Paula Nguyen’s Reviews > People We Meet on Vacation > Status Update

I almost feel guilty for saying all of the cons because it’s definitely a well-crafted and well-written book that made me think way more than the average romance but I also just … didn’t feel very emotionally connected to the characters like I usually do (ahem Helen Hoang) even though the strong aspects of it were…really strong; overall I’d have to say 3.5 rounded down because of enjoyment bc romance

Again towards the end Alex and Poppy just didn’t feel real; I had a moment where I was very aware that I was reading s book (if that makes sense) so that kind of illustrates how disconnected I was feeling from the story

If you put it in context (Croatia) it could make more sense but the 🌶 scene happened before the author introduced what happened in Croatia so I was just confused and kind of disappointed; also it happened after they were really .. not vibing with each other ?

Not going to blame this on the writer but I felt kind of disconnected from the characters / story towards the end especially when the angst post 🌶 scene happened I was just not really buying the way that the initiation of their relationship (12 years in the making I would like to add) happened; the author built up this very emotionally charged friendship just to let it completely shatter because of .. libido?

just wow especially towards the end it’s just really impressive the way the author illustrated their concerns with their relationship and how it connected with their values and past the whole time reading that dialogue I was just going wow this lady can really write a character … but we’ll get back to that

pros:
like I said the story was really well crafted the flashbacks cooperated really well with the present day timeline; the relationship was just so … nuanced? The dynamic between them the chemistry the reasons why they didn’t want to be together even though they were in love

idk where to start I had so many thoughts throughout and I feel like I won’t cover them all; I have no idea whether to give this a 3 or a 4 because I think it was a real well crafted story but I don’t think I enjoyed it enough to give it 4 stars; might have to ponder on that one