A struggling writer is forced to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with the man who gave her book a very public one-star rating in this fresh romantic comedy from Laura Hankin.
Natalie and Rob couldn’t have less in common. Nat’s a messy artist, and Rob’s a rigid academic. The only thing they share is their devotion to their respective best friends—who just got engaged. Still, unexpected chemistry has Natalie cautiously optimistic about being maid of honor to Rob’s best man.
Until, minutes before the ceremony, Nat learns that Rob wrote a one-star review of her new novel, which has them both reeling: Nat from imposter syndrome, and Rob over the reason he needed to write it.
When the reception ends, these two opposites hope they’ll never meet again. But, as they slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone. Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and how your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match.
After all, even the truest love stories sometimes need a bit of rewriting.
Natalie and Rob couldn’t have less in common. Nat’s a messy artist, and Rob’s a rigid academic. The only thing they share is their devotion to their respective best friends—who just got engaged. Still, unexpected chemistry has Natalie cautiously optimistic about being maid of honor to Rob’s best man.
Until, minutes before the ceremony, Nat learns that Rob wrote a one-star review of her new novel, which has them both reeling: Nat from imposter syndrome, and Rob over the reason he needed to write it.
When the reception ends, these two opposites hope they’ll never meet again. But, as they slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone. Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and how your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match.
After all, even the truest love stories sometimes need a bit of rewriting.
Title: One-Star Rommance
Author: Laura Hankin
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Expected Publication Date: June 18, 2024
Review:
Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinion expressed here are my own.
Natalie is a budding writer. Rob is an academic. Thrown together for their best friends' wedding, they are forced to interact despite seemingly hating each other. When Natalie finds out Rob gave her book a one-star review, she is determined to never like him. But over their years from their 20s to their 30s they get thrown together over and over again and find what they thought was making them enemies was actually an attraction they might not be able to avoid.
I loved the idea of this book. Two people who couldn't be more different continuously thrown together only to find they can't stay away. A perfect enemies to friends to lovers trope. And also a those who are meant to be will be. Because despite their years apart, and the relationships those years bring, they always end up back in each other's orbit.
The pacing in this book was a medium pace. I was neither drawn to pick it up and continue reading nor was I disliking it. There's a lot of humor used in the book as well as sarcasm, which may or may not be easily understood by the reader. This is my first book by this author and I thought her writing was good. I liked the dual POV but then the author snuck in third person omniscient POV from a side characters and that was just really weird. Also the third person POV sometimes made it hard to realize whose POV I was actually reading and took me out of the story trying to figure it out. Given the jumps in time, I felt like this needed to be more clear and it was very frustrating at times that it was not.
Natalie was a fairly relatable character. I did find her a bit whiny and really wanted her to take hold of her life which seemed all over the place. It was like she was constantly having trouble becoming an adult. I also found her obsession with Gabby, her best friend, a little odd. Her life kind of revolved around Gabby and how she could always keep them being friends despite them forming their own lives as they get older. And she doesn't take any kind of responsibility for her actions but likes to think all the bad things that happen to her and due to outside forces she cannot control. In fact, she creates these situations on her own and it's not until the end of the book that we see her shift into understanding the need to take hold of your own life. It seems the point of Natalie's character was to show how you can only rely on yourself, but it took a super long time for Natalie to come to that conclusions and felt a bit dragged out.
I liked Rob's character. He was extremely pragmatic. And the fact that he was willing to accept a relationship which he thought of as love but was certainly not was a testament to the damage caused by his relationship with his father. You can see he has never received praise from the man and that has caused him to too easily accept a life he truly doesn't want and is not happy with.
Their romance was a very slow burn. But I will say, I never truly felt the pull between them. I just felt like they were always angry at each other and much of the time for no reason. Natalie carried her grudge of Rob's one star review but didn't take responsibility for what she actually wrote in the book and how it might affect others. The romance definitely didn't feel like the central plot to this book, which I kind of wanted it to be given the enemies to lovers trope.
The plot line rumbled along throughout most of the book and I felt like I just kept waiting and waiting for something to happen between Rob and Natalie which I know was the point but it felt a bit drawn out. I knew there would be something huge that would bring them together at some point. I wasn't thrilled with what it was. I cannot imagine the plot turn that happened would be the reason these two would finally realize they wanted each other. Maybe it was the "you only have one life" and "you never know what might happen" vibe that did it but it wasn't completely clear.
Overall, this was a cute read. It's a commentary on how to navigate the shifts in life as you get older. It touches on friendships, love, loss, Dementia, cancer, and the pandemic as it's told over a 10 year time span. This one will be good for an easy and fast beach or pool read for the summer.
Author:
Laura Hankin is the author of HAPPY & YOU KNOW IT, A SPECIAL PLACE FOR WOMEN, and the upcoming THE DAYDREAMS. She's written for outlets like McSweeney's and HuffPost, while her musical comedy has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more. She lives in Washington, DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day. Contact her on Instagram/Twitter: @LauraHankin or Tiktok: @laura_hankin
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