Rating: ☆☆☆
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: December 5th, 2017
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From subway to Broadway to happily ever after. Modern love in all its thrill, hilarity, and uncertainty has never been so compulsively readable as in New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren’s romantic novel.

Marriages of convenience are so…inconvenient.

For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her, but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions.

Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he’s in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago.

Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves and Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway—in the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting—will Holland and Calvin to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?

CONFLICT ISSUES.

The crux of any good romance is the conflict. That thing that dives into the couple’s lives and either brings them together or makes us all roll our eyes shouting, COMMUNICATE.

I felt COMMUNICATE was the fatal flaw the last 25%.

I’ll move with some positive details first. I really adored this plot and initial set-up. A marriage of convenience? Heck to the yes. I thought that Holland and Calvin had some solid chemistry and cute banter. Things get heated pretty quickly, and I didn’t love the spice. But the flow of the relationship moved with the story and I liked the fast paced nature of it all. Even if some of the stalker portions had my eyes widening.

Baaaaack to my COMMUNICATE rant. The main character, Holland, even acknowledges she’s acting ridiculous, but instead of saying, Hey Calvin, this is how I’m feeling. She goes in the complete opposite direction and I couldn’t believe what I was listening to. By the time the “grand gesture” rolled around I was glad that this was almost over because I was through myself.

The writing as usual, was great, even if I struggled with different aspects. There was a lot of research done to put this book together and I appreciate that as well. Though frustrating, I had a hard time putting it down because it’s easy to get wrapped up in a CL novel.

Overall audience notes:

• Contemporary Romance
• Language: some strong
• Romance: kisses to multiple open door scenes
• Violence: being pushed onto a subway rail

Instagram || Goodreads