Tag: Jen DeLuca

GIFTED / Today I bring you my review for the romance novel that became pretty popular after it was released. This comedy was published by Berkley Publishing Group on September 3rd 2019 and it has 336 pages.
I want to thank the team from Penguin Random House Global for sending me an e-galley of this novel (in an exchange for an honest review).

About the book:

FROM GOODREADS / All’s faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author, Jen DeLuca.

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon’s family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn’t have time for Emily’s lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she’s in her revealing wench’s costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they’re portraying?

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can’t seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon, or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

Review:

Well Met was pretty popular even before it came out. Booktubers talked about, had showcased their proof copies they were very lucky to get, many of my Goodreads friends also read it, and everyone seemed to love it.

“The best romance comedy of 2019, new hate to love story you will fall in love with” is what they said.
And how it affected me? I expected just that, but in the end I didn’t fall into the wagon of people who loved it oh so much.

To me, it was funny and entertaining book, but nothing more then that.

Maybe it was the Renaissance Faire setting the thing, because we don’t have them where I live, and I found everything about it in this story a bit silly.
I couldn’t understand how characters were taking it so seriously and how big of the deal it was for their town, but I also could not get my head around how everyone was doing all this work for free.
But if I’m being fair, that speaks more about me then about them. I guess they are better people then I am.

The main character Emily was good narrator, but I couldn’t like her as much as I wanted to.
From my perspective, she looked down on so many other characters that it turned me off from appreciating her, and that is where my disconnection from the story began.

I also thought that the love interest, Simon, was ungrateful, so he wasn’t in my “characters I like” circle either.
I mean, all these people were volunteering to make his event happening, and at times he acted like a mean CEO towards them.

I also didn’t get all that love/hate situation, because I didn’t understand why our main characters hated each other in the first place.
It was like they were fighting just for the sake of fighting.

One more thing: characters they were playing at the faire acted so disconnected from their real personalities, that I just couldn’t buy it.

So now when I told you everything I wasn’t a fan of, let me tell you that despite it Well Met was one really entertaining and funny novel and I do see why many people like it.
The writing style was simple and the book can easily be read in one day.

As for me, I read it in 5 days because I picked it up during my reading slump, so maybe that is also why I didn’t love it as much as others did.

However, I don’t regret reading it and I would recommend it to readers who are looking for their next fast paced comedy. I would just warn them not to take it seriously.