owlishbookish 's review for:

Stocking Stuffer by Harloe Rae

2.5

lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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This short story is a bit of a precursor to Wrong For You. In it we meet Harper's friend and business partner, Joy, and the father to her unborn child, Cole. Joy and Cole had met at a music festival and had a one-night stand and hadn't exchanged numbers. They meet again by chance and it's then that Cole finds out he's going to be a father. I have to say, there wasn't very much to this story. The conflict is so weak as to be practically nonexistent. It really could have done with an extra 50 pages. I didn't finish it with a good sense of who, exactly, Joy and Cole are. We get a moment where Harper is pushy and immediately takes them to confront Joy's brother (who just so happens to be Cole's friend from college) with the news, and that serves as the largest bit of drama in the story. Having read Harper's book, all I could think was, "Yeah, that tracks." All in all, it was... okay. Not really memorable, but it does fill in the bits of Joy's story that are alluded to in Wrong For You.