gets more risque.
So we have a clash of opposites: Allie is an eccentric dresser, from Wisconsin, a small-town girl from a solid middle-class family. Winston is the sort of guy who wears a three-piece suit seven days a week, he's from a wealthy English family. And yet they find a connection.
Ruthie Knox writes such different romances and such fascinating characters with plots that defy expectations. Winston is desperate to find some passion in his life the way his ex-wife and daughter have done, he feels like he is sleep-walking through life. Allie feels that she is responsible for fixing her family, dragging her mother back to Wisconsin in time for her wedding anniversary party to make her father happy. Gradually they both begin to change their lives and their outlooks, but what future can they have when Allie is going back to Wisconsin and Winston wants to go back to England?
Well! I started this book and 7% in I was hating it. Allie seemed to be one of those "mad cap" heroines that [a:Elle Casey|5423648|Elle Casey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1427840300p2/5423648.jpg] writes (and I have now vowed not to read another Elle Casey book because 75% of them raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels). I was going to DNF this book but felt 7% was too little to read before throwing in the towel. Also, I had loved the previous book so much I had pre-ordered this one (before getting an ARC from NetGalley) so I should really try a bit harder. And just like that I became engrossed. EDIT: apparently I did actually buy this book in 2015 but didn't read it!
This was great, I loved Winston and his suits and cufflinks, I loved the story about Allie's mother, I loved the love/hate relationship between May and Allie that all sisters have. Now I'm off to buy the third book in the series!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
fictionbrarian's review
4.0
This ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I squealed--no joke--when I saw that a Ruthie Knox novel was available on NetGalley and crossed my fingers that I would be granted a copy to read. She is a must-buy author for me, and all of the books I've read by her so far have been 5-star keepers.
This was a good book, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't up to par with the others by Knox, so I'm giving it 4 stars.
I liked the characters well enough, though I liked Allie better somehow in Truly, the previous book in the New York series. For a young woman who has so much business and artistic savvy, she just kind of falls apart through most of this story. She's pretty ineffectual, and I wanted her to have more strength, more direction, more gumption to go with her quirkiness.
I liked Winston too, certainly more here than when he debuted in About Last Night (which I loved so, so hard). He was an unmitigated ass in that story, and is a completely different person here. Time has passed, and explanations for the character growth are given, but it all feels a bit distant.
Really, I think that was at the root of my problem with this story--everything felt a bit distant, like the hero and heroine were several steps removed from the reader as well as from each other. There wasn't the immediacy of emotion that I've seen in Knox's other books, and I missed that. The tension and conflict between the two main characters was absent, or cursory at best. You never really doubt that they'll end up together because there isn't any compelling reason for them not to. The end result of their relationship is never in doubt.
All of that said, I loved the secondary characters in this one. I loved Jean (Winston's driver), Allie's father (in the few short appearances he made), her sister May and her boyfriend Ben (from Truly, though I would have liked it better if May hadn't been quite such a pill through much of it), Winston's daughter Bea and his assistant Chasity (which I mentally revise to Chastity for reasons). They brought most of the color to the story when I would have expected it to come from Allie, at the very least.
I know that this review may not seem to rate 4 stars, but even sub-par Knox is better than a lot of things out there, and I'll admit that I hold her to a very high standard. I'm definitely looking forward to her next book, and hope to find that old spark has returned.
I squealed--no joke--when I saw that a Ruthie Knox novel was available on NetGalley and crossed my fingers that I would be granted a copy to read. She is a must-buy author for me, and all of the books I've read by her so far have been 5-star keepers.
This was a good book, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't up to par with the others by Knox, so I'm giving it 4 stars.
I liked the characters well enough, though I liked Allie better somehow in Truly, the previous book in the New York series. For a young woman who has so much business and artistic savvy, she just kind of falls apart through most of this story. She's pretty ineffectual, and I wanted her to have more strength, more direction, more gumption to go with her quirkiness.
I liked Winston too, certainly more here than when he debuted in About Last Night (which I loved so, so hard). He was an unmitigated ass in that story, and is a completely different person here. Time has passed, and explanations for the character growth are given, but it all feels a bit distant.
Really, I think that was at the root of my problem with this story--everything felt a bit distant, like the hero and heroine were several steps removed from the reader as well as from each other. There wasn't the immediacy of emotion that I've seen in Knox's other books, and I missed that. The tension and conflict between the two main characters was absent, or cursory at best. You never really doubt that they'll end up together because there isn't any compelling reason for them not to. The end result of their relationship is never in doubt.
All of that said, I loved the secondary characters in this one. I loved Jean (Winston's driver), Allie's father (in the few short appearances he made), her sister May and her boyfriend Ben (from Truly, though I would have liked it better if May hadn't been quite such a pill through much of it), Winston's daughter Bea and his assistant Chasity (which I mentally revise to Chastity for reasons). They brought most of the color to the story when I would have expected it to come from Allie, at the very least.
