Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by chloereads23
Love Story by Lindsey Kelk
2.0
2 stars
Love Story had a lot of potential. The characters were well-defined, with an interesting enough premise: I loved the idea of a romance focused on an anonymous author, but Love Story didn't live up to my expectations.
The pop culture references were excessive (& the Iron Flame one was particularly jarring) and really pulled me out of the story, and I didn't enjoy the insta-love element. Joe's redemption fell a bit flat as his horrible attitude at the start of the book was never really addressed, and it felt like the author was hinting at there being more to his background, but it was never explained. It felt like the author was trying too hard to be funny on every page, resulting in more serious moments not being explored when they could have added much more depth, and the sexual harassment Joe experiences being glossed over as a joke.
Exploring the attitudes towards authors like Sophie could have been a very interesting theme of the book, but it was very surface-level commentary, with anyone who actually read Sophie's book discovering they actually love it. I also found the pacing confusing, as it would have been much more interesting for the party weekend to take place at the very start of the book, and follow Joe & Sophie's relationship after those events. Additionally, I didn't enjoy the narration of the audiobook, as it felt overly dramatic and only made it harder to feel involved in the story.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for the ARC.
Love Story had a lot of potential. The characters were well-defined, with an interesting enough premise: I loved the idea of a romance focused on an anonymous author, but Love Story didn't live up to my expectations.
The pop culture references were excessive (& the Iron Flame one was particularly jarring) and really pulled me out of the story, and I didn't enjoy the insta-love element. Joe's redemption fell a bit flat as his horrible attitude at the start of the book was never really addressed, and it felt like the author was hinting at there being more to his background, but it was never explained. It felt like the author was trying too hard to be funny on every page, resulting in more serious moments not being explored when they could have added much more depth, and the sexual harassment Joe experiences being glossed over as a joke.
Exploring the attitudes towards authors like Sophie could have been a very interesting theme of the book, but it was very surface-level commentary, with anyone who actually read Sophie's book discovering they actually love it. I also found the pacing confusing, as it would have been much more interesting for the party weekend to take place at the very start of the book, and follow Joe & Sophie's relationship after those events. Additionally, I didn't enjoy the narration of the audiobook, as it felt overly dramatic and only made it harder to feel involved in the story.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for the ARC.