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unsweetener 's review for:
Not That Duke
by Eloisa James
emotional
lighthearted
slow-paced
Silvester is a handsome, charismatic Duke who is secretly feral but learned early on that playing a role would get him what he wants, and as a result is a little disconnected from his true feelings. Stella is a prototypical bookish wallflower type who has a pretty serious unrequited crush on Silvester. It turns out they get along really well once they start spending time together, and I'm sure you know where this is going. It reminded me of Romeo and Juliet, if they were adults and Juliet knew all about Romeo's Rosaline infatuation.
First of all, this is not an enemies to lovers story. It's friends to lovers, if anything. Very little happens; it's sort of a slice of life romance where the main characters and the people in their lives grow with and around each other, obviously centering on the main couple. I happen to love that when it's done well; it requires really solid characterization and good prose, which this book absolutely has. The secondary characters are fun and complex across the board: an unconventional dowager, well-meaning but harmful guardian, and a reforming mean girl, to name a few, and I didn't mind a few random POV shifts. The book started out slow, but I laughed out loud several times, and some of the scenes were SO romantic that I was fully in my feels.
I appreciated how Stella was so confident in herself in some ways, but insecure and jealous in others, and I bought it when that insecurity resulted in some pettiness and self-sabotage. That insecurity drives most of the conflict of the book, which can be really annoying, but I got where it came from, and Silvester was just obtuse enough not to proactively address it despite being a total wife guy.
I listened to the audiobook. The narrator was new to me, and took some getting used to, but it was ultimately a really great performance and fit for this particular novel; the character voice differentiation in particular was excellent.
First of all, this is not an enemies to lovers story. It's friends to lovers, if anything. Very little happens; it's sort of a slice of life romance where the main characters and the people in their lives grow with and around each other, obviously centering on the main couple. I happen to love that when it's done well; it requires really solid characterization and good prose, which this book absolutely has. The secondary characters are fun and complex across the board: an unconventional dowager, well-meaning but harmful guardian, and a reforming mean girl, to name a few, and I didn't mind a few random POV shifts. The book started out slow, but I laughed out loud several times, and some of the scenes were SO romantic that I was fully in my feels.
I appreciated how Stella was so confident in herself in some ways, but insecure and jealous in others, and I bought it when that insecurity resulted in some pettiness and self-sabotage. That insecurity drives most of the conflict of the book, which can be really annoying, but I got where it came from, and Silvester was just obtuse enough not to proactively address it despite being a total wife guy.
I listened to the audiobook. The narrator was new to me, and took some getting used to, but it was ultimately a really great performance and fit for this particular novel; the character voice differentiation in particular was excellent.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Death of parent