Review: The Romantics by Leah Konen
SYNOPSIS:
Gael Brennan is about to have his heart broken when his first big relationship crumbles on the heels of his parents’ painful separation. Love intervenes with the intention of setting things right—but she doesn’t anticipate the intrusion of her dreaded nemesis: the Rebound. Love’s plans for Gael are sidetracked by Cara, Gael’s hot-sauce-wielding “dream girl.” The more Love meddles, the further Gael drifts from the one girl who can help him mend his heart. Soon Love starts breaking all her own rules—and in order to set Gael’s fate back on course, she has to make some tough decisions about what it means to truly care.
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
So this book was cute, but it didn’t quite meet the mark. So first off let me start with what I enjoyed, I loved how fast of a read the story is. A refreshing take on contemporary YA with the story being told from Love’s perspective. As you read, you find out about how Love intervenes and all these cheesy but adorable moments take place. But the story is sold as a rom-com and I have to be completely honest, while I did smile once or twice, I never laughed. There were never any laugh out loud moments or moments where I was blushing from the foolish acts the characters are going through to prove their love for one-another.
And this is where I get to what might be the fatal flaw, Gael spends the majority of the story bouncing back and forth between desperation for love and despair over his parents’ divorce. Outside of these realms, there is no real character depth. While that might not be an issue in some stories, I believe it’s an issue here. The lack of depth really prevented me from connecting to Gael. While I found certain scenes endearing, I was never consumed by the story, I wasn’t hooked, I wasn’t invested in Gael and his love life.
So there was a slight disconnect. The author had moments where she could have grasped humor and ran with it but she seemed to hold back. There are several scenes where she could have really went there and dived into it but the scenes fizzled out instead. I am not sure if this is due to the story being told from Love’s perspective or maybe this is just the author’s writing style. But at the end of the day, I felt short-changed. A cute read, yes. The ending was definitely redeeming in my eyes but the last 20 pages can’t salvage a ‘just-okay’ read.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
