Published by Gallery Books on December 2018
Genres: Adult Fiction,
Romance Pages: 384
Format: eBook Source: Publisher Buy on Amazon Goodreads
Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.
So when a routine university function turns into a black tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic.
But online dating isn’t for the faint of heart. While the guys are inundated with quality matches and potential dates, Millie’s first profile attempt garners nothing but dick pics and creepers. Enter “Catherine”—Millie’s fictional profile persona, in whose make-believe shoes she can be more vulnerable than she’s ever been in person. Soon “Catherine” and Reid strike up a digital pen-pal-ship...but Millie can’t resist temptation in real life, either. Soon, Millie will have to face her worst fear—intimacy—or risk losing her best friend, forever.
Review:
Christina Lauren is one of those authors that is usually a sure thing. Their writing is solid, characters realistic and romance organic. So I was super eager to get my greedy hands on their newest romance book.
I loved the friends. I love Millie and Reid’s group of guy friends. I grew up with mostly guy friends and their text messages and conversations really reminded me of them. It was super easy to hear each voice in my head.
I also loved Millie’s job and all of the guys’ jobs actually. Millie herself was super interesting and Reid was handsome and kinda nerdy.
So why wasn’t I in love with this book?
For some reason, the chemistry felt off for me. Millie and Reid might have had some fun chemistry to start off, but as the book progressed, I felt like they actually lost chemistry. The emails Millie as her alter ego and Reid were writing to each other felt drawn out and kind of dull. I thought they had more chemistry together IRL and even though some of the plot focuses on Millie’s inability to open up in person, her emails to Reid weren’t earth shattering. I wanted more from each other them.
And then the story itself. Millie is pretending to be someone else because at first she thinks Reid will figure it out and they’ll have a laugh about it. But when it quickly becomes clear that Reid isn’t figuring it out, and she then starts sleeping with Reid IRL more, what does she think is going to happen? I was pretty annoyed with her for a while. If the roles were reversed and Reid was in Millie’s place, I would be furious that he was pretending to be someone else and manipulating her by sleeping with her in real life and romancing her on the side.
This isn’t a case of Cyrano de Bergerac. It’s a little more creepy.
So while I like the idea of the story and the characters on a whole, the book didn’t romance me the way I had hoped it would.
I’m still a solid fan of these authors though. I think maybe the story just wasn’t for me.