A review by jlboro
From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata

emotional hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is a great slow-burn romance, filled with all the tropes I love: enemies to friends to lovers, forced proximity, nursing the other back to health, and a HEA. And even though a lot of reviews have issues with the MCs not acting their age, I feel like when you are hyper-competitive and live in this bubble world, you’re going to be pretty immature in certain ways, so I didn’t hate it. The emotional anguish that these two go through plot-wise is top tier. There is one spicy scene and it’s fantastic. The epilogue is one of the best and most satisfying I’ve read in a romance in memory. 

However, the book could have more successfully been this long if about 100 pgs of them bickering and blinking would have been spent on them falling in love and Jasmine softening. One more epic spicy scene and it would have been perfection, actually. I also caught myself losing patience with Jasmine’s repetitive and lengthy internal dialog. Because it’s so long and the character development stalls in the middle, I don’t think I would read this again, and that means it’s not a 4.0+ for my personal rating scale. 

If you love contemporary romance though, it will be hard to dislike this book. Heartstrings will be plucked. Tears might be shed. But I’m not sure if the hype is quite there like the ratings would lead you to believe,l. 
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