A review by marylinaris
Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey

emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I’m a little torn on this one. 

On one side this was a quick, fun read. It has a nice grumpy/sunshine romance, an abundance of steamy scenes, and an overall enjoyable plot. 

Stella was an interesting character, besides the obvious romantic plot she has to deal with her past jail time, re-entering society and a toxic friendship throughout the book. While these topics were continuously brought up, they are tackled on a very individual level and I felt like both were wrapped up a little too fast and too neatly in the end. 
The side characters, of whom there were only a small handful, made for good additions to the story. His family made for a nice side villains, Aiden found more confidence and respect of his employees through. I also enjoyed the little romance plot between to of the side characters, that helped out couple along without taking up too much space or overshadowing the main plot. 

Where it gets tricky for me is Aiden. 
He is a lovable dork with a wild sexy side. The moment he sees Stella for the first time, he instantly falls for her and would probably score high in an insta-love competition. Based on a ten minute conversation, which was also their first meeting he ends up hiring her over far more qualified people, cool, I can let that slide in the name of romance. I can even let a boss/employee relationships slide, well, normally. But here the constant reinforcement that their relationship is inappropriate was distracting. While Stella also brought this up, it’s mentioned during Aiden’s POV to a nauseating degree, that would be great - he is the boss, the one with the power after all - if it didn’t seem like that was part of the turn on for him. There was just something very unsexy about them making out to a constant stream of thoughts about the inappropriateness of their actions. 
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