i'm not a big romance reader, so i'm suprised at myself for picking this up. ultimately this was a fine romance novel that wasn't extraordinary in any aspects. apparently this is a retelling of sweet home alabama? i have never watched that movie i am 17.

meena is a lawyer who's gearing up for a state house run with her boyfriend. the only problem is that she's still married and her ex, nikhil, won't sign the papers, so she goes down to texas to get him to sign, but disaster strikes. the setting is pretty pared down; meena and nikhil are confined to his house for the majority of the novel. this is a character-centric book for sure.

i could definitely tell there were some communication issues going on in both timelines, and it was frustrating the hell outta me i can't lie. meena was a bit frustrating to me at times; i feel like she was pushy and avoidant at the same time if you get my drift. i was annoyed by the amount of times she started going on internally about how she tried in their relationship and he never did like we know girl. i liked nikhil as a love interest; he was charming and i was rooting for him. i do wish we got some pov's of nikhil, because i would've loved to see his perspective. also sleeping with your man and then leaving him like 2 days later...we need to bring self-shame and self-realization back lowkey

i don't think this is an epic romance or anything, it's just a decent love story between two people who found each other, grew apart, then came back together and were able to fully work out what caused them to grow apart. i'm not the biggest fan of romance though so i would definitely recommend this to romance readers and people who enjoy reading love stories because this was perfectly adequate.

thanks to netgalley and random house for the arc!