Aside from the problematic ending, a serviceable, well-paced romance.
Pimentel (Love by the Book, 2015, etc.) joins the ongoing modernized–Jane Austen trend with this take on Persuasion.
With broader and less vibrant strokes than Austen, Pimentel paints a picture of Ruby Atlas, a 32-year-old New Yorker who humbly considers herself a success by the city’s tough standards: she has a consuming job at an advertising firm, her own tiny apartment in the East Village, and even a personal trainer, all hard-won. Conversely, Piper, her younger, perfectionist sister, will soon have a storybook wedding at a castle in England. As Ruby prepares to leave for the wedding, she is terrified of seeing one of the guests, her first love, Ethan, now a wildly successful tech guy and best friend of the groom. The prospect amps up a load of insecurities for Ruby, both professional and romantic. Readers of Persuasion will know where this is headed, and those unfamiliar will easily guess. Emotional self-preservation leads both parties to pretend they no longer matter to each other, which gives Ruby plenty of time to tend to her difficult family and fix a series of wedding-related disasters. It’s not until her father has a health scare that the stakes are high enough, and Ethan solicitous enough, for Ruby to admit how she feels. Alternating flashback chapters illuminate Ruby and Ethan’s young, ardent relationship and build to what ultimately drove them apart. Some of these reasons are quite poignant, stemming from Ruby’s unforgiving expectations of herself as a young person building an adult life. Unfortunately, a late-revealed piece of the puzzle involves sexual assault, which the novel handles in a troublingly retrograde way.
Aside from the problematic ending, a serviceable, well-paced romance.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-13037-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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