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A review by broro117
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
2.0
It's been a month since I finished this book and I'd honestly forgotten to review it till now, so I'm just gonna write down the notes I took as I was reading.
-Have romance authors ever seen a human face?
-This book about two people falling in love while editing a book together has so many easy editing errors.
-The endless mentions of Charlie's lips twitching/chin creasing/eyes flashing are starting to make me concerned for him. And every time his weird "pouty-smirk" thing comes up I just imagine him doing the Flynn Rider smolder.
-Reading the "smut" in these books always feels like reading the written version of a Marvel fight scene.
-This could easily be 100 pages shorter. I'm not sure there's ever a valid reason for a book like this to exceed 300 pages.
-If this grown woman calls her sister "Sissy" one more time, I stg
-I don't care how much of a savvy businesswoman you are, no woman loves wearing heels to this extent. This is verging on pathological.
-So many portions of this book read like Buzzfeed listicles of the top things to do in NYC.
-I don't buy that a woman like Nora has this extreme level of obsession with and involvement in her sister's life. I'm glad it's finally called out for being unhealthy, but I find it really hard to believe that a person as competent as Nora would put off her life and career dreams for 10 YEARS to take care of a fully-independent (and also competent) younger sibling. Furthermore, you're telling me this incredible literary agent who's known for being a "shark" (although she's definitely not) isn't capable of having ONE direct conversation with her sister? I don't bite.
Look, I think I need to give up the ghost and accept that contemporary romances will never work for me. I can't get down with their single-mindedness; I need more tension in my stories than wondering if two people who are obviously going to get together are going to get together. I've never found a modern romance that makes me feel anything for the characters or their relationships. These books don't have enough substance to pad out their page length and so resort to being extremely repetitive and picking small details (a woman's small stature, for instance, or a man's crooked smile) to harp on ad nauseam and they just feel...empty.
Pros: I liked the setting, although I'm from a small town and currently live two hours from Asheville, so there's probably a good amount of bias involved. I also like that it at least attempted to subvert some common romance tropes?
My highest praise for this book is that I finished it and it's the best contemporary romance I've read. Unfortunately, that's not saying much.
-Have romance authors ever seen a human face?
-This book about two people falling in love while editing a book together has so many easy editing errors.
-The endless mentions of Charlie's lips twitching/chin creasing/eyes flashing are starting to make me concerned for him. And every time his weird "pouty-smirk" thing comes up I just imagine him doing the Flynn Rider smolder.
-Reading the "smut" in these books always feels like reading the written version of a Marvel fight scene.
-This could easily be 100 pages shorter. I'm not sure there's ever a valid reason for a book like this to exceed 300 pages.
-If this grown woman calls her sister "Sissy" one more time, I stg
-I don't care how much of a savvy businesswoman you are, no woman loves wearing heels to this extent. This is verging on pathological.
-So many portions of this book read like Buzzfeed listicles of the top things to do in NYC.
-I don't buy that a woman like Nora has this extreme level of obsession with and involvement in her sister's life. I'm glad it's finally called out for being unhealthy, but I find it really hard to believe that a person as competent as Nora would put off her life and career dreams for 10 YEARS to take care of a fully-independent (and also competent) younger sibling. Furthermore, you're telling me this incredible literary agent who's known for being a "shark" (although she's definitely not) isn't capable of having ONE direct conversation with her sister? I don't bite.
Look, I think I need to give up the ghost and accept that contemporary romances will never work for me. I can't get down with their single-mindedness; I need more tension in my stories than wondering if two people who are obviously going to get together are going to get together. I've never found a modern romance that makes me feel anything for the characters or their relationships. These books don't have enough substance to pad out their page length and so resort to being extremely repetitive and picking small details (a woman's small stature, for instance, or a man's crooked smile) to harp on ad nauseam and they just feel...empty.
Pros: I liked the setting, although I'm from a small town and currently live two hours from Asheville, so there's probably a good amount of bias involved. I also like that it at least attempted to subvert some common romance tropes?
My highest praise for this book is that I finished it and it's the best contemporary romance I've read. Unfortunately, that's not saying much.