Jenni from the book

For once in my life, I'm actually ahead of my Goodreads target for the year. I always set myself a very realistic target of 12 books for the year (average one a month) but I normally lag behind until the summer months and then do a swift bit of catching up while I'm on lots of holidays. This has been a particularly busy year of holidays, which may explain how I'm already sitting comfortably at 9 books read, with over 4 months left to read another 3. Or could it be that I've chosen good books that have driven me to fly through them? Well, you'll have to read on to find out (spoilers ahead).

After a slow spell last year, to get my spark back with reading, I had made sure to lean onto some reliably excellent authors, like Helen Hoang and Taylor Jenkins Reid. TJR has been one of my all-time favourites and I first fell in love with her in 2018 when I read 'Maybe in another life', and then swiftly marked every single of her other books as 'Want to read'. That was her third book, and since then I've read all her stuff in a random order, swapping to some of her new releases and also slowly going back and reading her old stuff. After I do was actually her second book and the last of the older ones of hers that I needed to read!

It's the story of Ryan and Lauren, who fell hopelessly in love when they first met in college and knew they'd instantly found their forever person. But is forever as romantic as it sounds? Fast forward to their late twenties and these 2 can barely remember that being in love with each other feels like. This is not a story of a couple who have slowly moved away from the honeymoon phase and into a comfortable roommate stage - they basically can't stand each other. Lauren finds Ryan exasperating; Ryan finds Lauren a nag. They fight about everything from what they order for dinner to where they parked the car, and who can even remember the last time they had sex.

Deciding that they can't go on like this anymore, the two of them do something radical. they propose taking a year off from their marriage to try and save it. Separated, no contact, and each tasked with rediscovering their independence. Will absence make the heart grow fonder? Or does it take more than a cute love story to make a marriage work?

The premise of this book intrigued me massively. The blurb talks about questioning the meaning of monogamy, about untying love and lust, and about seizing and forsaking love. So I was kind of expecting a journey full of lessons - maybe one of them falls in love with someone else, maybe in dating they see the perks of an open marriage, maybe time apart teaches them where it all went wrong?

Disappointingly, there was a lack of a real lesson learned in this book, or a proper development arc to speak of. TJR created the same beautiful narration she always does with lots of internal monologues and though-provoking dives into what love and marriage really mean. But it didn't feel like either Lauren or Ryan really committed to the break, or really learnt anything. Yes they go no contact, but straight away Lauren hacks into Ryan's emails and finds he's writing 'letters' to her in his drafts folder (which it later reveals he suspected she would read). So they spend the break basically writing letters to each other, venting their frustrations and spilling the things they never told each other. This was not a couple committing to a year long break and having faith in the universe to show them the way. This was a couple doing a bit of DIY half-baked couple's therapy.

Don't get me wrong, Lauren does date. But she dates someone as emotionally unavailable as she is, so she's never really opening herself up to the possibility of finding happiness with someone else. She never really allows herself to sit with the idea that there's a life without Ryan in it. About 3/4 of the way through the book I thought the ending MUST be that they split up, because they'd both done so much talking about how unhappy the relationship made them, and neither of them had done enough for a reconcilation to feel satisfying. But then Lauren's grandma finds out she's dying, gives her one prod about how important love is, and Lauren decides that Ryan is for her afterall. It was the biggest hack job of a happily ever after.

It all felt very rushed; he hadn't changed or done anything to show that their relationship would be different. I think these 2 characters simply decided to take the easy road. And actually they were kind of terrible and possibly deserving of each other! Ryan had said how unhappy he was in the relationship because Lauren always wanted to order foreign food (why couldn't they have good old American burgers once in a while), and Lauren was unhappy because she felt she needed to avoid spending time with him so she wouldn't have to work so hard to be nice to him. Their problems were not only petty - they were symptomatic of two people who deep-down hated each other and just probably shouldn't be together.

On the whole I did enjoy reading this book, but I think it was partly because I kept holding out hoping for a twist or a turn that never came. There was a thought-provoking story in here to be told somewhere. Sadly it wasn't the one on the pages, and I just think TJR wasn't at the point in her writing career to be able to tell it.

Well, this was a bit of a depressing read, since the story literally begins with 2 men being rushed to hospital in life-threatening conditions. These two men were no strangers though; the universe works in much more mysterious ways than that.

Joe is rushed to hospital after falling into a frozen lake trying to save some kids and their dog, leaving his wife Ally frantic with worry. David is rushed to hospital after he collapses in a department store with a suspected heart attack, leaving his wife Charlotte frantic with worry. When the two women find themselves together in the family room at the ICU, it's far from the first time they've met, since it was originally Ally and David who were in love back in university, with Charlotte actually being the reason they eventually broke up.

Over a sickening few days in the hospital, can these two frenemies find some common ground? Or will the fact that one woman's husband is the love of the other woman's life always cause them trouble?

Right, likes and dislikes. Liked the two women and the way their characters were rounded and complicated and interesting. Liked the themes of serendipity and the invisible string theory. Liked the 'everything happens for a reason' lesson. Disliked all the overdone and unnecessary hospital descriptions. Disliked the believability of the love story between Ally and David. Disliked the way the storyline essentially completely discredited and discarded a man's life. 

