Synopsis:
Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.
Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.
It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.
But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.
When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.
Review:
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but welcome to my first non five star review of a full length Ali Hazelwood book. I had a feeling going into Problematic Summer Romance that it wouldn’t be a five star read purely based on the fact that I’m not a fan of age gap romances, but this one seemed to lack the usual spark her books have. It’s not even like I thought their age gap was actually problematic, they’re both adults, and yeah he knew her as a kid but they didn’t really interact until she was 20.
I really loved the setting of Problematic Summer Romance – as the name suggests it was very summery. I definitely chose the perfect time of year to read this, weather-wise, but I’ve been so busy that my reading has been so disjointed recently.
Anyway, I liked this cast of characters but I do think Conor, our male main character, was lacking in personality. Maybe if I’d read Not In Love first, I’d have a different opinion, but I didn’t realise Problematic Summer Romance is technically a sequel. His whole bit was just ‘you’re too young for me” and that’s pretty much all you get from him in the whole book. I did spend most of the book rooting for them, but I wasn’t as invested in them as I have been other Ali Hazelwood couples – they’re no Olive and Adam or Elise and Jack.
Most of my experience with this book was highlighting and commenting on random things, so enjoy this next section that probably doesn’t flow very well or make much sense as it’s all very out of context.
“You built a nice adulthood over the ruins of a shitty adolescence” Amen. I felt this one deep in my bones – I’m a very well rounded adult considering my childhood, especially as I didn’t know I’m neurodivergent until I was in my 20s.
“I refuse to blame women for a dude’s worst behaviors” Once again, amen.
I’m creating a new drinking game due to this line: “He’s always been too tall for comfort” This new drinking game is: take a shot every time a man’s size is mentioned in an Ali Hazelwood book. I love you Ali Hazelwood but the constant mention of how huge/tall/wide the men are in your books is a bit ridiculous. Honestly, you don’t even need to tell me anymore, I assume so before I even open the book.
The fact that Conor and Maya would constantly talk about their age difference did get a little annoying. At this point: ““Get some sleep. And stop acting like a red dye–guzzling child.” All I could think was “Referring to her as a child even though she’s 23, yikes”. They do this constantly throughout the entirety of Problematic Summer Romance and it honestly feels like they’re the only people actually concerned about it. Slight spoiler but when they do get together literally no one bats an eyelid at their age difference.
Although saying that, this one from Maya was pretty funny “You weren’t born during the Great Depression, Conor, you’re a millennial. Can you stop acting like everyone you knew growing up died of measles?”.
This highlight has nothing to do with my opinions of this book but it was very timely “So I can stop trying to pick my Pompeii pose?” Axel asks. Even his brother is confused. “Your what?” “You know, like those stone bodies from Mount Vesuvius’s explosion?” I’d watched Miniminuteman’s video about Pompeii that exact day (highly recommend you check out his content if you don’t already, it’s so good), and because of that, this throwaway joke made me a little sad.
If you’re wondering why this review is a bit all over the place, and slightly lacking, let’s be honest, I finished Problematic Summer Romance more than two weeks ago (at the time of writing this review). It didn’t draw me in like Ali Hazelwood’s previous novels, but I did still enjoy it.
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