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A review by mayab1226
From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata
emotional
funny
lighthearted
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I will be honest, this rating was a solid 3.75 for a lot of the book. I enjoyed the story itself—it was well-plotted and paced, in my opinion, and Jasmine and Ivan’s enemies-to-lovers romance was believable and compelling. You could easily see where they’d clash, but neither was an irredeemable asshole to the other, and it was also easy to see how their relationship could turn for the better and blossom into a romance—and it was fun to see when it did! Jasmine’s characterization—including both the strengths and faults that come with her stubbornness—was well-established and fun to read.
That said, to me this book rang very clearly as a self-published novel, with the occasional grammatical errors and places where it could have used some more editing or cutting down—Jasmine’s inner monologues were entertaining but lengthy and sometimes redundant, and I think if they were cut down to the essentials, they would have trimmed down this book (which, at 500-ish pages, is quite long for a romance novel) quite a bit.
But in my opinion, the good outweighed the bad, and ultimately Jasmine and Ivan entirely won me over and made me feel those Feelings™️. I was cheering for them right along with the audience, in both their athletic endeavors and their romantic ones!
That said, to me this book rang very clearly as a self-published novel, with the occasional grammatical errors and places where it could have used some more editing or cutting down—Jasmine’s inner monologues were entertaining but lengthy and sometimes redundant, and I think if they were cut down to the essentials, they would have trimmed down this book (which, at 500-ish pages, is quite long for a romance novel) quite a bit.
But in my opinion, the good outweighed the bad, and ultimately Jasmine and Ivan entirely won me over and made me feel those Feelings™️. I was cheering for them right along with the audience, in both their athletic endeavors and their romantic ones!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
There’s a scene in which the two romantic leads pose nude for a magazine photoshoot, and their body parts are described in both the lead-up to the event and the event itself, but the actual process of the posing/photography isn’t described. There’s one graphic sex scene very close to the end of the book.