Okay so first of all, Ally and Charlotte were both beautifully fascinating characters, and different enough that they were intriguing for their own reasons. Ally was always a quiet music nerd back in university, and now she's found total purpose in being a mum to her young son, Jake. Charlotte is rich and fierce and feared by everyone but despite her lavish upbringing and successful business, she's struggling with infertility in the quiet moments. I loved how the book flicked between the two women's perspectives and showed that they'd always been threatened by each other, but ultimately had respect and love for each other. It felt like a really empowering tale of womanhood.

In fact, the love story between Ally and Charlotte to me was the most compelling of the whole book, since David muddied all the other relationships. Even though Joe was steady and good, you got the sense that Ally wasn't as in love with him as she had been with David. And while Charlotte and David seemed super compatible, you got the sense from all angles that he still held a candle for Ally. Which is where it gets super weird, because I didn't buy the love story between Ally and David AT ALL. These two were incompatible, always arguing, and clearly wrong for each other. Yet at 30, they're both still thinking about a relationship that ended 8 years prior? Why? It all just felt very weird and juvenile, and in the real world they both would've written it off as a young university love affair, not the greatest love of both their lives. I know their relationship was essential to the plot, but it wasn't written well at all.

My biggest issue with this book though was the ending, which was both massively poetic and massively rude. It was clear from early on that only one man would live, and once they revealed that David would need a heart transplant to survive, it was obvious that Joe would die and David would get his heart. Kind of poetic right? But then the "twist" came - Jake wasn't Joe's son, he was actually David's. It kind of felt like it made a mockery of Joe's character, his and Ally's love story, and his place in the whole plot all together. It would've been more special had he remained Jake's dad and the message could be like 'look Joe will live on through his and Ally's son, and David and Charlotte get to live happily ever after'. But instead, the message was David has taken Joe's heart, and Joe's son, and Joe's wife will always love him. It all felt so wrong, and like the author killed him off for fun just to promote organ donation. Typical of David, a priviliged white guy, to come out on top of the whole story too!

This book had come up in countless 'must reads for the summer' lists, and since it was holiday time, it felt like a good choice. Olive is messy and curvy, and Ethan is tight and straight-laced - from the moment these two met, they loathed each other. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Olive's twin sister Ami and Ethan's brother Dane are madly in love and getting married, it doesn't seem like they'll be able to avoid each other any time soon. Even less so when the entire wedding party (apart from the two of them) come down with deadly food poisoning, meaning there's an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii up for grabs. But there's a catch. Ami managed to win the trip for free, so in order to not break the terms and conditions of the prize, Olive must pose as Ami for the duration of the trip and must therefore appear to be madly in love with her male companion. That shouldn't be too hard right? But then they bump into Olive's new boss as well as Ethan's ex girlfriend on the trip and everything gets a bit more complicated. It couldn't possibly be that fake romance turns into real romance and things get more complicated still, could it?

Okay so from the get-go this was giving me 'Just go with it' vibes. A movie I absolutely love! I like a good romance trope and this had the enemies-to-lovers AND fake dating tropes combined. The problem potentially came from too many tropes though. Or rather, too many classic plot devices and tools crammed into one. Like everything that has happened in a rom-com ever, happened during this one week holiday in Hawaii. One of them was sick and the other cared for them, one of them got drunk and tipped off their feelings. You know the style. Was it a clihcé? Yes. Did I mind too much? No.

I really loved Olive's character and I quite liked the yin and yang chemistry that her and Ethan had. The problem for me is that the "enemies" part of the friends-to-enemies trope that the whole book rested on, was pretty weak. Ethan's supposedly her "nemesis" for giving her a strange look when she ordered cheese curds at a carnival many years ago, and she took that to mean he was disgusted by her and hung onto ever since. Also, she was actually wrong all along and he'd actually fancied her from the start. I'm sorry but really? The times when these storylines work are when the two characters have a genuine mutual dislike for each other which becomes attraction and passion. It can't be that it was just a watery attempt at delaying them getting together. In films like 'Life as we know it', the woman hates the guy because he starts out as a genuine douchebag, but then grows as the story continues. I would've liked to see a bit of creativity with that kind of approach here instead. As opposed to 'Ethan has been the dream guy all along, you just got confused'.

I also thought the pacing of the story was slightly off. I thought almost the whole book would be set in Hawaii, but they actually go home about 2/3 of the way in, and the rest plays out there. They get together fairly quickly too, so then it isn't really a story of going from enemies to lovers, it's actually more focused on going from a holiday romance to the real deal. I would've felt a better pay off if the author attempted a bit more of a slow burn and left the logistics of returning home to the reader's imagination. This book was far from perfect but it was a fun, frolicky summer read.

