A review by bibliobelle22
Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I started off not liking the characters but by the end of the book I started caring for them more than I thought I would. The characters have tragic backstories and it’s inspiring how they triumphed in the end in a realistic way. I also appreciated that the main character is different than Ali Hazelwood’s previous protagonists. She is anti-social, uncomfortable with social interactions, and appears calm and collected on the outside. Even her physical description is different. Her main characters are always short and small girls for some odd reason, but this character, Rue, is tall and athletic.

However, this book is overshadowed by an over abundance of sexual situations. These scenes unfortunately made it harder to get to know the characters even better and made their relationship appear to move too fast. It made it harder to believe that they had transitioned from lust to love. Their relationship appeared to be based on at least 80% lust. It felt like Ali Hazelwood was dropping all these scenes to keep the reader excited, but they were a big turn off for me. I had to skip them all (7-8 scenes perhaps, which is a lot even for a romance book).

Eli does something big for Rue at the end that proves how much he cares for her, and I liked the conversations they had in between when they told one other stories about their pasts, showing vulnerability and honesty. I wish the book had more of that and built a better case for their relationship. Also, the twist in the book was predictable, so no surprise. This book had so much potential but did not deliver like it should have.
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