I don’t think I can put into words just how boring this story was, and just how stupid I found this heroine to be.
*VERY MINOR SPOILERS*
This book is torturously slow.
And I don’t mean “slow” in that delicious, slow-burn kind of way. No. I love slow burns, they are my favorite type of romance. I love the achingly slow build between characters, the way it tugs painfully at your heart in the best way. All that delayed gratification that comes from a slow building romance.
But the key word there? Build. B-U-I-L-D.
This? Was not that.
This is 75% of repetitive nothing. Seriously. The first maybe 3/4ths of this book is.... nothingness. NOTHINGNESS. Two platonic friends who, chapter after chapter, are reiterating just how completely platonic they are. No lingering looks, no building tension, no smoking chemistry... not even an interesting storyline during that whole first chunk.
It is mundane, day-by-day reinforcement that these two are buds. Bros. Sure, he’s a sweet dude who is kind and takes good care of her, treats her well, but the point was hammered home: FRIEND FRIEND FRIEND. Not even an inner monologue suggesting either of them feels more.
Yes, he’s quite fond of her in his inner monologue. He thoroughly appreciates her friendship, her beauty, her place in his life as his best friend. But.... that’s it. Absolutely nothing in the way of any kind of build between these two. No build at all. Literally 70% of NOTHING. Not even an interesting side plot involving side characters or anything. It was incredibly boring.
Then this is where we see how unbelievably stupid the heroine is....
She leaves for Paris, has a couple wet dreams about the H, and then decides, “Holy crap, I love him! I’ve always loved him!”
.....okay? But that’s not even what makes her stupid.
What makes her stupid....... What makes her completely, astronomically, throw-your-e-reader-in-the-toilet, mind-meltingly idiotic is... she realizes she loves him, clues NOBODY in except her BFF in Paris... and then, when she graduates and comes home and the H picks her up from the airport and he tells her he’s got a surprise for her (a new restaurant).... she’s expecting a proposal.
WTF???
Yes, you read that right. A proposal. A Will-You-Marry-Me proposal.
These two have been 1000% platonic friends for 6 entire years at this point, with no romantic developments **whatsoever**, not even a misleading conversation that could lead to some crossed wires or some sort of miscommunication...... and then when she has a few erotic dreams and decides she loves him, for some reason that flies in the face of any and all conceivable logic, she’s expecting a proposal from him when she lands back in Colorado.
He tells her he has a surprise for her and she SERIOUSLY entertains the idea that he’s about to ask her to marry him.
In fact, she not only entertains it..... she’s expecting it so hard that she’s devastated and disappointed when she realizes, aw shucks.... he only bought me an entire fucking restaurant.
That’s the point I disengaged completely. That’s the point I said, “Fuck this book.”
I absolutely could not suspend disbelief. And this is a contemporary romance.... it really shouldn’t require a great amount of suspension of disbelief. Yet this entire story read like an empty, boring crock of shit.
And then the heroine just continues being an idiot but, by that point, I didn’t even care. She lets their friendship become awkward, then decides to get mad at him when she asks him if he could ever see himself getting married and he says no.
She storms out, and the friendship goes downhill from there before she leaves again, essentially ghosts him for a year, and the H has a few predictable revelations of his own.
******
This book is so ridiculously poorly written. So formulaic and uneventful. I am scratching my head at all the 4 and 5 star reviews. I really am. This whole thing made no sense and I felt a thousand miles away from all the characters.
ALL the characters are flat, boring, and one-dimensional.
1 star. I’m sorry, I know this review was harsh.