Scan barcode
A review by taylorolivia
The Arrangement by Sarah Dunn
3.0
So I picked this book up at Barnes & Noble amidst this pandemic because my local library was closed and I wanted to pick up a couple of fluffy romances. My dad suggested I check out the 5-6$ table and I did. This one immediately caught my eye - maybe it was the cover, I'm not sure.
Anyways, I reserved it for a trip I'm on and read it in roughly a day. It started off interesting - once I got past the obvious plot points and the intros and got used to the character as well as the often switching of character perspectives, I was interested! But after getting to pages 200-250 and so on, I found myself having fewer moments where I was like: "I'm actually genuinely interested in finding out what he/she does next". I just didn't really care. The only parts I found cliffhanger-ish were to do with Izzy (Owen's recurring hookup) and Ben (Lucy's recurring hookup) because it actually threatened to change something and disrupt the happy ending that Lucy and Owen were supposed to have. Everything else did interrupt it but it felt a little different. Maybe it was the author trying to focus on the main conflicts or something of the sort, but I just fell completely uninterested with the other challenges that Owen and Lucy were facing. Their son is an exception - I liked how things didn't just get easier out of the blue and they were actually struggling rather than living in a magical bubble.
Aside from the plot, I have a few things to say about the characters:
By the end of the book, I completely swapped perspectives on Lucy. I never really liked her but I merely blandly read about her. I get that Owen was hooking up with someone and things became pretty invested with Izzy (also Lucy had to deal with the fiasco that was Izzy's insanity) but she chose to become angry at Owen for um wanting to spend time with her? Now...I do see that maybe it wasn't fair for Owen to want to cancel the agreement once he'd had his fun and Lucy was only getting started - but he tried to communicate with her about it and being the seemingly immature person she is, she acted irrationally and became angry at Owen for being oblivious to the fact that she was falling in love with Ben? It doesn't make much sense. This theme continues on throughout the rest of the story with Lucy. When Ben cancels on her because he needs to do things with his children and meet with his ex-wife (to do with his children), she expresses how angry she is at his ex-wife for merely living her life. I hate how Lucy failed to realize that she was the intruder in their lives. Lucy obviously had issues (take the lipstick debacle for one thing and the coal argument at the very beginning of the book). Lucy definitely needs to resolve issues on her own before she can resolve them with Owen.
Not to say that Owen is perfect as well but at least he didn't flip out and blame every walking person that got in his way. He tried to communicate and that's what stood out to me. Still rubbed me the wrong way when realizing that it was his selfish needs that forced him to communicate but then again, at least he did.
This book was an odd read for me and I probably won't read anything like this again.
Anyways, I reserved it for a trip I'm on and read it in roughly a day. It started off interesting - once I got past the obvious plot points and the intros and got used to the character as well as the often switching of character perspectives, I was interested! But after getting to pages 200-250 and so on, I found myself having fewer moments where I was like: "I'm actually genuinely interested in finding out what he/she does next". I just didn't really care. The only parts I found cliffhanger-ish were to do with Izzy (Owen's recurring hookup) and Ben (Lucy's recurring hookup) because it actually threatened to change something and disrupt the happy ending that Lucy and Owen were supposed to have. Everything else did interrupt it but it felt a little different. Maybe it was the author trying to focus on the main conflicts or something of the sort, but I just fell completely uninterested with the other challenges that Owen and Lucy were facing. Their son is an exception - I liked how things didn't just get easier out of the blue and they were actually struggling rather than living in a magical bubble.
Aside from the plot, I have a few things to say about the characters:
By the end of the book, I completely swapped perspectives on Lucy. I never really liked her but I merely blandly read about her. I get that Owen was hooking up with someone and things became pretty invested with Izzy (also Lucy had to deal with the fiasco that was Izzy's insanity) but she chose to become angry at Owen for um wanting to spend time with her? Now...I do see that maybe it wasn't fair for Owen to want to cancel the agreement once he'd had his fun and Lucy was only getting started - but he tried to communicate with her about it and being the seemingly immature person she is, she acted irrationally and became angry at Owen for being oblivious to the fact that she was falling in love with Ben? It doesn't make much sense. This theme continues on throughout the rest of the story with Lucy. When Ben cancels on her because he needs to do things with his children and meet with his ex-wife (to do with his children), she expresses how angry she is at his ex-wife for merely living her life. I hate how Lucy failed to realize that she was the intruder in their lives. Lucy obviously had issues (take the lipstick debacle for one thing and the coal argument at the very beginning of the book). Lucy definitely needs to resolve issues on her own before she can resolve them with Owen.
Not to say that Owen is perfect as well but at least he didn't flip out and blame every walking person that got in his way. He tried to communicate and that's what stood out to me. Still rubbed me the wrong way when realizing that it was his selfish needs that forced him to communicate but then again, at least he did.
This book was an odd read for me and I probably won't read anything like this again.