I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I was ecstatic for the release of this book, as it sounded exactly like the sort of romance I would love, and I’m a massive fan of this author. That meant I was beyond excited when I was approved for this ARC, and dived into it right away! It’s taken me a bit to sort of figure out my final thoughts about this book. I wanted to separate my actual reading experience from the excitement and hype I had for the book, so I could better understand what I actually thought of it.

The best way to describe this was that it’s a super fun book. It’s perfect for reading in one sitting, and I found myself quickly turning page after page shortly after I’d started it. I just remember having so much fun with the first 70% of this book, which I’d read entirely in one day. And overall that’s the main word I’d use to describe the book, fun.

Unfortunately, it isn’t exactly memorable. While it was fun, it also had some issues that made it not feel long-lasting to me, and I don’t think it will be a long-term favorite I find myself returning to time and time again. I think this was partially due to the pacing, and how the way I ended up portioning the book while finishing it. Like I said above, I read about 70% of the book in one day, and finishing the last 30% over the next two days because I ended up being a bit busy. I definitely think it’s possible that, had I finished the book in one day, I would’ve liked it more than I did. In the end, that final 30% of the book ended up being my least favorite, and it left me feeling a bit disappointed by the book (as the ending often shapes my final thoughts of a book). It just felt extremely chaotic and rushed, with way too many plot points suddenly needing to be resolved in the final few pages of the book. It heightened the drama to an almost absurd level due to the speed at which everything unfolded, and it just didn’t work for me.

That isn’t to say that my issues were only with this final part of the book, it was just that the way it ended made me notice other things about the book, specifically the pacing, I realized that while I was enjoying the way the romance built up, the amount of time it took to get anywhere meant there was very little time for more end-stage romance moments to happen (the scenes after the love confession, where we see how the couple actually works together and get to see cute moments between them). It left this sort of odd feeling for me, where the book read really quickly, yet still took a while to really get anywhere romance wise. And then when we finally got to that point, there was almost no space left in the book to see what it actually meant and see them happy, which was just really unfortunate. It meant my excitement while reading really tapered off near the end, because I saw myself getting closer and closer to the end of the book while still hoping for a lot more to still happen, both romance and plot wise. I wish there had just been more space for this at the end.

Overall though, it was a fun and quick read and I did enjoy myself overall, especially for the beginning half of the book! While it’s not the favorite I hoped it would be, I’ll still be checking out future release by this author for sure!