**Spoilers Ahead, Read On With Caution**
So I’ve never read anything by Penelope Douglas before, and had some pretty good expectations as it seemed up my alley, and also because authors I’ve read and enjoyed also rated it highly. It took a couple days for me to read, as I just couldn’t seem to fully get myself on board with the protagonist, or the bully.
Jared and Tate had been best friends through childhood, until one summer Jared goes to spend time with his dad, and comes back different. Angrier, meaner, callous and no longer interested in being Tate’s friend. Instead he resorts to bullying her. Starting rumours, humiliating her, alienating her from parties and making friends. The start of the book is us witnessing Jared having pulled a prank on Tate with his friend
The issue that I have with this book is that I know I would have enjoyed it, and probably read the sequels, had I read it five years ago. Knowing that this came out in the early twenty-teens, it feels exactly like something I’d have read and absolutely loved. Whereas now, I found it sort of lacking. The plot was quite basic, had all the normal tropes and cliches, and not a lot of character depth either. I found Tate to be annoying as she was very timid and woe-is-me, then she’d be punching people in the face, kneeing balls, and acting the bully herself, only to revert right back. She didn’t feel fully fleshed out, and realised. And really, I thought the same of Jared too. I knew snippets about both, and we got a vague flashback to their shared childhood as besties, but as almost adult people, all I knew was very surface level. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even tell you what colour eyes Tate has, let alone anything else about her.
Something else that didn’t feel right in this story was how quickly the switch flipped from them screaming about how much they hated each other, to constantly saying how they loved each other. It was such a hard change to accept as three quarters of the book is them being somewhat at each others throats without really interacting that much.
Basically, I didn’t really enjoy this as much as I hoped I would, and was left feeling a bit disappointed and underwhelmed for what I got. I enjoy a good enemies to lovers romance, but this book was incredibly timid in that approach, and left me wanting more. I don’t think I’ll be reading any of the other books in the series, or any Penelope Douglas for a while.
BECAUSE BOOKS 