Genre: New Adult, Romance
Publication Date: February 13, 2024
Rating: 3.5 2.5 3 Stars
Goodreads Blurb:
When nineteen-year-old Abbey Bly gets the opportunity to study abroad for a year in London, it’s the perfect chance to finally slip out from under the thumb of her beloved but overbearing retired rock star father. She’s ready to be free, to discover herself—but first off, to meet the girls she’s rooming with. That is, until she arrives at her gorgeous new flat to discover those roommates are actually all boys. Charming, funny, insufferably attractive boys. And off-limits, with a rule against fraternizing between housemates after unwanted drama with the previous girl.
Abbey has never considered herself a rulebreaker. But soon, she’s lying to her father about her living situation and falling for not one, but two men she can’t have: her rugby-player roommate and a broody musician with a girlfriend. Not to mention, her research for school has gotten her tangled in a deeply hidden scandal of a high nobility family, surrounding her in secrets on all sides.
If there’s any hope of Abbey finding love, answers, or a future in London, she’ll have to decide which rules—and hearts—might be worth breaking.
Review:
I couldn’t wait to read this new standalone romance by Elle Kennedy. Not only did it give me hope of a return to the Off-Campus and Briar U style, but it is set in London and it has a love triangle! This sounded so cute, but let’s see how it turned out for me!
What I liked about the book:
1. Obviously, I loved the London aspect of this. I wish we got more of her actually exploring parts of London, but I’ll take what I can get!
2. I loved the dynamic of one girl living in a house with three guys. Even though the love triangle was between one guy in the house and one guy who didn’t live in the house, I love a good roommate hodgepodge, found family.
3. Even though he wasn’t our MMC, I couldn’t help but love Jamie. He was hilarious and genuinely a good person, just a bit of a playboy that needed to meet the right woman who knocked him on his ass. That would be hilarious to read and I totally would if Elle decided to write it 😊
4. I loved the mystery of the Tulley family that ran throughout the book. At times, I kept reading just to see if my predictions of that were true (spoiler alert: they weren’t! Which was fun!)
5. I was screaming at the main character about what she was doing with these two guys for the whole book, and then I realized…I did the same thing at twenty, minus the trip to London. Like…it’s eerily similar. But that’s the beauty of Elle Kennedy: she knows the minds of young people well. It was a bit cathartic to see my own growth from this stage of life, whether I ever wanted to or not lol
What I wasn’t a fan of:
1. There were way too many people in this story and not all of them got enough page time. I felt like Abbey’s best friend (I don’t remember her name) and Abbey’s classmate (I also don’t remember her name) were introduced sparingly when they could have had much bigger roles. Overall, their parts in the story weren’t major and didn’t add anything of value, so I would have rather not had them in the mess of names already established.
2. Ultimately, I felt like there were too many ideas in this book that the characters’ personalities and relationships took such a back seat they weren’t even in the car anymore. If the Ben storyline had been reduced and Abbey’s best friend and classmate had been cut, I feel we could have focused more on the personalities of those in the love triangle and I would have enjoyed this much more.
3. Jack, the MMC, was creepy!! The second conversation they ever had he asked her if she had popped her UK cherry yet. Like, what the fuck?!?!
The things he said to her could have been hot if he was a fully fleshed out character, but with his whole personality being that he looked like Thor, it was just creepy! If someone who was plain looking AND even had a fully fleshed out personality had said these things, he would NOT be the MMC. He would be the weird-ass stalker guy who everyone said to watch out for. The double standard of this is dreadful.
4. Were the Jack and Nate personality pages cut out from the original version of the book? I saw nothing likeable about either of these guys besides their looks. They each had no personality and were definitely not worth competing with anyone, let alone each other. She had zero chemistry with either of them in my opinion, but I guess that makes sense since she had no personality either 🤷🏼♀️
5. I completely hated the rushed romantic wrap up in the last ten minutes of the book. Abbey literally kept flipflopping between the two equally cardboard guys until the last pages, despite “settling it” several times before then. I get this may be realistic, buuuuuut I 👏 DON’T 👏 READ 👏 ROMANCE 👏 FOR 👏 REALISM! I want the blushes, the butterflies, the tingles. I don’t want a trip down memory lane to a time in my life when I was most insecure and, honestly, quite stupid.
3 stars because I still had a good time reading it and I really loved Jamie.
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