This was one of the most hyped books of 2016, and I so much wanted to enjoy it. Based on the reviews, I expected a phenomenal romance. What I got was a story that, while entertaining, wasn’t overly stellar and I ended up feeling burned by the hype-up of the book. The last time I experienced this was with Eleanor and Park, which ended up being a ‘just okay’ book for me.

It is the typical girl-meets-boy-and-they-hate-each-other-(or-do-they)- on-sight story. This trope has been done repeatedly many times and will continue to be used in the future. It is still popular for both readers and writers, as they say: “If it ain’t broke”. However, I personally find that this trope doesn’t work well in contemporary settings, since by now it is a truth universally acknowledged that this ‘hatred’ is usually just a whole lotta sexual tension. This likely also factored into my opinion of the book.

I will admit that, for the most part, the banter between Lucy and Josh was entertaining. Otherwise, I wasn’t a huge fan of the heroine. Her paranoia, neurotic behavior, and her naivete were almost literary deal-breakers. She was also scatterbrained, and completely oblivious to the most obvious things such as who really sent her the roses. I’m fairly confident that reveal was a shock to absolutely no one. She didn’t get what the big deal about the wedding was and why Josh wanted someone there with him. I did enjoy the brief glance into Josh’s family because it explained why he was the way he was, even though wedding scenes can also be one of the most overused romance novel clichés. It made him more of a sympathetic character rather than an ass, which is how we were supposed to feel about him since we were only seeing him through Lucy’s gaze.

One interesting (mild spoiler) was the change up of who was pushing for the physical aspect. Lucy consistently had the ‘horny eyes’, which Josh kept teasing her about. After the initial kiss, every time they were alone, she was the one who was trying to push the physical aspect, usually by climbing him like a tree (short joke there). This change up showed that it was Josh who wanted a relationship and not a one-night stand. He said multiple times he had no desire to be a one-night stand in any capacity, which is refreshing perspective from men in romance novels. Not that Josh didn’t want her. He wanted more than the physical relationship, which again is a breath of fresh air in the genre.

There were a few conflicts in the book, but they weren’t insurmountable to the characters. The main one was who would get the promotion and how that would work out. Another conflict was the family interaction at the wedding. Both situations seemed to be put into the book simply to create a conflict rather than to truly drive the story forward since it was clear how the promotion was going to work out and who was going to end up with it. Which isn’t to say it was a bad part of the story or wasn’t written well, but it was predictable in how it would turn out. The confrontation at the wedding was a bit of a shock and that I did enjoy.

This book was enjoyable. And while I did care enough to want to complete it, I wasn’t tempted to stay up late to do so. In fact, I had to rush through the ending to avoid a late fine. Some may blame this on a slow reading pace. I chalk it up to the book not grabbing me the way I wanted or expected it to, especially considering all the rave reviews on it. It was a ‘just’ book as in I wasn’t overwhelmed, I wasn’t underwhelmed, I was ‘just’.