piperclover 's review for:

Hand Picked by May Archer

3.0

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I can see how somebody would really love this but I just didn't really vibe with it too much. I like Luke and Webb a lot and I adore Aiden with my whole hurt but I really hated the meddlesome townspeople trope forcing them to get together. I hate the lack of agency and autonomy that trope affords the main couple and it feels dub con-y and pressure-y.  

I appreciate that the author tried to give Aiden's mother a growth arc and become a more stable parent in Aiden's life, however, I don't understand how I'm supposed to believe it when we spent the first book being told she

kidnapped Aiden.  I can't go from thinking that she's a spiteful person who kidnapped her child

to hurt her ex husband to instead thinking that she was just an irresponsible parent who is now fixing her problems and regaining stability. Those are wildly different storylines and I can't merge them together.

 Also I wish that Luke had at some point straight up told Webb that it was incredibly messed up that town rejected Luke for so long because he upset Webb in the first book. Webb blames Luke for this by saying that the townspeople were so standoffish because he must have turned down an invite which that made of the townspeople think that he didn't want to be included but thats complete crap.  We spend the first few chapters from Luke's perspective seeing that the town doesn't like him because of the incidents in the first book- bc the Sunday family is so integral to the town, the town follows their lead. 

Initially, I thought this was a 3.5 but the more I think about it, the more I realized that I actually didn't enjoy much of it.