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by Vanessa King

Pub date: Nov 4

Rating:

Review

You will love this book if you:
-Want a good rom com that you can escape into with a fun gym setting and silly roommate dynamics
-an awesome found family vibe
-enjoy learning about how gyms operate and workplace settings
-do not mind heavy descriptions between dialogue
-love and are actively searching for more books with chronic illness rep
-are here for the vibes
-want a good read that will keep you entertained and make you giggle
-want a rom com that has depth to it

This is not the book for you if you:
-need lots of spice
-desire an easy reading style so you can relax and unwind at the end of a long day
-need to laugh at least 20 times
-want a quicker read
-need to feel a really deep connection with characters to have a good experience

This was one of those books that I didn’t want to end so I actually took over a month to read it because I wanted to be able to escape into this world whenever possible and it’s really hard for me to find romcoms with rep like this.

The first half is definitely better than the second unfortunately and I think this is a pattern I see a lot in books – the first 20% is absolutely phenomenal and then it starts to slow down quite a bit around 30%.

When I say it slowed down, I mean that the 30% seems to cover all of getting Ellie things from her old ex’s house and more so slice-of-life details within the apartment and very minimal development among the side characters and this continued till about 50%, and then I started to notice a pattern with the prose itself where there was overwriting of the descriptions of how people are talking (Which pulls me out of the storyline completely). There was a lot of descriptive fluff in it that seemed to be intended to make the characters come more to life, but it’s written in such a way where it’s not translating that way for me personally.

For example, there is a lot of descriptions about how people are talking with their tone and the facial expressions they use and for me I’m looking a lot more at the dialogue and the action these characters take versus the tone that they’re using in their dialogue.

I was trying really hard to not skim this by 52% and I was realizing that it’s because there is a lot of fluff in this book because I am realizing that it seems more of a slice of life type of book and the humor started to really die down Around 52% in.

There is also a mention of a parental death, and I am not sure that is mentioned at all on the trigger warnings.

This book seemed to really slow around 53% and I think the reason for that is there is more of a transition to a slice of life style story line with not a lot of development as far as what happens between the characters and what happens to the character herself.

I would much rather read a shorter book in which more things happen and be moved by each individual word then have to weed through a decent amount of fluff to kind of figure out what’s going on in the book. I am getting to the point where i am genuinely confused as to what actions have even taken place due to the abundance of descriptions given to the dialogue. There is almost a solid paragraph per piece of spoken word it seems, and i prefer my dialogue short.

I am bummed because usually my biggest issue with books that have these amazing reps in them that I get very excited about is that they are either overwritten, the plotline isn’t quite there they’re either horribly offensive or they just tend to be really really dry and boring – like none of them are genuinely good.

This one is OK so I’m giving it a 3.5 but I don’t think I would recommend this as there’s lots of family trauma that’s also covered and I’m not sure that that is included in the trigger warnings either. This seems to be thrown into every single book.

For this to be a romcom with rep, I was hoping for more descriptions of the actual character, struggling with her chronic illness and how this impact are and the entire book just kind of took a turn that I was not expecting around 60% unfortunately

Because I’ve made it that far I ended up finishing the book but this was one where it was really disappointing because the first 30% really had me and then it just got worse but with this in mind I am definitely going to try other books by this author, I just really hope that the writing style is not continuously fluffy and overwritten

73% in we finally get a spicy scene and I just wasn’t very into it and then the starting paragraph of chapter 28 is one of the worst intros I’ve ever read to be completely honest and two words are used that seem to me to be connected to wanting to show off language abilities, and not so much pleasure the readers brain.

Sated and languid are weird words to use? Haraumph? Why do I need to get a dictionary next to me to read the book to me a well written book while written story can be understood by general audience unless the.

For me when I’m really trying to understand what’s happening in a book I think Smart Brevity is a really good concept to reference of if there’s fluff that can be cut and the meaning can still stay – do it because if not, my brain will skip over anyways, and then I will struggle to go back and read it because my brain is automatically skipped over the fluff and this is what I’m struggling with this book because I feel like I’m missing so much but none of these words are actively helping further the plot or actively helping further character development.

I was also really bummed that I lost interest in the love interest around 62% in when I should be the most excited for it and they should be about to kiss and I am really close to putting this book down but it’s an easier read as far as the amount of things that are happening, but I would say as far as the vocabulary level, it is definitely not a wide reaching audience book because the vocabulary that’s used is unnecessarily, complicated, and fluffy in my opinion.

73% in one of my biggest pet peeves with books in general has appeared and I feel the need to call it out

In my personal opinion, when you are crafting a story, word choice is extremely important and less a different word is going to enhance the story. You want to use the word that your readers is going to understand the most that will enhance the story.

I have just read the spicy scene which was not great to be honest. I’m so sorry but these words don’t seem to be needed at all and I actually will need a dictionary to confirm the exact definition so I understand this opening sentence in chapter 28, which to me, I should not need to do that.

Sated and languid and harumph are weird words to use?

A really lovely reading experience for me is when I can put a helmet on in a metaphorical sense and feel like I am in the characters brain and I’m able to see what’s happening and by adding these weird overly complicated words in that are not part of common English usage I now have to go out of my way to search them up in order to understand what’s happening in the book. I understand This might be desirable for some people who want books with more complex vocab but for me I will read nonfiction if i am wanting that. I will read a book in which I am intending on learning and not a rom com if I want to be actively learning new vocabulary and I know that’s just a personal preference but for me this makes the book more inaccessible.

This review is no way meant to tear this book down. I’m just trying to describe my personal experience in the most accurate way possible because I think it’s hard to describe what about this writing style did not work for me because it technically does work as a book I just did not personally enjoy it as much as I hoped I would because of these things. Rounding up to 4 stars.

For example, between two characters interacting there will be a long description of how someone is feeling nervous versus me being shown signs of nervousness, maybe rapid heartbreat and sweating and cute day dreaming and this could create a fun scene. There was just so many opportunities and they were missed with this one.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC. I appreciate the opportunity to leave honest feedback voluntarily