A review by elegantfantasy_blogs
Heated by Naima Simone
3.0
3.25/5 stars!
This is my first time reading a book by this author and while I love fake dating romances, this one didn't have anything special that made it stand out. Yes, there were some great side characters, interracial relationship rep and both Zora & Cyrus were self-made. I liked their dynamic and they were both pretty clear about what they wanted from life. I could connect with Zora because of her insecurities, her struggles to deal with judgemental high society people and trying to make her parents see that her buisness is significant and salient to her and her siblings. Though I think I had built up high expectations seeing the faking dating trope because most of the time Cyrus & Zora were in each other's company and when the time came to actually pretend in front of his colleagues, everything went downhill and I couldn't properly enjoy the situation. Also, the book didn't have an epilogue and because of that, the ending felt quite lackluster. Just, nothing much was happening in the story, albeit it had some diversity and humour, it was a cute and easy read but nothing different or astounding tbh.
Thank you Montlake & Netgalley for the ARC
This is my first time reading a book by this author and while I love fake dating romances, this one didn't have anything special that made it stand out. Yes, there were some great side characters, interracial relationship rep and both Zora & Cyrus were self-made. I liked their dynamic and they were both pretty clear about what they wanted from life. I could connect with Zora because of her insecurities, her struggles to deal with judgemental high society people and trying to make her parents see that her buisness is significant and salient to her and her siblings. Though I think I had built up high expectations seeing the faking dating trope because most of the time Cyrus & Zora were in each other's company and when the time came to actually pretend in front of his colleagues, everything went downhill and I couldn't properly enjoy the situation. Also, the book didn't have an epilogue and because of that, the ending felt quite lackluster. Just, nothing much was happening in the story, albeit it had some diversity and humour, it was a cute and easy read but nothing different or astounding tbh.
Thank you Montlake & Netgalley for the ARC