The Shippers by Katherine Center

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance
Content: 

 

After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.
 

  

I enjoyed the heck out of this book even though I had some issues with it. The main character, JoJo was very self-centered and oblivious a lot of them time, and she could have ruined the whole thing for me, but there were times where I saw her better qualities peek out. Like when she saw her dad for who he really was and helped him learn how to be a better person. She gave her dad a lot of grace; more than most of us would and it's what saved him. Of course that was just a subplot of the book. 

I enjoyed the main plot despite Jojo being immature and blind to things that were staring her right in the face. I felt that she should have been able to figure out why Cooper left for four years and didn't talk to her, among other things. But somehow despite that this book worked for me. 

I enjoyed the dynamic between the characters and the friends to lovers aspect of the story. Cooper was easy to fall in love with, which made we wonder why JoJo was so clueless about him. Some people do pick the wrong kind of people to date, fall for, and marry. Some people are smart academically and professionally but lack sense in their personal lives. JoJo was like that.

As usual for romance, there were some miscommunications and twists. The miscommunications were annoying, but at least some of the time the characters tried to communicate things, They just wouldn't always listen to each other. I pretty much saw every little twist in this book coming, so there were no surprises, but I enjoyed it anyway. Overall, I enjoy Katherine Center's writing style. It always pulls me right in and I get really engrossed in the story until the end. 

 

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.