2.5-3.5 Stars.
This is my second book by this author (after “Training My Heart To Love You) and I think I now have a better sense of her style and how it fits with my personal taste. This author writes “nice” and light urban romance- like the sort of urban romance you can take home to granny, with strong independent heroines and heroes that are a little rough around the edges and gritty but completely unashamed and unwavering in the marshmallowy center of their love for the heroine.
The premise of this book is that Kendall is an elementary school teacher who notices that one of her students is a little unkempt around the edges. When she meets struggling single dad, Price, to discuss the issue, sparks fly and she finds the love and care she has for Cassie, her 8-year old student, extends to Cassie’s father, Price. But with the awkwardness of falling in love with a student’s father, and danger and tragedy lurking around the corner, any relationship between Kendall and Price seems doomed from the start.
This is at its heart a cute romance. It’s instalove to the instaloviest degree imaginable but it’s done adorably so I didn’t mind. There is lots of body positivity in this which I also really appreciated as well as super positive and supportive female friendships and family relationships. I’m not sure of the plausibility of a teacher becoming so intimately involved in her student’s life and bringing the student to her home but I’m also not sure if it’s so implausible. It was weird to me but cute enough that for the sake of the story, I was willing to suspend any disbelief I had. My main issues with this story are similar to the issues I had with the other book I read by this author. I think for contemporary romance, there are some things that are very real in this but I think sit awkwardly with me and my personal taste in contemporary romance- for example, themes of violence against women by men (irrespective of the trigger) or the lack of nuance in treating Cassie’s birth mother’s desire to escape and in addressing Price’s entitlement after 10 seconds of stepping up. There are also some throwaway comments in this that felt borderline misogynistic. That said, all these comments have to do with my taste and not the sub-genre which this book belongs to. This is still urban romance even though I’d say it’s a nicer, lighter version of that sub-genre. And I think if you read this through that lens of expecting a grittier, rougher and realer, true to real experience-what’s-actually-happening-on-“the streets” experience, then this is less problematic and I would say this is actually a gateway into reading grittier “urban” romantic fiction.
So yes, if I’m talking about this from my current taste, I’d rate this a 2.5, but if I’m rating this as an urban romance, I’d rate this 3.5-4 at least. There are some typos, grammatical errors and malapropisms but not so bad that you can’t enjoy the story. I recommend this for anyone who likes contemporary romance and is trying to get into urban romance and doesn’t mind instalove.