Review: Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis

Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis

on September 2021
Pages: 336
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
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In this romantic and heartwarming novel, two strangers meet in chance circumstances during a blizzard and spend one perfect evening together, thinking they’ll never see each other again. But fate seems to have different plans.

On a snowy evening in March, 30-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone. All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear.

The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again, but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence. With plenty of charming twists and turns and Lia Louis’s “bold, standout voice” (Gillian McAllister, author of The Good Sister), Eight Perfect Hours is a gorgeously crafted novel that will make you believe in the power of fate

Eight Perfect Hours is a romantic comedy about a girl who meets a handsome stranger in the middle of a snowstorm crisis and then… never gets his number. Fast forward weeks later and behold! He shows up in her life and maybe it’s fate pushing them together?

I really wanted to like Eight Perfect Hours more than I did. The first part of the book went really quickly and was filled with cute romance and special connections between Noelle and Sam who meet stuck on a highway that is shut down due to a snowstorm. She needs a phone charger and sits in his car and gets to talking with him. Sparks fly. But of course Noelle doesn’t get his number and he doesn’t offer it (hmmm, red flag?) and she goes back to her sleepy life and he disappears. Were they cute together? Absolutely. Was there chemistry? Yes! Situational cuteness is also at an all-time high in this part as they share food and drink out of a nearby food truck, Sam runs to someone’s rescue and Noelle is a cute and mysterious mess when they meet.

So what happened?

Honestly, I think it was Noelle. And this is more of a problem I have with heroines of this type. They’re a friggin mess. Noelle is cute but is living her life for someone else. She feels (and makes herself) trapped beyond her circumstance, never standing up for herself, letting her brother walk all over her. Her ex doctor boyfriend is back in town, shows up and she just believes everything he tells her even though historically he has been a big dick. And I think that’s actually the real problem I have with Eight Perfect Hours. I didn’t like the heroine. I am not a fan of women being too much their own problem and then even by the end of the book, while she did finally grow as a character, it still seemed like she was too weak to stand on her own.

I dunno. The plot is easy to follow and the writing is easy to read. It’s a good beach book, something you take on vacation to relax and get lost in someone else’s problems.

Sam is slightly problematic as well. Turns out there is a reason he doesn’t give her his number and it’s a very good one. Noelle of course is obsessed with him, acting more like a teenager than a real adult. And Sam is oh-torn! between his obligations and his attraction to her.

Sorry, I’m overall disappointed.

I did finish the book and I’m glad I did because I was interested in knowing how it was going to resolve itself. And I think people who like romantic comedies where the woman is a little hot-mess-can’t-stand-up-forherself-but-will-eventually will enjoy this one. I just couldn’t really get behind these two characters and their romance.