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annareadshere 's review for:
Trying Not To Love You
by Amabile Giusti, Hillary Locke
3.5⭐️
My feelings for this book are a little confusing and I found that writing the review about the book was a lot harder than it should have been.
To summarise what’s going on Penny Miller is a quiet, unsuspecting young woman who lives with her grandmother in a building that isn’t quite anybody’s first choice. She works at the library and then at a bar at night. Penny has a stalker, of sorts, who threatens and scares her and while she can handle him, he still scares her. Then she meets Marcus Drake. He’s tall, muscular and fresh out of prison. Marcus is a bit of a conundrum - both to Penny and the reader - because he’s got all these secrets and he’s rough and rude. But he’s also the kind of man that your eyes and your body lean towards because of his imposing size and his lack of interest in pretty much everything around him. Everything about Marcus screams ‘bad boy’ and like any unsuspecting woman, Penny is drawn to him.
Right off the bat, Marcus is horrible to Penny. He says nasty things and he keeps breaking her spirit, but Penny is pretty resilient. She’s not going to let this ex-convict try to destroy her. She takes control of the situation, she makes the most of having Marcus living in the same building as her. He becomes her bodyguard, a security blanket of sorts and despite his interest in her, Marcus accepts the job. There are pages and pages of them just fighting with each other and while it gets tiresome after a point, what really stood out to me was just how strong and powerful Penny is. Marcus can’t break her as much as he’d like to, because nothing can break Penny, not after everything she’s gone through.
I didn’t like Marcus, for so many reasons, but I absolutely loved Penny. Yes, she’s easily infatuated by him, but as a young woman who hasn’t had a lot of interactions with men like him, you can’t really blame her. Marcus comes into her life at a time when she’s just giving up on everything and quite honestly, you don’t hold it against her for not being more careful. Marcus takes advantage of everything Penny gives him and eventually, he hurts her, as you’d imagine. I’m not a big fan of love at first sight, but given that you see all of this happen through Penny, it’s not as annoying as I thought it would be. Penny feels so much for Marcus that she’s willing to do whatever it takes to soften him up a little. And it works, to an extent.
What did annoy me was the changing POV with each chapter. Penny’s chapters are all in third person, while Marcus gets first person. Plus, after seeing everything happen through Penny’s eyes, you get to see the same thing unravel through Marcus’ and that was a little confusing at first.
The plot and the book had the potential to be so much more and maybe that got lost in translation, but it was interesting.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.
My feelings for this book are a little confusing and I found that writing the review about the book was a lot harder than it should have been.
To summarise what’s going on Penny Miller is a quiet, unsuspecting young woman who lives with her grandmother in a building that isn’t quite anybody’s first choice. She works at the library and then at a bar at night. Penny has a stalker, of sorts, who threatens and scares her and while she can handle him, he still scares her. Then she meets Marcus Drake. He’s tall, muscular and fresh out of prison. Marcus is a bit of a conundrum - both to Penny and the reader - because he’s got all these secrets and he’s rough and rude. But he’s also the kind of man that your eyes and your body lean towards because of his imposing size and his lack of interest in pretty much everything around him. Everything about Marcus screams ‘bad boy’ and like any unsuspecting woman, Penny is drawn to him.
Right off the bat, Marcus is horrible to Penny. He says nasty things and he keeps breaking her spirit, but Penny is pretty resilient. She’s not going to let this ex-convict try to destroy her. She takes control of the situation, she makes the most of having Marcus living in the same building as her. He becomes her bodyguard, a security blanket of sorts and despite his interest in her, Marcus accepts the job. There are pages and pages of them just fighting with each other and while it gets tiresome after a point, what really stood out to me was just how strong and powerful Penny is. Marcus can’t break her as much as he’d like to, because nothing can break Penny, not after everything she’s gone through.
I didn’t like Marcus, for so many reasons, but I absolutely loved Penny. Yes, she’s easily infatuated by him, but as a young woman who hasn’t had a lot of interactions with men like him, you can’t really blame her. Marcus comes into her life at a time when she’s just giving up on everything and quite honestly, you don’t hold it against her for not being more careful. Marcus takes advantage of everything Penny gives him and eventually, he hurts her, as you’d imagine. I’m not a big fan of love at first sight, but given that you see all of this happen through Penny, it’s not as annoying as I thought it would be. Penny feels so much for Marcus that she’s willing to do whatever it takes to soften him up a little. And it works, to an extent.
What did annoy me was the changing POV with each chapter. Penny’s chapters are all in third person, while Marcus gets first person. Plus, after seeing everything happen through Penny’s eyes, you get to see the same thing unravel through Marcus’ and that was a little confusing at first.
The plot and the book had the potential to be so much more and maybe that got lost in translation, but it was interesting.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.