Book Lovers by Emily Henry

 

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Romance, Women's Fiction
Content: Strong Language; Multiple love scenes all rather descriptive

 

Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

  

I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular opinion but I was really disappointed in this book. It's the first Emily Henry book I've read, and I've heard so many good things about her books. Maybe this wasn't the best one to start with, I don't know, but I had a hard time relating to the characters in this book. The romance was ok, I liked the characters together but the love interest, Charlie was kind of bland in some ways. However, I liked him better than I liked Nora. I enjoyed the banter they had through emails but I feel like the time jump between their first meeting and the next contact between them was too large. It almost felt like something was missing. 

For the most part this felt more like women's fiction than romance. The romance was there but there was a lot of sibling stuff added into the book, so much so that it almost overshadowed the romance for me. There was a weird dynamic between the sisters that was unhealthy, and for most of the book I didn't think it would be addressed. In the end it was, and I think that was the best part of the whole book. Nora treated her sister like she was her child. She acted like an overprotective mother to her, and I had a hard time with her because of it. She thought she had to protect her sister from everything and sacrifice everything for her sister. For most of the book it seemed like her sister was oblivious and ungrateful. At times in the book, the sister did some things that I felt were unacceptable. I understood where she was coming from, but I didn't think she went about things in the right way. I like the way things played out regarding this in the end, but I didn't enjoy reading up to that point. 

I have one other Emily Henry book on my to-read list, and I might give it a try since so many people love this author, but I'm going to wait a while.