no one can make me hate you, jonathan king <3

special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

my feelings on this were constantly conflicting. i enjoyed some parts, and the mystery part of the story was fun to read and unravel with the characters.

but, there was some things i couldn’t get over. and ultimately made me not enjoy it in the end.

so, yeah this just wasn’t for me.

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og review — 2 stars

special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

to be honest, a good friends-to-lovers story is always a hit or miss, and this one was a miss. the main characters, june and levi, were generally all over the place and i really did not like part of the reason why they started fake dating to begin with.

not only that, the pacing of the story felt so rushed and sloppy. like june and levi hadn’t really talked in 10 years and they had trust issues but for some reason jumped straight into fake-dating so quickly? it didn’t make sense.

lastly, tiktok was mentioned 6 times and that’s one-too many times. when will authors realize that constantly using pop culture references doesn’t age well and makes their readers cringe 99% of the time?

overall, this book just wasn’t for me. i couldn’t get into it no matter how hard i tried, and i often found myself force-reading to finish it instead of enjoying it. sure, it had some cute, romcom-esque moments that i really liked, with fun banter, but that wasn’t enough for me as a reader.

this book was on my radar ever since i saw the cute fanart circulating around. after reading, sad to say that this book was such a let down.

90% of the characters in this book deserve death jail.

why did esmeray have to be a virgin AND just turned 18? she was literally 17 a day ago. not only that, it was so disconcerting knowing that esmeray was closer in age with kai’s little sister (12) than him (26). like one second kai described esmeray as a “girl” and then the next chapter he saw her as a “woman”. what an ick.

well, not as big of an ick compared to discovering that esmeray’s parents have been selling their daughters (as young as 8-years-old), as well as some of other vile, disgusting things to climb the socioeconomical ladder. they deserve the electric chair!

kaiesmeray were also sort of boring. their banter pre-marriage was the only entertaining part of their relationship. outside of lust, they themselves found it difficult to connect because of their age gap. it also felt like random scenarios kept occurring to them in an attempt to add something to the plot but it didn’t exactly do anything to help it be more interesting. i laughed the majority of the time because of its ridiculousness.

it was nice seeing esmeray having a backbone compared to her older sisters by rejecting her “fate”, and running away from the toxicity. but her personality was primarily the color purple, designing suits, and wearing bows in her hair. not a bad thing, but her character still lacked depth.

kai was “respectful” compared to the men esmeray knew growing up, but he was so boring. no personality, just a savior complex. like pick a struggle. his brothers were more interesting than him.

overall, what a let down. i’m disappointed.

this was cringe, but in a cute way. annie and will – who never reveals what “will” is short for, damn him! – were perfect for each other. they were two complete opposite people who were wholesome together, had no drama, and communicated maturely. all while finding their true, authentic selves while also taking a risk at love.

also, this is unrelated to the couple in this book but the way james looks at maddie and how annie basically described it as longing? and of course maddie is oblivious to how he looks at her! what’s the story there? it’ll be a perfect reverse grumpy-sunshine best friend’s sister story in the making like hello??? i need their book now.

overall, i had a really good time reading and loved being back in rome, kentucky, seeing old and new faces. i love this small odd town. hopefully i’ll be back soon.

honestly, this story was nowhere near perfect but i’m a contemporary romance lover, so i easily fell in love with the characters and story. like this story was weirdly paced but i still had fun reading it. also, this takes place in a small town so, duh, i’m going to love it even more.

there was so many emotions when reading this. this was heavy, well, heavier than i expected. the representation of chronic illness, diversity of characters and their experiences, and most importantly, the significance of the successes and cruel challenges black americans had to deal with – and still do – was woven so intricately and meaningfully in this story.

i adored the first half of this book. the way the story was introduced and told was done very well. the forbidden romance and will-they-won’t-they tension between neevah and canon from the moment they meet was *chefs kiss*

the way this was written is something i’ve never seen before and i really enjoyed it. it’s basically two life stories told into one: neevah and canon’s love story (present) and of the wonderful life of dessi blue (past); dessi’s life being told in a movie script format. any time we were transported from past to present, i could vividly picture both eras and their stories’ impact.

