The Bookish First program gave me a chance to preview the first few chapters of The Wedding Date and then I won a full copy of the book from them. I want to thank them for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Even though I almost never read books designated as “romance” novels, I found the cover, the description of the characters and the plot outline appealing enough and decided to give it a shot. The writing was uneven in the beginning (it never really felt polished though the book), but I was able to give it a pass initially. At the end of the first few chapters, the “meet cute” and initial premise of pretending to be a couple was developed to the point that I was ready to read on.
By the time I’d read a third of the book, however, the story had fizzled out for me. The plot seemed to have become: eat junk food, have lots of sex (tended more toward innuendo than explicit for those who are offended by sex in any form in a book), fight and sit around being anxious or angry. Over and over. So, it was hard for me to accept the transition from being in lust to being in love by the end.
And the writing style just didn’t get better and it failed to get me past the plot issues. You know it isn’t a good sign when I’m counting the number of times “hot” is used as a description of a character. Or how many pages are left before I’m done (I DID finish the book, hoping it would get better). Or, and this really did surprise me, the number of times I thought ‘why didn’t the author change Alexa’s name to something that didn’t remind me of the Amazon Echo half the time I saw it’?
Kudos to the author however for including high-powered characters who are people of color, including the aforementioned Alexa. Though the issue of race did not dominate the discussion, it was nonetheless there as a topic that arose naturally as part of the overall story. I actually paused to consider what it might mean to Alexa to be the only person of color at the events Drew took her to.
Looping back to my first comment, I rarely read books in this genre so perhaps my expectations were not realistic. But I was disappointed that the promise shown in the beginning did not play out to the end.
Even though I almost never read books designated as “romance” novels, I found the cover, the description of the characters and the plot outline appealing enough and decided to give it a shot. The writing was uneven in the beginning (it never really felt polished though the book), but I was able to give it a pass initially. At the end of the first few chapters, the “meet cute” and initial premise of pretending to be a couple was developed to the point that I was ready to read on.
By the time I’d read a third of the book, however, the story had fizzled out for me. The plot seemed to have become: eat junk food, have lots of sex (tended more toward innuendo than explicit for those who are offended by sex in any form in a book), fight and sit around being anxious or angry. Over and over. So, it was hard for me to accept the transition from being in lust to being in love by the end.
And the writing style just didn’t get better and it failed to get me past the plot issues. You know it isn’t a good sign when I’m counting the number of times “hot” is used as a description of a character. Or how many pages are left before I’m done (I DID finish the book, hoping it would get better). Or, and this really did surprise me, the number of times I thought ‘why didn’t the author change Alexa’s name to something that didn’t remind me of the Amazon Echo half the time I saw it’?
Kudos to the author however for including high-powered characters who are people of color, including the aforementioned Alexa. Though the issue of race did not dominate the discussion, it was nonetheless there as a topic that arose naturally as part of the overall story. I actually paused to consider what it might mean to Alexa to be the only person of color at the events Drew took her to.
Looping back to my first comment, I rarely read books in this genre so perhaps my expectations were not realistic. But I was disappointed that the promise shown in the beginning did not play out to the end.