i finished this book close to 2am, knowing i had to wake up in less than five hours, but i just couldn’t bring myself to finish landon and julianna’s story. i’d been waiting to read it since 2022, and now it’s over? this is the cruel part of investing yourself in a story you’ve been so excited for, only for the book to meet your expectations—and then some. you realise you’ll never be able to read it for the first time again 🥲
julianna and landon are archnemeses who go to the same college. due to unexpected events, julianna ends up moving in with two friends, who just so happen to be best friends with the guy she can’t stand. as if that wasn’t enough, she’s three weeks into the school year and already struggling to get the grades she needs in calculus. swallowing her pride, she reaches out to landon for tutoring, but he’s determined to avoid her and shuts her down when she asks for help… until he changes his mind and agrees, though for his own reasons.
these two absolutely DESPISE each other!! i can’t emphasise this enough 💀 they find one another completely unlikeable and can’t stand being in the same room for more than a few minutes before getting into a spat. it was hilarious watching them in the same friendship group, with their friends trying to stop them from tearing each other’s throats out, but being unable to do anything about it. but despite their hatred, they kept orbiting around each other, like they couldn’t help but be drawn in. and let me tell you, this is slow burn. at one point, i was seriously questioning, “how will they ever become lovers when they can’t see eye to eye?” but this hatred built into some serious, explosive tension between them, and it was SO good to read. i mean the angst and tension (and the spice 🥵) was HOT.
my favourite thing about slow burn is seeing the progression of how a couple is at the beginning compared to the end. i loved watching the small shifts in how they saw each other, how they began to realise that there was more connecting them beneath the surface than they’d initially thought, and that something was tying them to each other. it’s so precious to read about, and that slow progression just made me even more attached to them. we get to see their individual struggles, what they’re going through, and with each new interaction, they unknowingly become each other’s safe haven. they understood each other in a way no one else could. i mean, the fact that landon (who is a MASSIVE grump) didn’t like smiling (he notoriously never, ever smiles) but at one point realises that julianna makes him smile, and he actually likes it… let me just cry.
not to mention the found family scenes in this book. it literally had me choked up at times. these characters care about each other so much and it’s so evident in everything they do for each other. every scene they were together, they were so funny and chaotic and yet, so heartwarming. i’m so excited to read more of these characters in future books and see how they grow together🥹
thank you so much to E for providing me with this ARC 🩵