This book was awesome and awful and beautiful and ugly at the same time. I finished it in one sitting. And I have feelings. I’m just not entirely sure what these feelings are. I felt schizophrenic reading it, because I teeter-tottered throughout the book. But a review has to convey more than utter confusion, so let me try to be eloquent.

***First I should mention… there is cheating. I’m cool with that (in books!), but just a heads-up if you’re not.***

The Pros & Cons

My likes: I loved that both characters are difficult to love. I hate run-of-the-mill heroes and heroines… that’s just not real life. And sure, we often read for escapism, but I write “real-life romance” so I appreciated reading one as well. But this one is painfully real at times.

Missed chances, mixed signals, hot moments, emotional outbursts, a loooooooonggg drawn out torturous friendship, and frustrating memories of a dead “hero” who was far from the ideal hubby. It had me in an emotional twist, and I wanted to fling my phone at the wall sometimes. But I kept on reading.

There are sweet elements here similar to Ahern’s “P.S. I Love You” with the instructions from beyond the grave… but then the notes reveal awful characteristics. There are elements here of sweet romance… but then it gets really filthy. Oh, and there’s a shocking twist that was a true WTF????? moment. The book cover and blurb led me to believe it would be a sweet romance with maybe a racy moment or two, so as I read on, I was like “OMG, what am I reading?”… But I kept on reading.

From a stylistic point of view, it’s worthwhile to note a lot of the key moments happen in the past before the actual story starts, and the jumps were jarring sometimes. I can see some readers having an issue with it, but I’m a trooper who can roll with the punches… so I kept on reading.

What I didn’t much care for were the overly-heavy FSOG comparisons. The writing, the storyline, and the author’s talent — all great on its own merit, and so it all would have easily survived without that FSOG shadow. Sure, most erotica these days would get compared to that, but in this case it was just *too* on the nose… still, I kept on reading.

And eventually, finally, I finished it.

Conclusion

I must say I loved that the book was unpredictable, that it was unique, and needs to be in its own category. That’s high praise. And I must mention here again that I don’t mind tropes (in this case “friends-to-lovers” & “best-friend’s-ex”)… once there’s something different about it, and this one definitely brings “different” to the table. Dollops of different.

But I must also admit it was a difficult read at times. There’s a LOT to unpack here. You need to prepare yourself before you go in. You will be frustrated. You will have feelings. I’ll let you decide exactly what those feelings are.

Overall, I did enjoy it, and rated it highly (for me) BUT I don’t know if I can handle another by the author anytime soon. This romance was RAW… I think I need to read about murder and crime after this! 🙂

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