Review: Strawberry Kisses by Charlie Novak
SYNOPSIS:
Patrick’s To Do List:
1. Tell family I’m gay
2. Make giant cake for anniversary party
3. Convince Connor to be my fake boyfriend for the weekend
4. Try to keep my hands off Connor
5. Make sure Connor doesn’t find out I’ve been in love with him for the last three years
Connor’s Steps for Success:
1. Perfect pole routine for Chrome Stars
2. Continue search for perfect music
3. Survive weekend with Patrick’s family without mauling him while sharing a bed
4. Prevent feelings from exploding like a glitter bomb
5. Make sure Patrick doesn’t find out I’ve been in love with him forever
REVIEW:
One of my reading goals this year is to read more new-to-me authors. So I stumbled across this story and after reading the synopsis, it sounded like a delightfully charming, witty read. Unfortunately this book was a miss for me and left me feeling all sorts of meh and bored.
The story starts off extremely slow, the first several chapters are filled with endlessly boring paragraphs of internal monologue and descriptions, neither contribute anything to the story. After getting to some actual dialogue and the storyline, I thought things were going to turn around. And they did for a brief moment. They plot out their fake date weekend and there were some cute moments that had me swooning. But the story was still plagued with these paragraph long ramblings of inner monologue that were repetitious and annoying.
Past that, the story didn’t really have anything to carry it. Patrick and Connor have both secretly been in love with each other for three years. Their weekend away was perfect, they were head over heels for each other and their love was palpable. But there was still 30-40% of the story left. In which they spend the majority of that time being afraid to confess their feelings. Which isn’t sustainable, they came back and were still affectionate and there was literally no reason for either character to have any doubt. They had insecurities but there was nothing to support their uncertainty and worries.
So the story dragged on and then wrapped up with a nice little bow. The ending was predictable and cute but the story didn’t really have much substance to carry it and honestly it could have probably been 100 pages shorter. I liked the concept and synopsis, but the few tender moments weren’t enough to carry the poor execution.
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