Synopsis:
Gemma Summers is unlucky in love.
She’s known it since third grade, when her first crush blew a spitball into her hair, and a decade-long string of bad dates, boring sex, and abysmal morning-afters has done nothing to improve her prospects.
When a random radio contest lands her courtside tickets to the hottest playoff game of the season, Gemma thinks her luck may finally be on the upswing — at least, until the dreaded jumbotron kiss-cam lands on her and her date, who’s too busy ignoring her to notice…
Thankfully, the sexy stranger sitting next to her is more than willing to step in.
One kiss.
Two strangers.
No strings attached.
Or… so she thinks. Turns out, kissing Chase Croft — Boston’s most eligible bachelor — may be enough to convince even a girl who’s given up on love to let down her guard one last time…
Review:
Not You It’s Me was a pretty wild ride, and not in the fun way. This review contains spoilers so if you were thinking of picking up this book, I’d probably skip this one.
I was expecting this to be a pretty fun, funny and light hearted rom-com, but the drama just kept coming and each new revelation became more and more out of hand. At first I was thinking ‘What could be worse than Chase revealing that his cousin purposefully killed his horse?’ But then we arrived at 9 months pregnant woman and her one year old child are held at gunpoint and get into a car accident caused by their kidnapper. Yes, that actually happens in this romance book with the silly little cartoon cover.
I haven’t read it, only seen the film, but this book is basically just a rip off of one of the Fifty Shades of Grey books/films. Obviously having someone fall for a billionaire isn’t ripping anything off, it’s quite literally a genre of book. However, the kidnapping and being held at gunpoint plot seemed almost identical to Fifty Shades. I couldn’t tell you which one as I’ve only seen each film once and they all blur into one, but the similarities are glaringly obvious.
Another thing that’s crazy, other than there being a gunpoint kidnapping that includes a literal child and pregnant woman that’s in labour. Is the fact that this book takes place over ONE week. Gemma and Chase meet and randomly kiss at a basketball game, get harassed by hordes of paparazzi, Gemma meets Chase’s sociopathic cousin, finds out Chase potentially has a fiance, gets threatened by her ex (who was there for the initial kiss), runs home to her mom, has her apartment broken into and trashed, reconnects with Chase, attends a gala, meets her sister that doesn’t know they’re related, finds out a big secret about Chase, her friend goes into labour, they get kidnapped at gunpoint and get into a car crash, Gemma almost drowns, spends some time in the hospital and then they get their happy ending. I think that’s the longest sentence I have ever written in my life, but that’s the basis of this plot that takes place over just one week.
What makes things worse is how unlikeable both main characters are. They spend a while trying to prove who’s less of a relationship person and basically who’s more superficial. They’re both overbearing, over dramatic and have no respect for boundaries. I don’t buy into this whole protective aggressiveness that people seem to like with male love interests. It’s just scary if you ask me.
The side characters were at least somewhat likeable. They definitely delivered on the comedy element that was promised.
You know what I really can’t stand? When an ex partner of the main character shows up and suddenly they’re ‘pudgy’ and ugly both of which I’m pretty certain are used to describe Gemma ex that’s she literally in a relationship with at the start of the book. What have your standards changed in the mere days since the beginning of this story? Let’s stop trying to villainise people by calling them fat and ugly, it’s not a good look.
Ok, my last complaint is about the narration. For the female voices they did great but it’s hard to imagine an ‘ungodly attractive’ man when the narrator makes him sound like a raspy old woman with a sore throat.
I’m now wondering what possessed me to finish reading this book. I thought I was enjoying it at the time but I often just leave audiobooks on while I’m doing other stuff so I don’t DNF them very often.
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[…] Like this post? Why not read this one too: Audiobook Review: Not You It’s Me by Julie Johnson […]