Reviews with content warning for Stalking - The Idea of You

Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Idea of You by Robinne Lee

42 reviews

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

emotional relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I was in search of a fun escapist read and settled on The Idea of You. When 39 year old Solene accompanies her 13 year old daughter Isabelle and some of her friends on a backstage visit to meet the members of August Moon, a wildly popular boyband, the last thing she expects is a relationship with 20 year old band member Hayes Campbell. But that's exactly what develops. I loved seeing an "older" woman being portrayed as sexually active, attractive sexually and in other ways to a younger man. But to my mind, the book was too long. The middle part felt bogged down in a repetitive rotation of lots of sex, lots of travel, the downside of dating a celebrity including papparazzi and obsessive fans, Solene feeling uncomfortable about the age gap and having to navigate her daughter's understandably complicated feelings about the relationship. Plus Hayes's dimples, of course. And other parts of his anatomy! I get that the repetition reflects the reality of many relationships, that it was important to see Solene struggle to balance what she got out of the relationship versus what it cost her. But I still feel it went on for too long, especially when the ending seemed inevitable. I didn't hate this book, and it delivered a lot of what I wanted, but, in my opinion, the plot didn't justify or merit the length.

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Title: The Idea of You
Author: Robinne Lee
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.50
Pub Date: June 13, 2017

T H R E E • W O R D S

Juicy • Angsty • Intense

📖 S Y N O P S I S

When Solène Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles, takes her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band, she does so reluctantly and at her ex-husband’s request. The last thing she expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things.

What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s disparate worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. And for Solène, it is as much a reclaiming of self, as it is a rediscovery of happiness and love. When their romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her new status has impacted not only her life, but the lives of those closest to her.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Since her Princess Diaries days, I have always been an Anne Hathaway fan, so when I learned she'd be Solène in the movie adaptation of The Idea of You I added the book to my TBR. It also came highly recommended by several bookish friends and I knew summer time would be the perfect time to finally pick it up.

What started out highly engaging, soon turned to the same thing happening - them meeting up in a different city and having sex - from one chapter to the next. There is no denying the potential of the story, yet it lacked substance and I simply got bored with the repetitiveness of the the plot. The way the sex overtakes the narrative was disappointing.

I also had a hard time making a connection with the world they are living in. There is a lot of glitz, glamour, and privilege within the celebrity lifestyle, the L.A. setting, and all of the jet setting for their meetups, which makes their world seem way out of grasp.

Overall, The Idea of You had the makings of a smash hit, yet unfortunately it lacked the necessary substance. Despite making total sense, the ending was so abrupt I didn't actually believe it was the end. I did appreciate the author choosing to have the woman be the older of the two characters, and I'll be interested to watch the movie to see my thoughts on it.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• age-gap
• boy bands
• secret trysts

⚠️ CW: sexual content, divorce, bullying, stalking, alcohol, sexual harassment, cursing, suicide attempt, self-harm, injury/injury detail, blood, pregnancy, panic attacks/disorders

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Love, she said, was not always perfect, and not exactly how you expected it to be. But when it descended upon you, there was no controlling it."

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jerrysaywhaaa's review against another edition

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emotional funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book surprised me, I went into thinking it would be trashy fan fiction about Harry Styles and One Direction. It’s actually a commentary on double standards with how society treats men vs. women as they age; the weird parasocial relationships people form with celebrities; and how society tends to view art girls like as lesser. It helped reading it after the movie came out (even though it makes the story way more palatable for general audiences) and picturing the main characters as Anne Hathaway & Nicholas Galitzine. Random final thought: Hayes is definitely into pegging

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memoirsofabooklover's review

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

i enjoyed the ending but the story and characters and writing were cringey. there were a few interesting themes touched on but overall wasn’t a massive fan. typically not a great fan of this trope anyway.

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

It was easy to see through the eyes of the protagonist, because it was easy for me to judge the choices I might’ve made at every step in the relationship. Just as the public judged her, I found myself doing the same. I also found it weirdly believable. I still hated the ending, probably because I’ve done the same thing with past relationships myself, and I have a lot of lingering self loathing. So the book was successful in these ways. However, I hated the storyline and pretty much all the make characters.

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bookscatcoffee's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

2.0

Not a fan of this book. I found the female MC to be needy and conflicted. And the way she let men dictate her life, I could not accept that, particularly since it seemed to be at odds with her character. I enjoyed the descriptions of the art, but the rest, I could have definitely left behind. 2 stars

Contemporary fiction

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vreyna20_2004's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

I hated this book. God, the only thing that I liked about this book was the fact that Hayes bought a painting that Solene liked, and had it shipped to her house but other than that? ASS.

