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A review by llamalluv
Too Good to Be Real by Melonie Johnson
5.0
PS23: 3) A book featuring a vacation
I had SUCH a hard time reading this. It's not the book. It's me. All me. I had Covid in January and my brain is fucking mush. But I'm so glad I stuck with it and pushed through the brain fog, because I really loved this adorable rom-com based on rom-com tropes.
I don't know if this was because of her writing style (this is my first Melonie Johnson book) or because I've been working on my own novel and reading a lot of "how to structure a romance novel" books (especially Gwen Hayes' "Romancing the Beat") but I found the story beats easy to find.
As an Autistic person who has often struggled with questions in Lit classes such as "Explain the protagonist's motivations" I like how she opens the first few chapters with the characters seemingly opposing goals and motivations really clearly defined and then dovetailed them together to be complementary to one another.
I loved how she broke the fourth wall and was very explicit with how she was playing with all the rom-com tropes that usually get mocked by people that don't like rom-com *because* of the popular tropes. Specifically, the "overly contrived set up" which has been explained away by the eccentric Mrs. Weatherspoon (Mrs. Wackyfork, lol, I've been calling her Mrs. Sillyspork myself) and the "released a breath s/he didn't know s/he was holding." A++ call out.
But I also really liked how the main characters were not the typical idealized hero and heroine. Yes, Luke was tall, but he was also "lanky" and "pale" and a bit insecure about his height. (I do feel like there was a missed opportunity for him to fall asleep in the sand and need to be nursed from sunburn, but I guess you can't recover from a sunburn in a few days and they only had a week to fall in love, so I suppose Melonie knew exactly what she was doing...don't mind my rambling.)
I know a lot of other readers were displeased at the lack of communication after the lies came out and Luke's choice to try to win back Julia after the 80% breakup, but that felt realistic. I mean, have you read reddit's relationship and AITA boards? It's filled with people trying to justify lying/withholding information and then doing exactly the wrong thing to make amends, despite hundreds of literal strangers saying, "No, don't do that."
I had SUCH a hard time reading this. It's not the book. It's me. All me. I had Covid in January and my brain is fucking mush. But I'm so glad I stuck with it and pushed through the brain fog, because I really loved this adorable rom-com based on rom-com tropes.
I don't know if this was because of her writing style (this is my first Melonie Johnson book) or because I've been working on my own novel and reading a lot of "how to structure a romance novel" books (especially Gwen Hayes' "Romancing the Beat") but I found the story beats easy to find.
As an Autistic person who has often struggled with questions in Lit classes such as "Explain the protagonist's motivations" I like how she opens the first few chapters with the characters seemingly opposing goals and motivations really clearly defined and then dovetailed them together to be complementary to one another.
I loved how she broke the fourth wall and was very explicit with how she was playing with all the rom-com tropes that usually get mocked by people that don't like rom-com *because* of the popular tropes. Specifically, the "overly contrived set up" which has been explained away by the eccentric Mrs. Weatherspoon (Mrs. Wackyfork, lol, I've been calling her Mrs. Sillyspork myself) and the "released a breath s/he didn't know s/he was holding." A++ call out.
But I also really liked how the main characters were not the typical idealized hero and heroine. Yes, Luke was tall, but he was also "lanky" and "pale" and a bit insecure about his height. (I do feel like there was a missed opportunity for him to fall asleep in the sand and need to be nursed from sunburn, but I guess you can't recover from a sunburn in a few days and they only had a week to fall in love, so I suppose Melonie knew exactly what she was doing...don't mind my rambling.)
I know a lot of other readers were displeased at the lack of communication after the lies came out and Luke's choice to try to win back Julia after the 80% breakup, but that felt realistic. I mean, have you read reddit's relationship and AITA boards? It's filled with people trying to justify lying/withholding information and then doing exactly the wrong thing to make amends, despite hundreds of literal strangers saying, "No, don't do that."