*Spoiler free*
When her partner of over a decade suddenly ends things, Laurie is left reeling—not only because they work at the same law firm and she has to see him every day. Her once perfect life is in shambles and the thought of dating again in the age of Tinder is nothing short of horrifying. When news of her ex’s pregnant girlfriend hits the office grapevine, taking the humiliation lying down is not an option. Then a chance encounter in a broken-down elevator with the office playboy opens up a new possibility. Jamie Carter doesn’t believe in love, but he needs a respectable, steady girlfriend to impress their bosses. Laurie wants a hot new man to give the rumor mill something else to talk about. It’s the perfect proposition: a fauxmance played out on social media, with strategically staged photographs and a specific end date in mind. With the plan hatched, Laurie and Jamie begin to flaunt their new couple status, to the astonishment—and jealousy—of their friends and colleagues. But there’s a fine line between pretending to be in love and actually falling for your charming, handsome fake boyfriend…
A fake dating, possible enemies-to-lovers, office story. This definitely, definitely sounded like something I wanted to pick up. Plus, a character who doesn’t believe in love and the other character starting to feel like their fake relationship is really real is right up my alley. This book sounded like something I would really like and I wanted to give it a shot!
I really, really hate to say that I didn’t really like this book. It really wasn’t for me. There were just too many things that I wasn’t a fan of and I ended up not really liking it.
Alright, to start off, I felt like Laurie and Jamie had basically no chemistry. I felt like there was nothing between but mild friendship. Their relationship did take a while to develop, which I liked because I got to see their relationship progress, but even at the end I couldn’t fully feel their connection. At some point towards the middle, I was even thinking they might just end up as friends. Which I was fine with, but this is romance book haha.
I also found myself kind of bored. This book has a leisurely pace, which isn’t a bad thing, but it just takes so long for things to get going and to happen. I just felt like passed the slow enough mark but just a bit.
Also with the slow pace, I felt like there was a lot of things going on. It wasn’t that they were jammed packed in there, but it felt like a lot of aspects were mentioned, when it could have been better to focus on just a couple. I think it would have made the emotional and character development stronger.
With this slow pace though, there was they dragging out of the relationships. I liked Laurie’s friendship with Emily. There was a lot of time for Laurie to work through her feelings and see them progress in a natural way.
There was instances where the author would write out “haha” to indicate that a character was laughing. I know it’s kind of hypocritical to say I didn’t like it, since I do it so much here, but I felt like it felt so awkward.
Ah, I really don’t want to say I hate this book, but I’m really frustrated with it. It really wasn’t for me. The pace was too slow, the characters didn’t have enough chemistry for me, and I felt bored at a lot of parts. This book really wasn’t for me.
If I Never Met You comes out March 24, 2020! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy of your own!
Thank you for reading!
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