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A review by agrippinaes
Finally Mine by Lucy Score
3.0
Rating: 3 stars
What I Liked: There were parts of this book that I really liked. The central relationship between Gloria and Aldo is lovely and sweet and romantic. They had good chemistry and I liked seeing their relationship develop from friendship to more. Gloria was a great main character and her development as a person was particularly strong and lovely to see; I thought Aldo was a great hero in a book like this, he was adorable and sexy and so thoughtful.
A lot of the side plots around their relationship were good: I liked that they worked through their respective traumas in a mature and honest way, talking to each other and helping each other through it. It was a gentler book in a lot of ways than the other two in this trilogy
What I Didn’t: The biggest flaw of this book was the fact it follows the same timeline as the previous one. Big chunks of it are scenes from the previous book, including the same dialogue. I get that a first-time reader starting with this book instead of the previous one wouldn’t have an issue, but as someone who just finished the previous one before reading this, it was really repetitive and it made the pacing of the story drag quite a lot. These scenes added nothing new to either character and served more to develop Harper and Luke, the main characters from the previous book.
Similarly, the plot at the end felt off.
Overall: I really enjoyed the central relationship in this as I thought it was lovely and sweet, but there were big parts of it where I felt like Gloria and Aldo weren’t really the focus of the story. I think there were too many points replicated from the previous book to set up or develop Harper and Luke’s relationship in a way that felt distracting.
Would I Recommend It?: Yes, if you want a small town friends-to-lovers romance with a sweet, lovely couple and a fair amount of angst.
Would I Read Something By The Author Again?: Yes.
Content Warnings:Domestic abuse (literally in the opening scene), violence, IED explosion (on page), loss of limb (on page), rape (in past), stalking.
What I Liked: There were parts of this book that I really liked. The central relationship between Gloria and Aldo is lovely and sweet and romantic. They had good chemistry and I liked seeing their relationship develop from friendship to more. Gloria was a great main character and her development as a person was particularly strong and lovely to see; I thought Aldo was a great hero in a book like this, he was adorable and sexy and so thoughtful.
A lot of the side plots around their relationship were good: I liked that they worked through their respective traumas in a mature and honest way, talking to each other and helping each other through it. It was a gentler book in a lot of ways than the other two in this trilogy
Spoiler
and for understandable reasons, there isn’t as much sex, but the sex scenes there are are well-written and hot.What I Didn’t: The biggest flaw of this book was the fact it follows the same timeline as the previous one. Big chunks of it are scenes from the previous book, including the same dialogue. I get that a first-time reader starting with this book instead of the previous one wouldn’t have an issue, but as someone who just finished the previous one before reading this, it was really repetitive and it made the pacing of the story drag quite a lot. These scenes added nothing new to either character and served more to develop Harper and Luke, the main characters from the previous book.
Spoiler
This was most notable at the end - the epilogue is pretty much the reconciliation scene from the previous book, and as such it did not feel like the central focus of the epilogue was Gloria and Aldo. I thought this was disappointing. I know that Lucy Score writes longer epilogues that are available, but I think it would have been nice to have the epilogue be about them and just them.Similarly, the plot at the end felt off.
Spoiler
Their separation at the end felt really forced. I didn’t hate Gloria doing the final actions she felt necessary to gain closure, such as visiting Glenn in prison, but I really didn’t think her reasons for ending things felt believable. It felt very forced and then their reunion felt rushed. On a different note - I don’t know why but I really didn’t like Aldo paying off Glenn’s mother to leave Benevolence.Overall: I really enjoyed the central relationship in this as I thought it was lovely and sweet, but there were big parts of it where I felt like Gloria and Aldo weren’t really the focus of the story. I think there were too many points replicated from the previous book to set up or develop Harper and Luke’s relationship in a way that felt distracting.
Spoiler
My favourite book in the trilogy by far is the third one, and I think it benefits from being set a couple of years later, when both Harper and Luke and Aldo and Gloria are settled in their relationships.Would I Recommend It?: Yes, if you want a small town friends-to-lovers romance with a sweet, lovely couple and a fair amount of angst.
Would I Read Something By The Author Again?: Yes.
Content Warnings: