booktribe's profile picture

booktribe 's review for:

3.5
adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

What would you do if it was announced  that your celebrity crush was getting married? You would go on an adventure to find him and convince him to marry you instead of course! Bethany Lu has had a crush on Keanu Reeves almost her whole life. So when it’s announced that he’s getting married in 90 days, she decides to go on a quest to find him and convince him to call off the wedding, and even marry her instead. And she can’t do this without the help of her bestfriend True, who may or may not be in love with her.

     This was a fast, fun, and lighthearted read that’s sure to keep you smiling the whole time. I flew through it. The quest for Keanu was so much fun! They went to so many fun places and saw so many other celebrities. My favorite part of the whole book was the celebrity cameos! Every time a new one happened I got so happy it felt like I had just met the celebrity myself! I also loved that the chapter names were odes to Keanu movies! 

     I did have a few problems with this novel though. For one, I didn’t enjoy the first 30% of the book, although I really enjoyed the rest. It felt like it was info dumping and the main character’s inner monologue was exhausting. It was very hard for me to believe that Bethany Lu was in her mid-forties acting like that. Not just the intense celebrity crush, but her constantly sticking her tongue out at people and making very juvenile decisions and assumptions. If it wasn’t for the graphic sexual descriptions this could’ve passed for a YA novel. The love interest, True, also felt pretty juvenile. However, I really enjoyed True’s point of view. I wish he had more chapters. I also felt that the synopsis was a little bit misleading. There’s no actual road trip in this book. The characters mainly fly where they need to go. There’s an adventure for sure, but not a road trip. 

     My main problem with the book was that I felt like True liked Bethany way more than she liked him. I felt like he was in love, but she was in lust. Also, the ending of this book was really cute, but there were at least two loose ends that were never addressed and that really bothered me. I was left with questions.

     This was one of my most anticipated releases for this year, and I enjoyed it, but sadly I didn’t love it. This book made me very happy though. It was incredibly fun and it definitely made me want to have my own Keanu Reeves movie binge! It’s a 3.5 star read for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: sibling death; graphic language regarding sex