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jnvreads 's review for:
Between Friends & Lovers
by Shirlene Obuobi
Between Friends and Lovers by Shirlene Obuobi - Rating: 4/5⭐️
Josephine Boateng, aka Jo’s life isn’t where she wants it to be at. Her influencing career in health, growth and self-love has become underwhelming while her aspiring medical career as a doctor has become overwhelming. On top of it all, she’s still hung up on her best friend, Ezra Adelman. Who just showed up to her birthday party with her childhood bully hanging on his arm. Turning her back on Ezra, she runs into Malcolm Waters hiding out from his own embarrassment of trying to social network in order to turn his novel into a film. Who also turns out to be her social media friend that she’s been conversing with intermittently for six years. Balancing the new pull she has with Mal while contemplating letting go of the love she’s always had for Ezra.
LIKES:
👍🏾 Touches upon some important topics. Especially in the mental health department. My favorite had to be how different forms of childhood trauma can manifest itself in different way for different people and also how different people heal from what they’ve been dealt in different ways. But also how someone’s life may look a certain way to different people, but we never TRULY know what is going on in someone’s mind frame and life.
👍🏾 Jo was a slow warm up kind of person. Initially you are hesitant to like her, but once her story slowly unravels you find yourself liking her more and more. The superficial kind of character becoming something much more.
👍🏾 While it had a sort of love triangle, I think even people who dislike them (aka me) would still enjoy the book. She was going through a process of kind of grieving a love she thought was meant for her while finding a person she truly was for.
👍🏾 Jo and Mal had chemistry, but it wasn’t like overly swoon worthy which was good in some aspects since there was kind of a lot going on with Jo’s life. It made it for a really easy audiobook read.
DISLIKES:
👎🏾 My biggest flaw with the book was with Mal himself. I loved him in moments and I hated him in others. I feel like his character was really conflicting. He would be this really strong man that stood for everything I love, but then he would quickly become insecure in moments that I didn’t expect from him.
Overall, this was an easy read that tastefully does the love triangle concept. The characters were given breath to really grieve and come into their situations while also tackling difficult topics. A great pallet cleanser romance.