ellemaddy's Reviews (1.09k)

if you held me at gunpoint and asked me what was the point of this book i wouldn’t be able to tell you anything.

3.5 ⭐️
I think it wrapped up too neatly for my liking.

i’m not american so i don’t know how wasps are actually in real life, but something about this mc feels kind of satirical in a way because she keeps mentioning her privilege and making fun of others less fortunate. she just feels so evil and literally the antithesis of everything i agree with, subjectively speaking. if i might be so bold, i think she’s deranged and insane.
she’s so privileged to the point that she embraces her depression and she decides to take a year ‘off’ by sleeping and taking tons of drugs to keep herself unconscious. for what reason? other than for the fact that she can afford to do that and no one was telling her how bad of an idea that was. her poor kidney! my god!
she spends her waking hour watching tv and going to the bodega for 2 big cups of coffee like a zombie and then she treats everyone, including herself and her only friend like complete and utter crap. but oh wait, she has a shitty life, though! her parents were so terrible to her that they gave her the sex talk and broke the news that her dad had cancer all in the same conversation. and her horribleness is herself projecting self-hatred towards other people in the most ruthless way possible. she’s surrounded by people who enabled her and treat her like crap so it’s a cycle of extreme toxicity that when i read it was like “these people cannot be real” and i’m truly terrified, babes. do people like this exist????
and you know what’s even worse, when she emerged from this ‘year of rest & relaxation’ we don’t really get to see anything change about her. suddenly she just started going out again and that’s it. sorry? personal development who? it was like, oh a year’s up. i’m living life like usual again. ma’am. ma’am??
the only way i could barely tolerate this book was because this is fictional, and again, feels like it was meant to be this extreme to be ‘funny’ although i found it neither fun or funny, it was just sad reading about these people’s lives.
rated this 2/5 because i did not enjoy mc, i might actually hate her and not the writing / the theme itself.

The list of things that are happening in this book:
- child kidnapping
- a cryptid (possibly TWO cryptids)
- an insane trash garbage of an old white guy
- some creepy things happening in the woods. the vibe’s very blair witch.

In theory this book has everything that I might love, but I found the execution lacking and I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. I also hoped that Samantha’s reach to freedom would feel more cathartic but it just fell sort of flat. Also the fact that this book has 2 monsters in it but i truly couldn’t care less about the cryptid, I just want this William guy to begone and get punched in the face repeatedly for at least 300 times. And we ended up not really learning anything about the creature itself. So what was that all about? What was that for?

relieved i finally finished this, skimmed the last couple of pages because i was just angry at that point for being dragged on for so long and the amount of time i put into this was so not worth it. it was boring, painfully slow, and it was asinine.

Didn’t care for this.

Ok so I finally have the time to write a quick review for this book and the reason why it didn't work out for me. First of all, I read this after reading the soulmate equation and these two books had an awfully similar plot lines and formulas. They both are enemies (ok, enemy is a stretch. they disliked each other at most BUT we know that they're attracted to each other because they're both hot), they were thrusted into this impossible circumstance where they have to fake date, they fell for each other, stupid 3rd act ensued, 3rd act resolved and happy ever after.

My problem is this. I don't like it when the two main characters are together or they're spending time with each other only because of other people. In this case, those people who are forcing them to 'fake date' were Ethan's ex, Olive's future boss, and even the honeymoon trip itself. It's just weird. You mean to tell me that two important people from two of the main characters lives just happened to vacation in Maui IN the same resort at the same time? And I'm just supposed to suspend my disbelief?
I also have a problem with side characters who are just ~there~ as a plot device to help the main characters' progress with their relationship. This happened to Olive's twin, the ex gf, the boss, the brother in law, HECK even the fish that made everyone BUT Ethan and Olive sick. If those people (and the fish) didn't exist in this plot, the two main characters wouldn't even spend their time together and to me that just killed the vibe IMMEDIATELY. Yall wouldn't even be here without those people and maybe yall shouldn't! Stop forcing this!

Second of all, I hate the entire premise. You're telling me, this woman went to a packaged honeymoon trip to Maui with her brother in law? I'm sorry, am I the only person who's grossed out by this concept? Just the thought of it made my skin crawl. And then they started dating?? No. No. No. Worse of all, I don't even see the appeal of Ethan as the love interest. What's his personality? He has none. And when he spoke about his attraction to Olive and his brother was like "hell no" he started treating her horribly. ok you can't date her so you'll treat her like crap? real fucking mature. He also didn't believe her when she said that his brother made a move on her and broke up with her instead. After he did that I was FUMING like I wasn't sold on the idea of their relationship but that was way too much for me. This guy can go to hell.

I found the writing of this to be funny and enjoyable at times. It was a romcom!
I also found Jess as a main character fun to read about. She's a single mother, she's a mess, she has her own problems and issues and she's not perfect! She sounds like a regular person! Which is great.
River on the other hand seems like a cookie cutter romcom love interest to me. I just don't see him as an interesting individual. He just seems like he fits into a certain hot guy with no deep background story template. Like he's there! He's rich, he's tall, he's dark and brooding, he's smart, and he's good looking. But beyond that, I don't know who this guy is and that's why I couldn't really connect with him or their relationship. This book also has that unbelievable plot device that made the two main characters get together and I just found the reason why they got together was so stupid especially how it was because of the tampered data. The data that was tampered by one of River's most trusted friend, coworker, and co-founder by the way. And when it was revealed, we as the reader didn't even get to see that confrontation. It just happened in the background and resolved on its own and didn't even leave any negative impact on the company. So once it served its purpose of getting the main characters together, it got brushed under the table and we're just supposed to accept it. Which you know, to me, that just seems like such a cheap move. And after reading two of C.L's books, I started to see a pattern of them using these unbelievably transparent plot device and there's nothing worse than being so self aware of those plot device being used because now everything just felt forced to me.
Overall I think this was cute and aside from all of the aforementioned problems that I had with this book, im also such a hater for parenting fiction especially in romance so you can consider my 3 stars rating for this book as me being generous.