This was just not it. Shout out to my buddy read group for convincing me to make it to the end, but I'm not sure if it was worth it.

I wasn't into the vibe of the relationship from the beginning, because while I like brother's best friend as much as the next guy, I'm not into this 'little one' dynamic they had going on from the beginning. It didn't help it was introduced from a young, young age so it was always just associated with their age gap/childhood dynamic for me, which wasn't a cute one at all (it was just Olive pining after Jason for years, getting rejected, and then being sad). I already didn't like the nickname, but then Jason uses it every other sentence whenever he's talking to Olive, so even if I did like the nickname, the repetition would've ruined it.

I like fake dating/arranged romance too, but this just didn't have any of the elements I liked of that. The pining was annoying and cringy, and after they get married, Olive is just constantly whining about the fact that Jason hasn't kissed her yet (when... it's fake y'know? that makes sense?), and it just leads to some really weird scenes I wasn't into at all. I also didn't care for any of the later romance scenes either, because I just didn't care for either character nor their dynamic together.

I also found the third-act drama incredibly ridiculous, and it honestly felt so thrown in there only for it to be immediately resolved. It did somewhat connect to the story, but at the same time not at all, and it just felt so out there for me. I also hate some of the things that were included at the end there for drama beyond the specific third-act drama, and I really just wish none of it would've happened. These two had enough to deal with without adding all this on top.

Romance books often suffer from lack of communication as a key to making the pining and angst work, but this one just felt so dumb at times. If they had literally sat down and talked about literally anything at any point in the book, half the plot would have been resolved.

I'm not sure if I'll try another one of this author's books, would largely depend on whatever tropes are included in that one, but then again, this one had tropes I'm usually into and it just didn't work for me at all.