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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
hopeful
inspiring
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:
Yes
This is a very cute romantic comedy. Tara and Trevor are very different. Tara is a loveable romantic who believes in all the romance tropes and Trevor is a bit of a grump who takes his time coming out of his shell. It’s a slow burn, friends/roommates to lovers and it’s very cute. Both characters are super likeable.
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Loved this book! I was kinda in a reading slump when I read it and it definitely got me out of it. I love that the main character is unapologetic about her love of love! Plus the plot kinda reminded me of the movie What’s Your Number. It was just a really fun, a little spicy, heart warming read!
Okay, that was some serious level of adorable. I absolutely loved this book. Tara and Trevor were such a cute, wholesome couple. I loved them together. But I also really loved them as individuals. I especially developed a soft spot for Tara, who is simply the most relatable main girl ever.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
I think I would have dnf-ed this if I hadn't already purchased it / been sitting on a delayed airplane with no other options. I have a lot of thoughts and tldr: all are bad-
First thought being about the overall voice of this book- terrible. It felt forced, wayy too #millenial #relatable, very random in the plot points and quirky details it tried forcing in, and devoid of any true meaning in any of the words. I am not lying when I say I skipped multiple paragraphs or almost entire pages towards the end just to finish the book, and it didn't matter that the end is typically the most important part of the plot- I didn't miss a thing.
The author tries being ultra reflective and meta about romance novels themselves by making the main character a "booktok influencer" and having her main character trait (flaw tbh) be her obsession with romance books and tendency to organize all people/events into "tropes." Main character Tara, being an avid romance reader, reflected on all the events through a booktok/reader lens, so it felt like the author was analyzing the plot for readers in real time through the mc as she assumed how we would react as well. It fell really flat for me because while it was supposed to relatable to its readers, it instead felt like a cheap gimmick for readers to picture themselves as the main character and thus like the story more. As a result, all tell, zero show. I always end up disliking romcoms with mc's who are romance-obsessed readers for this reason.
Unsurprisingly the main character was too forcibly #relatable to actually be relatable or understandable in any way. I feel like I say this a lot in my goodreads reviews of romcoms, but none of the characters reacted to the plot points in any realistic way! ex. Trevor apparently fell in love with Tara from the 'moment they met' , but they met when she walks in on him hooking up with someone else in their shared common space, Tara hides like a child in his bathroom and refuses to come out, and when he goes to apologize she just waxes poetic about her miserable life? And he's like 'i fell for you that day' (???) but then doesn't talk to her for like months.
(also - side note, Tara was somehow supposed to be the girl from the 'crazy ex girlfriend' meme from the 2000s? why?)
Finally, I feel as though the author protected the mc's feelings throughout the book but never protected the mmc's feelings or actual history from the commodity of "tropes." The author casually threw in all this trauma for Trevor (poverty, absentee father, mom died, grandma died, brother skipped out, chronically ill niece that he's caring for, need I say more) and Tara sums it up as "bad boy with a dark past" and that's that. With all the care she took for using the word "crazy" intentionally for Tara, the author could have taken WAYYY more care for those very real traumas she randomly assigned to Trevor throughout the book. The author was almost cavalier about those topics, which both blew my mind and made me roll my eyes. So many authors - romance and otherwise - use these horrible life events as copy/paste character development that I didn't even think twice about it until the end and that's a problem in more than just this book!! I blame Disney movies dead-parent formula. (Also this is not a defense of a man named Trevor - you will never catch me doing any such thing).
Only positives - I enjoyed how the main character was unapologetic for the "intensity" of her emotions throughout the book, and they tugged on my little heartstrings with caring for the heart transplant patient. 1 star for that alone.
First thought being about the overall voice of this book- terrible. It felt forced, wayy too #millenial #relatable, very random in the plot points and quirky details it tried forcing in, and devoid of any true meaning in any of the words. I am not lying when I say I skipped multiple paragraphs or almost entire pages towards the end just to finish the book, and it didn't matter that the end is typically the most important part of the plot- I didn't miss a thing.
The author tries being ultra reflective and meta about romance novels themselves by making the main character a "booktok influencer" and having her main character trait (flaw tbh) be her obsession with romance books and tendency to organize all people/events into "tropes." Main character Tara, being an avid romance reader, reflected on all the events through a booktok/reader lens, so it felt like the author was analyzing the plot for readers in real time through the mc as she assumed how we would react as well. It fell really flat for me because while it was supposed to relatable to its readers, it instead felt like a cheap gimmick for readers to picture themselves as the main character and thus like the story more. As a result, all tell, zero show. I always end up disliking romcoms with mc's who are romance-obsessed readers for this reason.
Unsurprisingly the main character was too forcibly #relatable to actually be relatable or understandable in any way. I feel like I say this a lot in my goodreads reviews of romcoms, but none of the characters reacted to the plot points in any realistic way! ex. Trevor apparently fell in love with Tara from the 'moment they met' , but they met when she walks in on him hooking up with someone else in their shared common space, Tara hides like a child in his bathroom and refuses to come out, and when he goes to apologize she just waxes poetic about her miserable life? And he's like 'i fell for you that day' (???) but then doesn't talk to her for like months.
(also - side note, Tara was somehow supposed to be the girl from the 'crazy ex girlfriend' meme from the 2000s? why?)
Finally, I feel as though the author protected the mc's feelings throughout the book but never protected the mmc's feelings or actual history from the commodity of "tropes." The author casually threw in all this trauma for Trevor (poverty, absentee father, mom died, grandma died, brother skipped out, chronically ill niece that he's caring for, need I say more) and Tara sums it up as "bad boy with a dark past" and that's that. With all the care she took for using the word "crazy" intentionally for Tara, the author could have taken WAYYY more care for those very real traumas she randomly assigned to Trevor throughout the book. The author was almost cavalier about those topics, which both blew my mind and made me roll my eyes. So many authors - romance and otherwise - use these horrible life events as copy/paste character development that I didn't even think twice about it until the end and that's a problem in more than just this book!! I blame Disney movies dead-parent formula. (Also this is not a defense of a man named Trevor - you will never catch me doing any such thing).
Only positives - I enjoyed how the main character was unapologetic for the "intensity" of her emotions throughout the book, and they tugged on my little heartstrings with caring for the heart transplant patient. 1 star for that alone.