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julian_greystoke 's review for:
Once and for All
by Sarah Dessen
Okay, don't judge me. I know I'm not much of a romance reader, but I have been in a contemporary mood of late and I was drawn to this book because I have worked in the wedding industry and I can say that yes, this book is fairly accurate to that aspect.
As for the rest of it.... the lead characters were fine, it was the romantic interests that bugged the hell out of me. Our MC had a boyfriend before the story began so he's not in the picture any more. However when he was he was a literal perfect angel with NO flaws. I know she's romanticizing him in her head but
Of course once the story gets going we meet her new love interest and boy is he annoying. He's supposed to be. He's clearly got ADHD or something going on. We also meet him the first two times when he is ruining things for his family, including frustrating his sister to tears (and we never learn why he did that). As he begins his slow burn hate-to-love relationship with our MC you see him slide away from his bad behavior, becoming instead an at least tolerable, insightful person... and I hate it. You can't just make him more desirable as the book goes on and call it her falling for him. You start him out being an ass, and he should keep being an ass. Granted, he does do one more ass-holish thing in the middle of the book, so there's that, but overall I DID NOT like him as an LI because I could not forget and forgive all the shitty things he did, like our lead clearly does.
So yes. Overall I liked a book about the wedding industry and the leads were fine and engaging, but the LI and route the romance took made me cringe all day long. This is too bad because I love a slow burn and hate-to-love :(
As for the rest of it.... the lead characters were fine, it was the romantic interests that bugged the hell out of me. Our MC had a boyfriend before the story began
Spoiler
who was killed in a school shootingSpoiler
during the shooting he was killed because he was trying to talk the shooter down. Because perfect angelOf course once the story gets going we meet her new love interest and boy is he annoying. He's supposed to be. He's clearly got ADHD or something going on. We also meet him the first two times when he is ruining things for his family, including frustrating his sister to tears (and we never learn why he did that). As he begins his slow burn hate-to-love relationship with our MC you see him slide away from his bad behavior, becoming instead an at least tolerable, insightful person... and I hate it. You can't just make him more desirable as the book goes on and call it her falling for him. You start him out being an ass, and he should keep being an ass. Granted, he does do one more ass-holish thing in the middle of the book, so there's that, but overall I DID NOT like him as an LI because I could not forget and forgive all the shitty things he did, like our lead clearly does.
So yes. Overall I liked a book about the wedding industry and the leads were fine and engaging, but the LI and route the romance took made me cringe all day long. This is too bad because I love a slow burn and hate-to-love :(