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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Slay hot nerds falling in love (when will it be my turn??)
fast-paced
Another marketing miss for me. It just didn’t read like a romance, so if that’s what you want, this may not be it. It felt more like fiction with romantical elements. It’s not a bad book (I can see why someone else might enjoy it), but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t actually like the characters that much and honestly didn’t care what the outcome was for them.
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
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
Give me all the high angst/super emotional contemporaries (with slightly fuller characterisation)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content
Moderate: Toxic relationship
I was looking for a good contemporary romance when I picked up The Roughest Draft, which I had seen appearing on numerous Goodreads lists at the time. I hadn't read anything by the co-authors previously but I've seen enough interviews from them to know that they're married. I'm not sure if The Roughest Draft was mined from their personal experiences but I am not a fan of this book, so I hope it isn't.
On the surface, it has an interesting premise about two writers who had a hugely popular and highly successful sophomore book but who never wrote another book together despite this. Instead, they're estranged and nobody can understand what happened between them, not their publisher and certainly not their fans. Since then, Katrina and Nathan had seemingly sworn writing together - Katrina had declared her retirement while Nathan continued writing solo. However, they've now reunited to write the third book that they're contracted to write and both of them have separate reasons for agreeing to fulfil this agreement. Katrina wants to keep her agent boyfriend happy and Nathan wants to have better leverage for his next book.
Katrina
Nathan
However, in reality I found both characters to be pretty insufferable. Katrina is fearful of almost everything and it takes her a really long time to come around to the idea that her boyfriend, Chris, is a pretty terrible person considering how he's basically willing to pay any price to extract a book from her. Moreover, Katrina is no prize herself. And Nathan was also a pretty terrible person.
Both Katrina and Nathan are also incredibly selfish people, as evidenced by how the two of them basically dropped their friend when they were fighting with each other. The entire world seems to center around their "writerly brilliance" and it seems like there's nobody else in this world that exists to them aside from each other.
The Roughest Draft is ostensibly a romance but it's hard to root for two characters when I dislike them to this extent. There has to be some sort of selling point to their personalities for me to root for them but I couldn't find it.
On the surface, it has an interesting premise about two writers who had a hugely popular and highly successful sophomore book but who never wrote another book together despite this. Instead, they're estranged and nobody can understand what happened between them, not their publisher and certainly not their fans. Since then, Katrina and Nathan had seemingly sworn writing together - Katrina had declared her retirement while Nathan continued writing solo. However, they've now reunited to write the third book that they're contracted to write and both of them have separate reasons for agreeing to fulfil this agreement. Katrina wants to keep her agent boyfriend happy and Nathan wants to have better leverage for his next book.
Katrina
Underneath the wishing, I find harder, flintier feelings. Resentment, even hatred. No regret, except regretting ever going to the upstate New York writers' workshop where I met Nathan Van Huysen.
I was fresh out of college. When I graduated from the University of Virginia and into the job I'd found fetching coffee and making copies in a publishing house, I felt like my life hadn't really started. I'd enjoyed college, enjoyed the rush I got learning whatever I found genuinely interesting, no matter the subject - fungal plant structures, behavioral economies, the funeral practices of the Greco-Roman world. I just knew I wouldn't be who I wanted to be until I wrote and published. Then I went upstate and found Nathan, and he found me.
Nathan
They're rejecting me. I wasn't rejected from Dartmouth, wasn't rejected when Katrina and I queried our agent, wasn't rejected when we sold Connecting Flights or Only Once on proposal. I haven't been rejected from anything.
No, that's not true.
It hurts. No matter how much success you've had, insecurity is never far from reach when you're being judged on pieces of your soul. If you won't kill your darlings, I guess someone else will. There's no indignation where I expected there to be, only whispers of doubt newly insistent in my head.
However, in reality I found both characters to be pretty insufferable. Katrina is fearful of almost everything and it takes her a really long time to come around to the idea that her boyfriend, Chris, is a pretty terrible person considering how he's basically willing to pay any price to extract a book from her. Moreover, Katrina is no prize herself.
Spoiler
She basically torched her potential relationship with Nathan over fears that she's getting everything that she's ever wanted - a successful writing career, the man that she's fallen in love with. Not to mention, she fell in love with a married man and basically emotionally cheated with him the entire time.Spoiler
He insisted that everything was aboveboard in terms of his divorce, but it turns out that he was in love with Katrina practically the whole summer before he broke things off with his wife. Moreover, his ego is huge.Both Katrina and Nathan are also incredibly selfish people, as evidenced by how the two of them basically dropped their friend when they were fighting with each other. The entire world seems to center around their "writerly brilliance" and it seems like there's nobody else in this world that exists to them aside from each other.
The Roughest Draft is ostensibly a romance but it's hard to root for two characters when I dislike them to this extent. There has to be some sort of selling point to their personalities for me to root for them but I couldn't find it.
lighthearted
medium-paced
A bit slow to start for me but I really enjoyed this once it got going.
Got bored halfway through but then picked it up again. I dunno. Cute.
i think i would give this a solid 3 stars because it took me until about 60% to really get into the book, you know? it wasn’t bad, but lacked some type of spark for me.