jasperdotpdf's reviews
140 reviews

Are you kidding? This is the best romcom I‘ve ever read. Possibly my favourite book this year. I am screaming crying throwing up I loved this SO MUCH you would not believe!!  5 stars, no notes, I want to wallow in how this book made me feel for the next few hours but considering I stayed up till 3am to finish this that is not a realistic prospect.  

I wish this book had been longer! 

This is by far my favourite out of the trilogy and I‘m really happy I decided to read it despite being really disappointed in the second book. I loved the character dynamics here and that it broke out of some tropes the first two books followed. It felt a lot less gimmicky, and I had so much fun reading about Eve and Jacob falling for each other. 

I do think that it‘s a little barebones though. The focus is very heavily put on the central relationship, which is to be fully expected from a romance novel and didn‘t bother me in the previous installments, but there was actually a lot here that made me wish it was expanded upon. Establishing the BnB a bit more and developing relationships with guests a bit more, as well as giving Eve and Jacob just a little bit more time to get to know each other more deeply would have made this book just that much more enjoyable for me. 

Nevertheless, this genuinely feels like Hibbert at her best, and sits at a solid 4.5⭐️!

So, I've read an uncharacteristic amount of romance novels in the past month or two. I've grown a little bit sick of them, which is why only a few days ago I might have sent my best friend a voice memo saying I'd drop dead and roll over in my grave if I had to read a romance right now. At least that's what I thought. However, when you spend the better part of your morning having, what do the youths like to call it, a "menty b", your brain just doesn't wanna focus on the 600 page brick of a fantasy novel you're reading at the moment, okay? It wants to focus on an easy to read reimagining of When Harry Met Sally. So that's exactly what I did.

Truth be told, I was this close to DNFing this book like 15% in because the leads were genuinely insufferable, but I stuck with it because a) I've read reviews that gave me the feeling it was a "trust the process" situation and b) the aforementioned Precarious Emotional State might have clouded my decisionmaking a little bit.

They do kind of keep being bad people as the book goes on, but at least they're bad people together. Aaaaawwwww. Listen, something about it worked for me. The book isn't shy about calling the main characters out when they need it, and I really loved seeing them develop over the course of the story. It regocnizes that they're flawed and need to change, but doesn't make any attempts at having them magically be fixed at the end of the story. In fact, it emphasizes the fact that they don't need to be perfect in order to want to be with each other. Despite all of their flaws, I couldn't help but root for them.

Ari and Josh's dynamic was amazing, and had the perfect amount of torturous that a slow burn needs to be to be right up my alley. Their tension was palpable throughout the entire book, (Hello? Can we talk about the NYE kiss scene?) and I actually snorted with laughter at some of their quips and remarks. Yes, it was the kind of stereotypical hopeless-romantic-falls-for-commitmentphobe thing that has been done so many times, but I actually loved how Goldbeck handled it. It wasn't nearly as clear-cut as it is in some of the other pieces of media I've seen portray this dynamic, and seeing both of them taking steps towards and then back from each other was a breath of fresh air from the chase-like dynamic that other books and movies have slipped into. It was messy, yeah, but it also didn't feel like these characters were just one-note archetypes of flaws dissected, reassembled and then put on a page. It didn't make me want to rip my hair out nearly as much when they said things that hurt the other person, because it was so clear that neither of them actually wanted to be saying these things, yet it still felt so organically in character for them. The book lets its characters be flawed, actual people. the entire time, and not just when it's convenient for creating conflict, which sounds kind of miserable, but didn't really detract from the enjoyment I got from their developing relationship and in turn made their inevitable fights feel much less contrived.

My biggest gripe with the book was actually the epilogue, which makes up probably 80% of the deducted star rating.

What the fuck do you <i>mean</i> she proposes to him with a cock ring? In a sex store? Like is that an actual scene I just read with my own two eyes? And he rejects her with a little speech about how he doesn't need her to be his wife or whatever, only to pull out an heirloom ring he's been carrying around. In a damn sex store?? Nothing against sex stores, or cock rings for that matter, but it felt so wrong to wrap up the book like that. Not only did it feel very unclear whether or not they were actually engaged or not, but it was such an odd location to choose, despite it being that of their meet-cute. The book wasn't nearly explicit or comedic enough to warrant that kind of stunt, let alone pull it off. Yeah, we got some smut scenes, but they felt pretty tame, especially in comparison to how sex-positive the book and its characters are outside of explicit scenes. (Also, I don't usually complain about lack of smut in books, but I will admit I am a bit salty that we never got a smut scene after they reconciliated/officially started dating. Come oooonn, there was no need to make it fade to black TWICE after torturing me with their back and forth yearning for like literally 7 months, when there were explicit sex scenes earlier in the book. I digress.) I would've 100% been on board with a proposal, or a scene involving cock rings, but the combination of the two felt frankly ridiculous. But enough about the epilogue.

Apart from this, I really loved the book, despite my very loud apprehensions in the beginning. I devoured it in a few hours, and will gladly read whatever Kate Goldbeck publishes next.