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pagesplotsandpints 's review for:
Accidentally Amy
by Lynn Painter
Read Completed 3/28/23 | 1.5 stars. But rounding down because wow, I hated this.
I became a Lynn Painter fan after reading MR. WRONG NUMBER and then very recently, THE LOVE WAGER. I was totally up for more adult romcom vibes but ACCIDENTALLY AMY was not it. I only finished this book because I've already DNFed way too many books to quit another one and this audiobook was short, but this was so cringe-worthy in so many ways. Spoiler at the end of my rant list.
The book is called "ACCIDENTALLY AMY" and the two have a meet cute in Starbucks when Izzy takes Amy's cup when she fails to retrieve it, then spills it on Blake. There's about one small portion where he actaually thinks her name is Amy (like literally a half a chapter??) and then, that's it. That's the only time in the whole book the mistaken identity comes into play. MR. WRONG NUMBER did this concept WAY better. So why even title it this? It was misleading and this should have either really been used for the plot or not been the title of the book.
The dialogue was horribly unbearable. Izzy was annoying and over-the-top. She's supposed to be "not like the other girls" and not afraid to word vomit all over Blake but she came over as super immature. She kept calling him "Mr. Chest", which if I had had a physical book, I would have literally thrown it across the room. People were annoyed by her over use of "gawwwwd" but I couldn't stand Mr. Chest one more time. The texting was weird and uncomfortable. There are weird jokes and I don't know how Blake fell for this because she was so all over the place and acting like a high schooler.
This was kind of like a forbidden workplace romance and yet almost none of it takes place at work.... I was ready for some glorious tension at work where they flirted but the book immediately took them to hanging out and texting outside of work like, no worries, we're just friends. But Izzy's inner monologue about him is constantly lusting after his body. Okay chill girl, at least pretend to be friends like the book says. There was no tension, no build up, no chemistry.
The characters have zero development or backstory. I know it's a romance -- we don't need a million pages of world-building, but we don't know anything about either of these characters. At all. Blake had a whole fiancé that apparently he didn't love and we hear nothing about her! He can magically work on cars and replace a whole alternator which the average guy cannot do but we hear nothing about how he learned to work on cars and gained this ability. Izzy rents apartments from her grandparents but we learn nothing about them. The grandparents rent to all of her cousins and we learn nothing about THEM either (and it's like a college dorm with these kids, honestly. Playing ridiculous immature games, stealing each other's stuff, walking into each other's apartments but not in a nice "oh we're family" way. Just annoying and intrusive).
Izzy gets hired at this company and finds out Blake is her boss so they can't be together because of "the rules." And the ONLY conflict at the end of the book is that things are getting restructured and Izzy's getting laid off. Why did they hire her then??? Wouldn't they know they're doing a major overhaul of the company and laying off so many people? So she gets mad that Blake knew and didn't tell her. And of course he didn't know because the document he receives only has employee ID numbers and not names? That's dumb. So that's it. That's the only conflict. Because they have no personalities, I guess.
I just really hated this book. There was so much potential and so much of it didn't make sense... and not in the way a normal romcom doesn't make sense 😅 Mostly, I couldn't stand the dialogue which was the whole book because there IS NO PLOT. It's just the characters texting each other and hanging out on screen. There are zero supporting characters to round out the book and give it depth, either. Izzy talks about the lady who hired her maybe recommending her for all these jobs (that she magically gets offers for because Blake has so much pull *eye roll*) but how would I know because we see her for like 10 seconds twice. Her cousins were annoying and there for a random annoying game and to barge into each other's apartments and that's it. Blake's boss sounded like he was strict but then Blake calls him his friend? And we never really see him either. Neither of these people have friends, parents, siblings, neighbors that they talk to?? Even just for the sake of the book, PLEASE give us more characters.
I also love Shadow and Bone but I weirdly hated how much Izzy named her cat The Darkling. And she mentioned how she goes into the local bookstore to see the new releases every Tuesday and yet all Darkling references were to the TV show and not the books…. If she was a book person, wouldn’t we at least reference the books? I know people may like the show and not the books, but still. It felt like more inconsistencies with no support and more cringe worthy dialogue to go with it.
