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A review by laurenabayne
Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister
lighthearted
medium-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
I'm not a fan of The Bachelor, but I was definitely a fan of this.
The love story between Murray and Lily was just so good. The mutual pining over the years, the recognition of different kinds of love, the dual POV with Lily set entirely in the past and Murray set in the present. These two deeply flawed, conniving, lovely human beings have a beautiful story of finding each other again after loss. From Lily's need to reinvent herself after the loss of her husband to Murray's desire to make everything perfect for the love of his life, to the point of rigging an entire season of a reality show, it was just stunning. I loved the meta looks at reality TV, and McAlister's research acumen is in full force here.
The best part of the book was definitely Lily's POV in the flashbacks. What a stand-out narrative device! The quasi-emotional cheating never really bothered me, especially since we already know these characters are morally grey.
I went into this book cold; I had never read anything by this author. While reading, I found myself getting confused a lot by the sheer number of side characters, especially since we are supposed to care about these other romances as well. It wasn't until I was so frustrated that I looked it up and found out this was the third in a series! It's pretty ambitious of McAlister to set three romances in the exact same time frame (we love subplots), but it was definitely confusing at times and took away from the central relationship. I'm sure for long-time fans of this series, seeing an alternate perspective to beloved characters was wonderful, but I found it distracting. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. Maybe I'm the morally grey one here.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.
The love story between Murray and Lily was just so good. The mutual pining over the years, the recognition of different kinds of love, the dual POV with Lily set entirely in the past and Murray set in the present. These two deeply flawed, conniving, lovely human beings have a beautiful story of finding each other again after loss. From Lily's need to reinvent herself after the loss of her husband to Murray's desire to make everything perfect for the love of his life, to the point of rigging an entire season of a reality show, it was just stunning. I loved the meta looks at reality TV, and McAlister's research acumen is in full force here.
The best part of the book was definitely Lily's POV in the flashbacks. What a stand-out narrative device! The quasi-emotional cheating never really bothered me, especially since we already know these characters are morally grey.
I went into this book cold; I had never read anything by this author. While reading, I found myself getting confused a lot by the sheer number of side characters, especially since we are supposed to care about these other romances as well. It wasn't until I was so frustrated that I looked it up and found out this was the third in a series! It's pretty ambitious of McAlister to set three romances in the exact same time frame (we love subplots), but it was definitely confusing at times and took away from the central relationship. I'm sure for long-time fans of this series, seeing an alternate perspective to beloved characters was wonderful, but I found it distracting. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. Maybe I'm the morally grey one here.
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.