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2 ⭐️

Uh yeah so this was technically a romance novel. As my brother would say, this is one of the romance novels of all time. I don’t know how all the chemistry between these two characters evaporated but it did. The first half was really boring and nothing really happened. Finally, around halfway through stuff started to pick up.

Wes struggles with the loss of his father which hit me harder than I expected. Similar to how Liz’s relationship with her step-mother made me emotional in the first book (but the first book did it better for sure).

The chemistry is non-existent and I wasn’t even really rooting for the couple to get together by the end. They don’t seem to know each other anymore and only seem to want to get together because it is easy and what is expected of them.

The cute rom-com references were a lot farther and further between in this book which is what made the first one unique. A lot of the charm of that book is missing. It also feels weirder to make the book SOO PG when the characters are in their early 20s rather than late teens.

I do like both the MMC and FMC, but I think they’ve grown apart and need to go their separate ways now. Part of being a good author is understanding that well-written characters will make decisions for themselves and shoe-horning in what you want them to do makes it feel unnatural and off-putting. While I don’t think Wes and Liz are anything special character-wise, they have enough backstory and history that I think I know what decisions they’d make if there wasn’t an omniscient author trying to cram their story into a YA romance novel.

Not a good read. Relies on a miscommunication and white lie. Ruins a lot of the good banter and chemistry Wes and Liz had in the first book. I used to think that it’s impossible to write a bad romance novel because the formula is so tried and true. But these authors keep trying to prove me wrong.