I'm so disappointed with this read. I don't know how this was so wildly different than MR. WRONG NUMBER and THE LOVE WAGER.
I became a Lynn Painter fan after reading MR. WRONG NUMBER and then very recently, THE LOVE WAGER. I was totally up for more adult romcom vibes but ACCIDENTALLY AMY was not it. I only finished this book because I've already DNFed way too many books to quit another one and this audiobook was short, but this was so cringe-worthy in so many ways. Spoiler at the end of my rant list.
The book is called "ACCIDENTALLY AMY" and the two have a meet cute in Starbucks when Izzy takes Amy's cup when she fails to retrieve it, then spills it on Blake. There's about one small portion where he actaually thinks her name is Amy (like literally a half a chapter??) and then, that's it. That's the only time in the whole book the mistaken identity comes into play. MR. WRONG NUMBER did this concept WAY better. So why even title it this? It was misleading and this should have either really been used for the plot or not been the title of the book.
The dialogue was horribly unbearable. Izzy was annoying and over-the-top. She's supposed to be "not like the other girls" and not afraid to word vomit all over Blake but she came over as super immature. She kept calling him "Mr. Chest", which if I had had a physical book, I would have literally thrown it across the room. People were annoyed by her over use of "gawwwwd" but I couldn't stand Mr. Chest one more time. The texting was weird and uncomfortable. There are weird jokes and I don't know how Blake fell for this because she was so all over the place and acting like a high schooler.
This was kind of like a forbidden workplace romance and yet almost none of it takes place at work.... I was ready for some glorious tension at work where they flirted but the book immediately took them to hanging out and texting outside of work like, no worries, we're just friends. But Izzy's inner monologue about him is constantly lusting after his body. Okay chill girl, at least pretend to be friends like the book says. There was no tension, no build up, no chemistry.
The characters have zero development or backstory. I know it's a romance -- we don't need a million pages of world-building, but we don't know anything about either of these characters. At all. Blake had a whole fiancé that apparently he didn't love and we hear nothing about her! He can magically work on cars and replace a whole alternator which the average guy cannot do but we hear nothing about how he learned to work on cars and gained this ability. Izzy rents apartments from her grandparents but we learn nothing about them. The grandparents rent to all of her cousins and we learn nothing about THEM either (and it's like a college dorm with these kids, honestly. Playing ridiculous immature games, stealing each other's stuff, walking into each other's apartments but not in a nice "oh we're family" way. Just annoying and intrusive).
Izzy gets hired at this company and finds out Blake is her boss so they can't be together because of "the rules." And the ONLY conflict at the end of the book is that things are getting restructured and Izzy's getting laid off. Why did they hire her then??? Wouldn't they know they're doing a major overhaul of the company and laying off so many people? So she gets mad that Blake knew and didn't tell her. And of course he didn't know because the document he receives only has employee ID numbers and not names? That's dumb. So that's it. That's the only conflict. Because they have no personalities, I guess.
I just really hated this book. There was so much potential and so much of it didn't make sense... and not in the way a normal romcom doesn't make sense 😅 Mostly, I couldn't stand the dialogue which was the whole book because there IS NO PLOT. It's just the characters texting each other and hanging out on screen. There are zero supporting characters to round out the book and give it depth, either. Izzy talks about the lady who hired her maybe recommending her for all these jobs (that she magically gets offers for because Blake has so much pull *eye roll*) but how would I know because we see her for like 10 seconds twice. Her cousins were annoying and there for a random annoying game and to barge into each other's apartments and that's it. Blake's boss sounded like he was strict but then Blake calls him his friend? And we never really see him either. Neither of these people have friends, parents, siblings, neighbors that they talk to?? Even just for the sake of the book, PLEASE give us more characters.
I also love Shadow and Bone but I weirdly hated how much Izzy named her cat The Darkling. And she mentioned how she goes into the local bookstore to see the new releases every Tuesday and yet all Darkling references were to the TV show and not the books…. If she was a book person, wouldn’t we at least reference the books? I know people may like the show and not the books, but still. It felt like more inconsistencies with no support and more cringe worthy dialogue to go with it.
I'm so disappointed with this read. I don't know how this was so wildly different than MR. WRONG NUMBER and THE LOVE WAGER.