Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC of Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely. All opinions are my own. 

Friends to Lovers is a story about two childhood best friends that have been estranged from each other for over two years. The plot switches back and forth between present day and the different weddings the two have gone to over the years. 

I am a big fan of friends to lovers in romance books, so I was excited to have the chance to read this book early. While I enjoyed certain parts of this story, I also had several issues with it. 

The Oregon setting was picturesque and was easy to imagine with the way the author described it. I enjoyed the different scenes that the characters spent outdoors and would’ve loved to spend even more time in those places. 

Ren was an interesting main male character, and I appreciated that he had a unique job that I haven’t seen in other stories I’ve read. He was such a kind friend to Joni, and I felt bad that he didn’t always have the confidence in himself when it came to his job. I also enjoyed the relationships he had with his siblings. 

Joni was not as enjoyable for me as a main character. I had a hard time understanding why she kept her job loss a secret from everyone almost the entire story. It seemed immature, and honestly kind of shallow to think that her lack of a job would be such a big deal to people that loved her. Joni’s character was one of my biggest issues with this story because I found her so unlikable and honestly not worthy of Ren. 

I did however enjoy the sister relationship between Joni and Stevie. I often see a lot of negative sibling relationships in books, but I liked the bond these two had even if their relationship wasn’t perfect. I thought they both did a good job looking out for one another and I thought they had a lot of sweet moments together throughout the story. 

Another issue I had was the conflict. Most of the story was spent going back and forth between present day issues and a mystery of what happened in the past to break the friendship between Ren and Joni. When the big reveal happened, it was honestly such a stupid reason. These two characters were supposed to be best friends since early childhood yet they allowed themselves to stop communicating over one stupid conflict. 

Overall, this book was a miss for me. I do think some people will enjoy it, especially if the issues I mentioned don’t bother them. If you like books such as People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, or Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren, then I think you should give this book a chance.