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A review by lookinabook
Never Vacation with Your Ex by Austin Siegemund-Broka, Emily Wibberley
2.0
This story is arguably hard to get right. I think if they had stuck to their enemies or friends to lovers tropes of the past they would’ve pulled something off here, but this one fell short.
The FMC was pretty one dimensional, hard to empathize with, and generally frustrating. I normally love unlikable female MC’s, but this one didn’t work because we were supposed to like her, just because she’s the main character. But she didn’t really have a personality. That may sound harsh, but her whole personality was volleyball, faking being fine and perfect with literally everything all the time, and apparently being in a lot of short term flings that all also seemed as surface level as her. I saw another reviewer call her shallow, and in many ways she was because she was so out of touch with her actual emotions at all times it was rough. I’m not sure this works in a rom com, maybe in a thriller or drama it would’ve been better, but again the character wasn’t fleshed out enough in general.
The love interest/ex bf Dean was also extremely boring and contrived. I honestly didn’t care about him at all. He sounded moody and/or kinda pathetic the whole book and I didn’t feel anything for him. I was glad toward the end when he finally told Kaylee he was worth more than the way she had treated him, but he literally cried during it and then got back with her like the next day so it sorta didn’t work. Honestly it could’ve been great if he’d literally moved on and been happy without her because she didn’t actually do anything to redeem herself - short of confessing she was scared of commitment (not a redemption arc in my book). I also didn’t think he sounded very interesting. Maybe that’s unfair because I grew up in LA surrounded by hipster dudes just like that who all had a passion for photography and it just wasn’t enough to impress me in any way.
The story was a little boring and redundant. Kaylee spends every scene shutting down her own feelings and actively reordering her thoughts instead of being a real person, and that never really changes. Their vacation with the families was uneventful and even the parents big fight or tension was lackluster. I’m kinda disappointed the authors didn’t go bigger with that one. What sort of grown adults who’ve known each other for decades get into a huge falling out like that over different career path choices? I didn’t really care about them to be honest. The one thing I will say was it was totally realistic to me that Dean’s mom would put the responsibility of Dean’s emotional state onto Kaylee, I’ve met many mothers with sons and that’s nothing new.
I liked the little sisters characters the best. Kinda would rather just read their stories.
Main points:
- Romance was non existent
- characters weren’t well written and were kind of boring
- as a result the story was boring
- I liked the setting but I’m partial to LA because it’s my hometown
- the summer vibes were nice but that’s about it
The FMC was pretty one dimensional, hard to empathize with, and generally frustrating. I normally love unlikable female MC’s, but this one didn’t work because we were supposed to like her, just because she’s the main character. But she didn’t really have a personality. That may sound harsh, but her whole personality was volleyball, faking being fine and perfect with literally everything all the time, and apparently being in a lot of short term flings that all also seemed as surface level as her. I saw another reviewer call her shallow, and in many ways she was because she was so out of touch with her actual emotions at all times it was rough. I’m not sure this works in a rom com, maybe in a thriller or drama it would’ve been better, but again the character wasn’t fleshed out enough in general.
The love interest/ex bf Dean was also extremely boring and contrived. I honestly didn’t care about him at all. He sounded moody and/or kinda pathetic the whole book and I didn’t feel anything for him. I was glad toward the end when he finally told Kaylee he was worth more than the way she had treated him, but he literally cried during it and then got back with her like the next day so it sorta didn’t work. Honestly it could’ve been great if he’d literally moved on and been happy without her because she didn’t actually do anything to redeem herself - short of confessing she was scared of commitment (not a redemption arc in my book). I also didn’t think he sounded very interesting. Maybe that’s unfair because I grew up in LA surrounded by hipster dudes just like that who all had a passion for photography and it just wasn’t enough to impress me in any way.
The story was a little boring and redundant. Kaylee spends every scene shutting down her own feelings and actively reordering her thoughts instead of being a real person, and that never really changes. Their vacation with the families was uneventful and even the parents big fight or tension was lackluster. I’m kinda disappointed the authors didn’t go bigger with that one. What sort of grown adults who’ve known each other for decades get into a huge falling out like that over different career path choices? I didn’t really care about them to be honest. The one thing I will say was it was totally realistic to me that Dean’s mom would put the responsibility of Dean’s emotional state onto Kaylee, I’ve met many mothers with sons and that’s nothing new.
I liked the little sisters characters the best. Kinda would rather just read their stories.
Main points:
- Romance was non existent
- characters weren’t well written and were kind of boring
- as a result the story was boring
- I liked the setting but I’m partial to LA because it’s my hometown
- the summer vibes were nice but that’s about it