ok so this is a me thing, and the reason this is not a 5 star rating for me is because i am of the opinion that not every character deserves a shot at redemption. i’m too petty for that and didn’t feel like that character truly earned it in the end. i would’ve preferred if they were never forgiven, especially after the betrayal and ostracism the main character had to endure because of what that character did to them. not only that, but non-ending ending was sort of anti-climactic but, oh well. that doesn’t negate the fact that i still had a good time.

i’m too stubborn to dnf so i powered through… WOOO I’M FINALLY FREE!!!

i really wanted to see if this book is as notoriously bad as everyone is making it out to be and yeah… it pretty much is... sort of?

i wanted to read it to form my own opinion; and like i had fun with some parts but overall it felt too long-winded. this could’ve easily been a 250 page book. it was cringy, but sometimes that isn’t a bad thing to me if the characters are fun and interesting. the friend group were more fun than the main characters. anastasia was insufferable 70% of the time and nate was a golden retriever 100% of the time.

but hey, at least the epilogue was cute.

personally, i considered giving this a 5 stars but it had too many pop culture references that won’t age well. but for a YA book, this was actually very cute and fun (as are all of ali’s books for me). let me repeat that, it’s a YA book. i saw way too many negative reviews on how this was “too cringy” for them, and that just means it wasn’t meant for you – because the target audience is teenagers – and that’s ok!

special thanks to NetGalley and MIRA / Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

this book is messy, cliché, angsty, adorable, funny and chaotic. like, really chaotic. words cannot even begin to describe how giddy this read made me feel. i absolutely fell in love with the two main characters: maya mirza and sarfaraz porter. both were swoon-worthy.

throughout her entire life, maya has believed she’s cursed when it comes to love so much so that she’s come up with a list of laws to try and explain it, i.e. murphy’s law. the biggest one being, trying to accept that love will come after marriage.

maya is flying to pakistan (where she’s on the way to her own arranged wedding), and after she switches seats to reunite a separated family, her seat neighbor is none other than sarfaraz – or, The Jerk – she bumped into earlier pre-boarding the plane. so many mishaps and shenanigans occurs that keeps pulling maya and sarfaraz together (that she attributes to the curse) leading to them quickly leaning on each other as they’re both traveling alone.

this may sound bad, but even though she’s engaged to another, kind and respectable man – who she does not love! – the banter and the secret stolen glances maya and sarfaraz experience with each other, sold me very early on. i became their #1 cheerleader, waiting patiently for them to stand up for themselves (individually and together). they both grow so much throughout the book and both of their yellow and/or red flags become green in the end. they were made for each other, simple as that.

throughout the book, i had theories about the big plot twist and i was pleasantly surprised to discover i was sort of right about it, which i didn’t mind because it was written well. but even though i enjoyed the plot twist and maya and sarfaraz’s chemistry, i was still perplexed – stumped? – at how easily and quickly the conflict was resolved. but at the same time, it sort of made sense for maya and sarfaraz. they literally fell in love in less than two weeks! all that being said, even though i didn’t mind it, i still could’t give it a full 5 stars because the resolution and happily-ever-after felt rushed to me.

as someone who isn’t a part of the muslim culture and/or religion, or even desi or its diaspora, i found this book beautifully detailed and educational. there were numerous times where i would pause my read and look up specific terms and learn more about them and i even found myself looking up traditional desi wedding dresses and attire and admiring them because of how beautiful the grooms and brides looked in the photos.

overall, this is a very promising debut novel for alina and i cannot wait to see what she does next. i like reading books about people who were raised vastly different from me. this book was fun and had great banter, sweet characters, and angsty plot. i will definitely recommended it if that interests you.

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note: i have faith that by the time of publication, all format and grammatical errors are corrected so i can overlook it in my review. this one is based solely on the plot and characters.

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updated 28 july 2024