Rating: 3 stars
Genre/Trope: Romance, Bad Boy/Good Girl Trope
TikTok got me to read this book and I almost wish I hadn’t.
Summer, a librarian, only wants to date nice guys. She’s convinced that falling in love with a nice guy is her key to romance happiness. She had enough turmoil in her youth that she wants a good guy who has a stable job. But that doesn’t stop her from being attracted to Cole, a patron at the library who has tattoos and gives off alpha jerk vibes. But Cole is trying to reform his bad boy image by trying to get a publishing deal for his book to make Summer see that he’s a good guy. He steps in as Summer’s savior when her date won’t get the hint that she’s not interested. As they grow closer outside of the library, Summer begins to wonder if maybe she could fall in love with a bad boy and find happiness.
But of course, happily ever after isn’t that easy and their preconceived notions of each other might just tear them apart.
I got suckered into reading this book with one of those popular BookTok teaser videos and really by now I should know that those videos wow me and the book rarely does.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a truly terrible book. There were parts that had such promise that kept me pushing through to the finish line. There’s a small subplot line where Summer has a mysterious stalker that even though she moves around a lot still always manages to find her that I wish had been more prominent in the story because it was actually a let down. It was almost like the stalker was just something to throw in there at random points to keep the reader engrossed in the book.
At the start of this book, the “he’s a bad boy/she’s too good for me” thinking of our main characters was legitimate. It set the tone for what I thought I was getting in this book, but instead all that happened was that thoughts were just continuously shoved in my face that it made me resent our characters for being so judgmental. I get why Cole wanted to hide his past from Summer, what man really wants to tell the girl they’re in love with that he was in prison. But it took so long so us, the readers, to find out why he was in prison that I didn’t get the point. I don’t know why it was also hidden from us because I think that it would have helped a lot to endear me more to Cole and his whole bad boy image. Instead I was just told he was a bad boy like I’m just supposed to accept it and keep reading.
One redeeming quality is the spice of this book. It helped make it a bit more bearable to read and helped get me through the tougher parts of this book. But after finishing the book, I now feel like that the spice was just a way to keep me reading the book. Like if those parts of the book were removed I wouldn’t have a reason to keep reading because of the ever ending “she’s good for me, he’s a bad boy” running theme of the book.
While this book wasn’t my cup of tea, I hope that if you’re looking for a spicy good girl/bad boy trope romance that you’ll think about giving this book a shot.
RedHeadsBooks 