Information:
- Author: Kelsey Rodkey
- Genre: Romance, Contemporary
- Page Count: 352
- Year Published: 2021
Read This if You Like:
- Romcoms
- Enemies-to-Lovers
- Insta-Love
- Warring Businesses
- Books about books(tores)
- Somewhat unlikable main characters
- More focus on family
- Pink covers
Spoiler-Free Summary:
Madeline Moore’s favorite place has always been Books & Moore, the independent bookstore owned by her family. And she is determined to take over the store from her aunt, Astrid, when she returns from college. But currently, there’s a few problems in her life. To begin, Madeline’s mother, a movie star who is constantly abandoning her family, has just returned to stay with Madeline, and she doesn’t know if her mom is going to stay for good or just leave them again. And then there’s the fact that a new location of Prologue, the popular chain bookstore, has just appeared across the street from Books & Moore, and Madaline is fed up with having all their loyal customers abandoning her store for the big cooperation-made place. Soon, an all-out bookstore war starts between Madeline and Jasper, the annoying employee who Madaline believes is out to ruin her life. And even if Jasper’s sort of handsome, there’s no way that Madeleine will ever see him as anything more than a rival. Right?
Review/Opinions:
This book sounded amazing when I first found out about it- I was just starting to read YA romance, and an enemies-to-lovers story focusing on bookstores was a really cool idea, in my opinion. Plot twist- it sat unread on my bookshelf for months, and I barely even touched it. Then I finally decided to just read the book and get it over with, the story being my first male-female romance in months (as I read a lot of books with same-gender couples, since they are generally less generic.) So, anyway, I read this book, and overall, it was… fine. It definitely wasn’t one of my favorite romances, but it wasn’t too awful either. It was just… fine.
Most of the issues in this book came from the fact that Madeline wasn’t the greatest main character. Personally, while in general I love enemies-to-lovers, it becomes one of the worst tropes when paired with an unlikable character or love interest. And this is exactly what happened with this book- Madeline frequently gets angry at everything and everyone just to achieve her goals. And she is way too determined to save her bookstore. Yes, I do like woman characters who are high achieving and perseverant. But Madeline was a little too determined. If I could write one line of dialogue from her perspective that sums up her entire character, it’s “I’m the best, you’ll never win.” These kind of whiny, overly determined characters are my least favorite part of enemies-to-lovers because it escalates the conflict too much, and it was sad that this was how Madeline was written, it ended up dragging the book and made me get angry at her character.
The majority of the first half of the book didn’t even focus too much on the bookstore rivalry or the romance- it mainly focused on Madeline’s relationship with her family. As described in my summary, Madeline’s mom returned to stay with the family even though she constantly breaks her promises of not abandoning them again. This plot dominates most of the book- and it’s not even mentioned in the official book blurb. The actual summary of the book makes it look like this is solely an enemies-to-lovers story, and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that there’s a huge family story in there too. However, I did enjoy how much Madeline’s family was included in the story- YA in general focuses more on romance and teen friendships than families, so it was great to see them have a large role in Madeline’s story. On a smaller and more personal grievance, I had trouble keeping track of everyone’s role in the family- I actually thought Astrid was Madeline’s older sister or something until page 120 or so, when I finally realized she was Madeline’s aunt.
And then there’s the actual romance. For starters, it was awkwardly paced- as said in my previous paragraph, the first part of the book focused more on the parts with Madeline’s family than the romance. And guess what happens around page 150? Madeline and Jasper are still enemies, but an incident happens, Jasper and Madeline start talking to each other, and they kiss. They just go straight from being enemies to lovers, no time as friends. Yes, I prefer stories with less of a slow burn, but this one just escalated way too quickly, especially because just minutes ago Jasper and Madeline were fighting. Also, Jasper was essentially the love interest whose most important trait is his beauty. Madeline is saying he looks hot even before their bookstore war escalates, giving this story more insta-love vibes. This story really can’t decide if it wants to be slow burn or have the leads fall in love as soon as possible. Plus, Madeline and Jasper weren’t even the best couple- they weren’t awful, but they didn’t have great chemistry or really cute vibes. However, I did like their little book war, it was probably the most fun part of the book, and I was entertained how far they would go to sabotage each other.
There were also a couple of little details that I enjoyed. The main thing I liked was the ending- while Madeline and Jasper are technically still together, they have to figure out how they’ll continue their relationship in the future, especially because the book takes place in the summer before college for both Madeline and Jasper. It did leave a bit of a more open ending, but it added some emotional weight. There was also some good humor- while a lot of the dialogue was cringy in a teen-romcom movie way, some of the scenes had a bunch of laughable parts. And on a non-story note, the cover is also cute- I can’t resist a romance with a light pink cover, especially if it has books on it.
So overall, while this book had many of issues with its pacing and romance, it still was a fun, light enemies-to-lovers story. However, while it had enjoyable parts, I most likely won’t be rereading this book or looking at anything else from this author.
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