There is a bit of a matrix for books and authors, where every single one falls into one of 4 quadrants. Good story, bad writing. Bad story, good writing. Bad story, bad writing. Good story, good writing. I would say that the vast majority of mainstream books fall into the first: good story, bad writing. Most people who have ever consumed a book, a film, or a series could spin together a good story outline, a good plot. But the problem is that so many of these think that makes them a good writer, hence why so many modern books are filled with underdeveloped characters, overly simplistic dialogue, and 'then this happened then this happened then this happened' voices. This book by Andrea Dunlop was a rare breed. This was a good story with good writing. Her vocab range was so wide, her word choices so poetic, and the thoughts and descriptions flowed like a perfectly put together piece of music off the pages. It's hard to describe, but I just loved the way she wrote in a very skilled and unexpected way.

Then what about the story? The story begins at Laila's Mum's funeral in the Midwest. Having already lost her Dad a number of years earlier, she's now an orphan at 23 with no other family to speak of. Or so she thinks. Because the funeral is crashed 3 Chanel-clad New Yorkers, who reveal they are the children of her Dad's brother, making them the cousins she never knew she had. Carrying the stench of old money and the promise of the glorious life she hasn't had, Laila knows she can't be satisfied with the life she has. Fast forward 2 years and she's left everything (including her poor clueless dentist husband) behind to move to New York. Landing in her family's decadent world, Laila is desperate to claim what's rightfully hers. Family rifts, seduction, game playing, social climbing, and dark secrets galore. But just how far will Laila go to call this world home? And more importantly, who will pay the price for her desires?

When I tell you I LOVED this book. Laila was the ultimate anti-hero. I hated her. I rooted for her. I rooted against her. I was desperate for her to lose. But also kind of wanted to clap for the underdog. She was a very complex character and I think the 3.23 Goodreads rating showed that not a lot of people can handle complex characters. They want sunshine and rainbows and a Good protagonist. Laila wasn't that. In fact, pretty much every character in this story had massive flaws and was contemptable on AT LEAST one occasion. Well, apart from her oldest cousin Liberty who was an absolute angel, and who the author did SO dirty in the end.

To oversimplify it, this book was like a darker, meaner, more sinister version of Gossip Girl. I loved the New York setting and the descriptions of all the places, I really enjoyed the quick and ever-changing pace of the book, and I really loved the undertones in the writing. The message that wealth breeds evil, that privilege always wins, and that fortune favours the brave. I don't want to give away the ending because I really do think this a story you should read for yourself.

I mistakenly thought this was another Helen Hoang book (wrong Helen/Helena, similar cover art) and so I had extremely high hopes for this book. Sadly, this was just another badly executed rom-com destined for the donation pile. Kailyn and Daxton haven't seen each other since law school. They started in a TV star/fangirl dynamic, then moved into being friends, then it all went wrong when Daxton beat Kailyn to achieve top of the class. 8 years later and the two meet again when Daxton accompanies his parents to an appointment at Kailyns office, since she's a trust fund lawyer and they want to make sure everything is sorted for their younger daughter. But then tragedy strikes in Daxton's family and he finds himself not only without the love and guidance of his parents, but also entrusted with the responsibility of caring for his 13 year old sister, Emme. A responsibility he needs to fight to hang onto, as his aunt tries to fight him for custody. While Kailyn may have been frosty when Daxton first walked back into her life, she finds herself quickly thawing and remembering the chemistry they used to have. Amid questioned motivations, and wounds of the past, can these 2 get past their challenges and turn their meet cute into a happily ever after?

You know how I said earlier that a lot of books fall into the 'good story, bad writing' category? Well, this one fell into 'okay story, absolutely terrible writing'. It was literally a charicature of most soaps and telenovelas. The villain was a cartoon level villain, there were dozens of plot holes, and the author had clearly never heard of the golden rule 'show don't tell'. For example, to show that it was the villainous aunt behind everything that had gone wrong, that she had a gambling problem and was trying to get Emme's trust fund, the author had the aunt on the phone to her friend saying 'oh yes and thank you for the idea to plant that bottle of vodka, it worked a treat and hopefully I'll have custody of Emme in no time and can use her trust money to treat us to a trip to Vegas to win big'. Like... really? The whole book was filled with lazy stunts like that, and it really made it difficult to enjoy anything else about it.

Obviously we're all very (rightfully) critical of women written by men, but this author proved that we're not nearly critical enough of men written by women. Again, Daxton was an absolute cartoon of a typical frat bro. He literally describes Kailyn to his friend as 'a great rack and a sweet piece of ass'. In one sentence. It was diabolical, and screamed of someone who knows no men (at least, no good men) in real life. And yet the author still thought with lines like that that I'd be rooting for these two. Actually, their romance wasn't terrible. They had nice chemistry and some sweet moments between the two of them. They were thrown together a bit too often and bit too much, but other than that, the love story was mostly okay. It just didn't bring anything new, exciting or unique that hasn't been done a thousand times over. 

Mostly it was the plot holes that killed me though. Everything was so lazily done. No real emotion was explored for a single one of these characters. Nothing felt real or believable or plausible. Every other line had me rolling my eyes and saying 'really?', and everything about the story felt hollow. If this book hadn't been published in 2019, I probably would've suspected it had been written by AI.

Next time, I will pay much closer to attention to the author name to make sure I'm getting what I think I'm getting. In fact, I've already purchased Helen Hoang's next one.