Rose

In a couple of her books, Emily Henry writes this really specific flavor of character who just kind of lets life happen to them and doesn’t seem to have much agency or oomph. Alex is a sweetie, but he is that person. I ultimately was so frustrated by the way these two just kind of floated around each other for a decade, never being honest with themselves or each other.

I also don’t prefer books that flip back and forth between past and present for the duration of the book. To me, it makes both timelines move too slowly.

Why did I read this??? After 1-starring The Friend Zone merely a few days ago?? I suppose because I really liked the Part of Your World series, and I was hoping TFZ was a fluke. I'm sorry to learn that it was not.

This whole series feels like Emily Henry for Republicans. Everyone wants a million kids, three seconds after they get married! The women cook all day while the men go hunting and do construction! (And yes, obviously they all have guns!) The mom diapers the baby while the dad grabs a beer! The patriarchy of it all! These are simply not things I'm interested in entertaining in the year of our lord 2024.

Wow, what the heck did I just read? So disappointing after Just for the Summer was one of my faves this year.

My gripes include: Unnecessary character death, bizarre depiction of infertility, unfair treatment of a seemingly pretty harmless boyfriend/ex, “not like other girls” syndrome in full effect, and the minor scene with a gun was a big turn-off. I thought some aspects of the MMC and FMC relationship were cute at the beginning, but pretty quickly this turned into a book I just had to finish because I couldn't quite believe the direction it was taking. Think I'll skip the rest of the series!

In the wise words of January from Beach Read, “Happy endings don't matter if the getting there sucks."

The covers for this series are fire, but the contents are just cringe men and boring women. What’s worse than an overprotective big brother physically assaulting his (grown adult) sister’s love interest for… no reason? Do we not live in the 21st century?