Reviews

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren

Only show reviews with written explanations

laurenhartsreading622's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-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

5.0

rebeccareads08's review against another edition

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2.0

Yikes. This was not it.

I usually enjoy CL for my beachy reads but just being completely honest, I really didn't like this one. I can sum it up in one word. BORING. It was so boring. It felt very formulaic and ok, I realize that these kinds of books tend to lean that way anyway but this one had no soul whatsoever.

The premise was about a reality dating show that casts the potential boyfriends based on archetypical tropes, the one that got away, the hero, the vampire ect. Very on the nose but ok, Fizzy, yes that's her name, is a romance author and the "bachelorette" of said show. But she has her eye on the single dad show producer, Conor, that she non-stop ogles and objectifies every second of the day.

Fizzy felt like a caricature. I think the intention was to make her this sex positive woman but instead it was actually her entire personality and it made her feel like this creeper instead. Conor just didn't have a personality and seemed to fall in love with Fizzy bc she was trying to jump his bones at every opportunity.

So yeah, I was so disappointed with this one especially since I know CL is capable of such magic like Love and Other Words and The Unhoneymooners.

hannahda's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

catisbookish's review against another edition

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3.75

Cute, fluffy, steamy, and a true rom-com to its core. It was a much-needed fluff break for me. I had a good time reading this, but the third-act conflict completely lost me. It was just so disappointingly, familiarly bad, right down to the "we were drunk, I didn't mean anything I just said, I'm sorry that I hurt you" and *expeditiously bolting after coitus* scene that I will always find entirely stupid and ridiculous in every romance movie or book it takes place in. This brought the score down to 3.75 from a 4 or a 4.5 for me, HOWEVER, I really did like most of the book and the romance was just really endearing. Connor is such a frickin good guy and Fizzy (I rolled my eyes so hard at this name... is she a soda pop? Like???) is confidant and charming and just a delight to be with through these pages until the third act conflict. But alas! If there's anything that I've learned in the past year is that romance is so incredibly subjective that none of this should deter you from picking this up if you were already interested. Christina Lauren are such a dynamic duo as writers and their writing hits a beautiful sweet spot where it's approachable, funny, serious when it needs to be, and begging to be engulfed in a single sitting. Which is practically what I did. So. That's the thoughts. Byeee