Book Lovers - Emily Henry - ★.½

AUTHOR: Emily Henry

GENRE: RomCom

PUBLICATION DATE: May 3, 2022.

RATING: 1.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A steamy romcom about two book lovers. The ‘book about books’ factor tempted me, but this turned out to be absolutely not my kind of read with its overdependence on tropes and needless spice and an abundance of clichés.. I should have listened to my friends’ warnings about this book. 😬 Outlier review yet again.

Plot Preview:

Thirty-two-year-old Nora, a literary agent whose life revolves around books, hates that she is destined to be the cliched career-loving city girl whom men ditch in order to find their true soulmate. But she is dedicated to her work and to her younger sister Libby, and for the latter, she can do anything, including going to the small town of Sunshine Falls for a month-long getaway. The last person Nora expects to run into in a place so far from New York is her nemesis Charlie, a brooding editor from back in the city. The two keep bumping into each other… (You can fill in the rest of the blanks.)

The story comes to us in Nora’s first-person perspective.

So! I had heard a lot of Emily Henry as a great romance writer, but hadn’t read any of her books yet as I am not too much into romance novels these days. But the Goodreads Community Favorites Challenge has a “Sweet and Spicy” achievement, for which all qualifying books are from romance. Of all the options it offered, I chose to read this book. *long sad sigh…* I forgot that two reliable friends had one-starred this book a couple of years ago. *smacks forehead!*

Bookish Yays:

📚 The introductory monologue and later random interludes about bookish tropes.

📚 Finally a book where the female lead loves city life over country life, and also doesn’t want kids and is unapologetic about it. Two tiny rays of sunshine in an otherwise abysmal character development.

Bookish Nays:

🙄 As a romcom: okayish com at times, pathetic rom throughout. On the whole, this doesn’t offer romcom feels. It’s more like a family drama.

🙄 The bond between the sisters seems good at the start but soon we see each sister micromanaging the other one's life, though they both are adult and independent - Yeesh!

🙄 The poorly-developed leads. Nora whines too much about things that needn’t be moaned about. Charlie has the personality of a wet dishcloth. Libby is too immature to be convincing as a married mother of two. Not once did I feel the characters acting their age. All behaved like hormonal teens.

🙄 Every single secondary character fit into some cliché or the other.

🙄 The repetitive mention of the physical attributes of the characters, and appeal/lack thereof. Who the hell talks of anatomical attraction during a serious discussion?

🙄 No common sense, neither in any character nor in the plot. Just a truckload of stereotypes.

🙄 Too much frivolous and explicit steam. (Nay for me. Might be a Yay for you. I would have marked this a “Mixed Bag” had the lead-up to the spicy scenes been convincing and had there been no cringeworthy lines such as "All my softest parts [were] against his hardest". 😂)

🙄 The enemies-to-lovers trope – not at all well-written. Not enough enmity to justify the tag. Barely any time for the rivalry to be established before they turn into “lusters” and soon enough, lovers.

🙄 Miscommunication. In almost every conversation!

🙄 Secret keeping. Tons of it!

🙄 Unrealistic exaggerated emotions, whether positive or negative.

🙄 Forced humour and banter of the kind you would never find in the real world.

All in all, this wasn’t for me. I am okay with predictability and serious themes in romances, but the poor character development, the insta romance, the barely-there plot, and the clichés ensured that I was more annoyed than amused by this work.

I’ve chucked out all other Emily Henry books from my TBR. I am not brave enough to do this again. To those who love her, I’m absolutely happy for you. But I’ll seek my happiness elsewhere like a true book lover.

1.5 stars, almost all for the bookish stuff.

This was a library read.