Scan barcode
A review by amywarnes
Cricket by Willow Hadley
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I really loved this book. It's kind of odd because I made notes on a few things that I didn't like, but overall I want to rate it highly because it was just such a nice comfort read with really loveable characters.
The writing was generally better than I'm used to from indie authors, Willow Hadley is fast becoming one of my favourite RH authors for this reason. The dialogue usually feels pretty natural and the banter between all of the characters is fun.
I love that Cricket has so many familial and platonic relationships and we get to spend some time enjoying them all. It is a little unrealistic that everyone completely adores her immediately, like people she's barely known for a week or two fighting over who gets to be her besties is a bit ridiculous. However, I do like that when she meets new people there's usually some interaction where Cricket does something nice, funny or endearing that makes people like her, so the fact that people like her isn't unfounded, it just sometimes feels like the relationships go from 0 to 100 very fast.
The guys are super sweet and the romance is great. I love the whole "she's probably our mate but we won't know until this date so for now we need to keep things platonic" situation, it adds great angst to the plot and feels like a pretty realistic barrier to the relationship. I also love how much the characters in general are pretty open with their communication with one another.
It's a good thing that the characters and romance are so good because they are pretty much the driving force behind the book 😅 I got to 90% through and was like "wait it's almost over? Nothing's really happened yet?" So there's not much plot but the characters definitely make it easy to get lost in their lives.
A few minor things that I didn't love:
The writing was generally better than I'm used to from indie authors, Willow Hadley is fast becoming one of my favourite RH authors for this reason. The dialogue usually feels pretty natural and the banter between all of the characters is fun.
I love that Cricket has so many familial and platonic relationships and we get to spend some time enjoying them all. It is a little unrealistic that everyone completely adores her immediately, like people she's barely known for a week or two fighting over who gets to be her besties is a bit ridiculous. However, I do like that when she meets new people there's usually some interaction where Cricket does something nice, funny or endearing that makes people like her, so the fact that people like her isn't unfounded, it just sometimes feels like the relationships go from 0 to 100 very fast.
The guys are super sweet and the romance is great. I love the whole "she's probably our mate but we won't know until this date so for now we need to keep things platonic" situation, it adds great angst to the plot and feels like a pretty realistic barrier to the relationship. I also love how much the characters in general are pretty open with their communication with one another.
It's a good thing that the characters and romance are so good because they are pretty much the driving force behind the book 😅 I got to 90% through and was like "wait it's almost over? Nothing's really happened yet?" So there's not much plot but the characters definitely make it easy to get lost in their lives.
A few minor things that I didn't love:
- Listing her bra size was so cringy and unnecessary 😬
- Getting changed in front of her brother is super weird, I don't care if you include a line saying "It might seem weird, but Emerson has seen me naked and helped me try on clothes a ton of times." Just because he's done it a lot doesn't make it less weird??
- Some parts of the writing get super repetitive, especially the guys' mannerisms. I know it's part of building their characters but there's only so many times you can read about Theo scrunching his nose and Cas running his hands through his hair before they start sounding ridiculous. And the number of times we have to read about them opening the car door for her, let's just assume they always do that for her please. Also being carried everywhere isn't cute, imagine how ridiculous that would look in real life.
So yeah, a few cringy things but for the most part it's a super cute, character-driven story and I can't wait to see what's to come in the next book!