I know that this review may not seem to rate 4 stars, but even sub-par Knox is better than a lot of things out there, and I'll admit that I hold her to a very high standard. I'm definitely looking forward to her next book, and hope to find that old spark has returned.
prgchrqltma's review
4.0
Knox does such a good job of tracing the jagged emotional contours around people with issues, that I will totally read anything she writes. And I love how well the not perfect sex is written. I knocked off a star, though, because I think there is a slightly rosy view of how a character left behind in a relationship would feel.
stephtregear's review
3.0
This book was a little underwhelming. I enjoyed it, but it didn't have the same spark as Knox's previous stories. The characters were interesting and dynamic, but in such a short book it felt unnecessarily crowded at times. The love story was okay, but it came across as cheap at times with the two main characters focused on a more physical relationship, which meant a lot of potential intimacy was lost. It was sweet enough to keep enjoying, but it wasn't one of my favourites, unfortunately. Still, I'm super excited that Knox is writing and publishing her stories again!!
neencb's review
3.0
3.5 stars. I didn't buy the romance between the H/h, and I felt like some of the family issues got brushed under the rug a bit. However, I did feel like it captured how a woman is sometimes suppressed in a relationship, not in an overt abusive way, but more subtle. It showed the same thoughtfulness when looking at couples in a long term relationship, too. I thought Allie's parents were an interesting juxtaposition to both elements. I found the book more interesting as it regards being a woman, a wife, a mother, and/or a daughter.
beckymmoe's review
5.0
So, so good :)
I loved both Allie and Winston--they shouldn't have worked together at all, but OMG they so did somehow. I'm going to give the credit to Ruthie Knox's writing here--she really knows how to write characters who shouldn't at all be made for each other but totally are. I also really liked that their age difference was practically a non-issue for everyone involved; that was unexpected but also absolutely worked.
Seriously, she's a romance wizard.
The whole what-is-Allie-and-May's-mother-doing-in-NYC subplot was a little iffy--it worked to bring Allie and Winston together, but then took up a bit too much page time in parts of the book, finally ending up...just okay in the end. It was ultimately pretty feel-good, though a bit out there on the realism front.
Allie and Winston are both siblings to previous Knox characters--Allie's May's sister from [b:Truly|18481904|Truly (New York, #1)|Ruthie Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1378919026s/18481904.jpg|26157435] and Winston's Nev's brother from [b:About Last Night|13414764|About Last Night|Ruthie Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327173323s/13414764.jpg|18714133]--and though it could be read on its own, I did find myself wishing I'd had a recent refresher, especially for Truly (mostly because of how much I loved, loved, loved May and Ben's story, but also because it seems like that book came out ages ago).
Now--how about a book for Winston's daughter? :)
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
I loved both Allie and Winston--they shouldn't have worked together at all, but OMG they so did somehow. I'm going to give the credit to Ruthie Knox's writing here--she really knows how to write characters who shouldn't at all be made for each other but totally are. I also really liked that their age difference was practically a non-issue for everyone involved; that was unexpected but also absolutely worked.
Seriously, she's a romance wizard.
The whole what-is-Allie-and-May's-mother-doing-in-NYC subplot was a little iffy--it worked to bring Allie and Winston together, but then took up a bit too much page time in parts of the book, finally ending up...just okay in the end. It was ultimately pretty feel-good, though a bit out there on the realism front.
Allie and Winston are both siblings to previous Knox characters--Allie's May's sister from [b:Truly|18481904|Truly (New York, #1)|Ruthie Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1378919026s/18481904.jpg|26157435] and Winston's Nev's brother from [b:About Last Night|13414764|About Last Night|Ruthie Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327173323s/13414764.jpg|18714133]--and though it could be read on its own, I did find myself wishing I'd had a recent refresher, especially for Truly (mostly because of how much I loved, loved, loved May and Ben's story, but also because it seems like that book came out ages ago).
Now--how about a book for Winston's daughter? :)
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
lauraanne9's review
1.0
***ARC provided by the Publisher and NetGalley***
1.5 Stars
This book was a cute idea that really didn't work very well for me.
Allie and Winston were an awkward couple, and I was never really convinced that there was a connection between them. The initial meeting in the bar could have really set the scene for a lot of great chemistry, but it fizzled for me...and it never really picked up with anything that made me believe that the 2 of them were attracted to one another, much less going to be able to make any sort of successful relationship work.
The pacing of the book was off for me as well, as I thought the book moved too slowly in some areas and too quickly in others, so I was never really able to feel engaged in the story or with the characters.
This was my first book by this author, so I am not able to say if she is one I like or not as not every book is for everyone. I will give this author another chance, even though I am not able to recommend the book.
***This and other reviews featured on our blog “Booked All Night” http://bookedallnightblog.com/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/BookedAllNight/***
1.5 Stars
This book was a cute idea that really didn't work very well for me.
Allie and Winston were an awkward couple, and I was never really convinced that there was a connection between them. The initial meeting in the bar could have really set the scene for a lot of great chemistry, but it fizzled for me...and it never really picked up with anything that made me believe that the 2 of them were attracted to one another, much less going to be able to make any sort of successful relationship work.
The pacing of the book was off for me as well, as I thought the book moved too slowly in some areas and too quickly in others, so I was never really able to feel engaged in the story or with the characters.
This was my first book by this author, so I am not able to say if she is one I like or not as not every book is for everyone. I will give this author another chance, even though I am not able to recommend the book.
***This and other reviews featured on our blog “Booked All Night” http://bookedallnightblog.com/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/BookedAllNight/***