I’ve heard a lot of great things about this book, so I was incredibly excited when I received it from #bookishfirst. The story itself is adorable. Two people afraid of becoming what they hated most about their upbringing, but fighting so hard that they don’t know how to appreciate what’s right in front of them. Add in a real estate snafu and quite a bit of deliberate sabotaging, and you’ve got a really cute story. This book would have been three or four stars from me, but the writing turned me off quite regularly.
Clayborn wrote this as though she was trying to tap into the humorous element of her characters, but missed the mark. For example, nothing could be shown just by the characters and their behaviors, everything had to be explicitly stated – offset by dashes (see what I did there??), italics, and emphasized text in parenthesis and thousands of exclamation points! (Ha.) It got to be too much and constantly pulled me out of the story. While this is an ARC, I’m truly hoping this component is fixed before final copies are released.
Beyond this, the meaning behind the title is adorable and I loved the relationship that forms between Will and Nora due to their ability to bond over what they lost and what they never really had. I wanted more of them and less of the side notes from the author. Oh well.
Clayborn wrote this as though she was trying to tap into the humorous element of her characters, but missed the mark. For example, nothing could be shown just by the characters and their behaviors, everything had to be explicitly stated – offset by dashes (see what I did there??), italics, and emphasized text in parenthesis and thousands of exclamation points! (Ha.) It got to be too much and constantly pulled me out of the story. While this is an ARC, I’m truly hoping this component is fixed before final copies are released.
Beyond this, the meaning behind the title is adorable and I loved the relationship that forms between Will and Nora due to their ability to bond over what they lost and what they never really had. I wanted more of them and less of the side notes from the author. Oh well.