This was a lovely book. Warm & human, full of humor, sweetness & lots of feels. Also lots of vulnerability & self-reflection, because the main characters are complicated, deeply introspective people dealing with a considerable amount of emotional baggage from their pasts. All of which resonated immensely. Ymmv, of course, but I really loved this aspect of the book. Seeing into their individual thought processes, their tire-spinning ruminations & the moments of insight when each begins to question their self-limiting beliefs, made them feel deeply real & recognizable to me. I especially loved how the book reveals their very attempts to justify (to each other or themselves) their messed-up actions or reactions, are instead the path to recognizing those actions or reactions aren't justified, are keeping them stuck. Because this is just, so psychologically on point & something I've personally experienced so many times in real life, I can't even!
But, the book is about more than just a story about self-growth, it's a deeply poignant romance. I loved how their falling in love is a beautiful falling into friendship too, which kind of makes it like a friends-to- lovers romance, even though it all happens concurrently. I loved their goofiness at times, their mutual, fond amusement, their deep, intuitive connection, & the utterly swoony romantic moments that were both the epitome of tropeyness & also transcended it. I loved how everything sexy was also infused with such care & reverent tenderness. I loved the silliness, the parts that were laugh-out-loud hilarious. And I loved the heart-aching bittersweetness imbuing their most beautiful moments together. I mean, there's kind of nothing like getting to have your heart vicariously broken and your HEA too. 😊
I will admit, however, that it took me a while to get into the book. In fact, I nearly gave up on it at 6%, and it wasn't until about 18% that I was well and truly hooked. So I want to talk a bit about that because I'm really glad I reconsidered, so I'd like to put it out there for other readers who may experience similar frustrations, that this book is worth sticking around for! And I don't just mean that it gets better as it goes along. Maybe that's part of it? But I think it's more that reading further deepens your emotional connection with the characters (duh!), & also puts some things that may not seem to make sense into context that makes sense of them. Which was the point where I started to realize it was all actually pretty brilliant!
My frustrations mostly centered around things that happened in the first few pages of the story: I found the coincidences that led to their meeting a bit too much disbelief to suspend. The first conversation between the mc's hit me as weird & inane rather than the charmingly quirky I felt it was going for. And their insta-attraction at 5% felt off-putting, though to be fair, I suspect this part may be a me thing: I didn't know enough about them yet to feel an emotional connection with either character, so the attraction felt annoyingly "fake" to me at first. But what bugged me most, was the way the heroine allowed herself to become so ensnared by the expectations of a few random strangers!
These annoyances reached critical mass at about 6%, at which point I impulsively decided I was done & deleted the book from my Kindle! But it bothered me, because I almost never dnf! I guess I felt some need to justify that to myself, so I started writing it up as a comment, one I wasn't even sure I'd share, but wanted to at least get my thoughts down ... Only a funny thing happened on my way to that comment. I was writing it on the Memo app on my phone, & twice the app shut down so I lost everything I'd written. After the 2nd time it occurred to me that hmm, perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something? Like, maybe I shouldn't finish that comment, because maybe I shouldn't give up on the book! I thought about the fact that, if this was a person, rather than a book, wouldn't I give them more of a chance before just impatiently writing them off?
So, I re-downloaded the book and started over with a more open mind. And it made a huge difference. It still took me a while, but by 18% I was well on my way to falling in love with the characters, and the book. And as I read, I began to understand that the stuff that I'd been most frustrated by, like the coincidences & the heroine's ensnarement by others' expectations, was kinda the whole point, and held meaning that was a lot bigger than just that small situation.
I was also delighted to realize that the way my own impulsive rejection of the book & attempt to justify it, led instead to an interrogation and then rejection of that impulse - was perfectly mirrored by the characters going through the exact same process about their own life decisions!
Tl;dr - I ended up loving the book. It wasn't without flaws, but in the end, I saw that as part of its beauty.
And, in what I always consider a bonus, especially in a book I'm reading for pleasure, this story and these characters had something to teach me. I love it so much when that happens! 😊❤
Very much recommended!
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