All Solene does is make fun of little girls (who are the same age as her daughter) and calling them “girls in heat”. Like this 40-year old is telling her daughter to not feel like she shouldn’t exist because she’s a girl, she then goes on and judges little girls. She has an existential crisis about not being visible because of her age which is why Solene is adamant in having her daughter feel comfortable but then you go on and be the people who put down girls. What the actual fuck?? I kid you not she calls little fucking girls, bitches and that’s what enraged me. All because she didn’t like that they were sending her threats. She groups every fan as those “bitches” forgetting that her own daughter is included in that.

Then Solene has a weird obsession with Hayes’ age where she says things like “it was both horrifying and impressive.” after he talked about being groomed. And also, how she’s impressed that a 20 year old is able to last longer than most of her flings like she is comparing him to her college flings. She’s also mentioning the fact that he will dump his used condom while rolling a new one. The fuck? And don’t get me started at Solene constantly calling Hayes a boy. She would say “oh, sweet boy” like he’s her child but then she’s saying things about how she feels old with him. Like she gets mad that her husband is dating someone younger than her and also gets upset that she can’t date someone younger without society looking down upon her when she could just fucking embrace it. Fucking god. OH, and they constantly say “hi” and “hi” made me want to rip my hair off.

This story also doesn’t have any plot because it’s just Hayes and her running around to fuck and yeah I kept groaning. They’re not a good couple just cause they have mind-blowing sex. Actually, I lied. There is a plot. The plot? Was not hurting her daughter. And what do they do? Hurt the daughter. And what does Solene do when her daughter finds out? She tells her daughter that she doesn’t love him the way she does basically downplaying her emotions. You’re the mom and you’re going to tell your daughter how she feels. I get it, she’s 13 years old but when I was 13 the things I felt were intensified and for her to downplay it just angered me. What kind of shitty mom is she? And the fact that I would be the same age as the daughter and my mom would be the same as Solene so my anger just intensified. Like she’s a fucking shitty ass mom, I don’t care. And I was listening to the audiobook but man I feel bad for those people who don’t know French cause I barely understood what they said.

But the thing that angered me about this book was the author. UGH!!!!! The things I found out about the author just made me irritated to read this book but I wanted background noise. For starters, shge hates that women’s works are called fanfiction while men’s works aren’t which is valid, however, to take an EXTREMELY popular trope from fanfiction, take inspiration not just from Harry Styles supposedly even though it feels like a Harry Styles fanfic, and then write a somewhat self-insert about you being 40 and dating a musician then people would start calling it fanfiction. And to have the gall to cry about your story being called a fanfiction and a romance when it’s been commercialized as a romance while you did nothing to stop it or correct it, is fucking hilarious. As someone who wants to get into writing, the way you need to get a literary agent all depends on the genre. If you write a fantasy, then find a fantasy agent and it seems as if she didn’t do that. Talk to your agent, the company producing your books, literally anyone so that when it’s being put into shelves it’s not categorized as such. I get romances have rules I don’t like happy endings but to go crying to a journalist about the category is so pathetic. This book is absolute garbage and for her to go on and say that she likes literary fiction and that’s why her books is a literary fiction when it’s mostly romance (sex) oriented is fucking laughable.

I don’t fucking know why I even read this book. Maybe it’s the spirit of Halloween that got me but man do I regret reading this book.

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luxxltyd's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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tehstorm's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I am so annoyed at this book. Mostly at Solène.

At the beginning, I was mostly annoyed at how often she was talking about their age gap. He seemed pretty mature for a 20 year old, she was the one with an issue with it for seemingly no reason. But then through the whole book she was just determined to never actually make the relationship work. Between always griping about the age gap, and then being weird about Hayes being in a boy band. And refusing to tell her daughter she was dating Hayes until way too late and then broke her daughter's heart. She was just like "la di da no one will find me.” And then is all shocked when people find her or torture her daughter about her relationship or when photographers take photos of them out on a boat. She's an incredibly smart person but yet so stupid. If she had actually committed to the relationship and thought through what it would mean in the beginning she would have been able to properly plan for what was (predictably) coming and it might not have hit as hard or destroyed her as much. It still would have been very hard- public scrutiny, paparazzi, and toxic parasocial relationships are horrible. But things like security cameras at home, security personnel, no sex acts on a boat when there's another boat nearby... all would have helped prevent a lot of heartache. Hayes had enough money to give them a lot more protection, if you'd just accept his help and acknowledge that you're in a relationship with him. It also would have helped if both of them had actually said something about the relationship to the world instead of letting it fester. He could have told his fans to leave her and Isabelle alone. And Solène had an opportunity to come out and to be a strong feminist about it. Old men date young women all the time and no one cares. Make a statement and be like "ya, i'm awesome. i'm getting what i want. i'm successful. Women can be 40 and still desirable.” Work with it! I feel like she went through no growth whatsoever and refused to take her life into her own hands. Also, so many comments about his youthful skin 🤢 Some things Hayes did crossed some lines, but not to an unforgivable point. And he was trying and putting in effort and growing.

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chelle22's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad

5.0

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