Love me a good palate cleanser! Throwing a short, quick contemporary romance in the mix always helps break the monotonous rut romantasy gets me into after a while.

Doctor Smug was a very sweet, very lighthearted, super easy to read book. And it had some kindred vibes and similarities to Mister Romance, a novel I read a couple of years ago and absolutely LOVED. There were compatibility tests, reticent heroines, off-the-charts charming heroes and the "give me three dates and I'll make you fall in love with me" thing—which is always a cute trope.

However, where Mister Romance had me all giddy and rooting for the couple, Doctor Smug left a bit to be desired. In my opinion, Daisy just wasn't much of a likable or easy to root for character. And you don't even have to take my word for it, this was how her brother described her:

For someone who'd decided to dedicate her life to finding love for other people, she was decidedly out of love with love. And while this book never set out to be super deep or dark, I wish she'd been given more of a reason to be as rigid and uncompromising as she was. Emotional baggage is emotional baggage, feelings are valid, people respond differently to trauma and all that jazz, but if Daisy's past bad relationship was going to dictate and be the main thing standing between her and Riley getting together, that aspect should have been explored a bit more.

She was staunchly against giving a relationship with Riley a shot based on a incident from a single past relationship. But her harsh rebuff felt unwarranted based on the details and explanation we got, especially when she refused to look at things through any other lens than the one tainted by that bad experience. I don't mind a cynical, prickly heroine, but something about Daisy rubbed me the wrong way.

And that may also have been because of how unbalanced their relationship felt. Riley was a little cocky and annoying, yes, but he put so much time, care and effort into trying to please Daisy while planning their dates. He bent over backwards for this girl, was so earnest and genuinely thoughtful, a total cinnamon roll. And yet, her thoughts about him kept going back to how he was arrogant, and a playboy and unserious. In the end, it didn't feel like she earned his love or was deserving of her place next to him. This needed to either have a way more developed third act break-up or none at all.

Ultimately, could this book have been better? Yeah. But was it still cute and sweet? For sure.