(book review)

It could be a perfect romance book because of a wonderful list of tropes: fake dating, one bad, ex-lovers, from enemies to lovers etc. But not that time. Here is what the annotation gives us: Two exes. One pact. Could this holiday change everything? Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year, they take a holiday from their lives to drink far too much wine with their favorite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth, because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone. But the cottage is for sale, so this is the last time they’ll all be here together. They can’t bear to break their best friends’ hearts, so they’ll fake it for one more week. But how can you pretend to be in love – and get away with it – in front of the people who know you best?

I started my acquaintance with the author with ‘Book Lovers’ and it was not a classic rom-com, but it was fun and cool. Therefore, after reading the summary of this pink candy, I expected to get complete lightness, joy and pleasure.

Spoiler: this did not happen.

Harriet was sure that she was living the life of her dreams and would soon become a successful neurosurgeon, that all difficulties were temporary and would not get in the way of her goal, but during the flight on the plane to her “happy place” she realized that she was burned out and hoped to reboot after a long-awaited rest. Also we have five more people who are looking forward to this holiday and none of them are happy too but they are connected by one desire to rest, swim and get sunburn.

However, not everything is so easy and carefree; the taste of saltiness is felt on the tongue from the first pages of reading, and not from the sea. As soon as we get to the cottage, the dreams of the usual annual vacation are destroyed for almost everyone in the company. It is clear that the six friends came there not just to meet again, but also to find themselves, and for this to have a long conversation near the fire with a glass of wine would be enough. However, throughout the book I had the feeling that none of them know each other and do not know how to communicate. Of course, we get flashbacks from Wayne and Harriet’s childhood to understand why one is not confident in himself and constantly emphasizes that he is stupid and not cool enough for Harriet, and why the other constantly seeks to save everyone, smooth over corners, is afraid to disappoint others and transfers any topic or conversation from herself to someone else. But on the third day of their vacation, the text becomes oversaturated with problems and Sabrina’s attempts to save this vacation, which is starting to become the worst in everyone’s life, because none of them can hear each other. On the fourth day, I, as a reader, began to feel superfluous in their company. On the fifth day, everyone quarreled; on the sixth, they tried to establish relations, but that’s the end of the book. In the epilogue, Harriet and Wayne are happy again, but what is with their other friends and half-strangers for us is unknown.

Personally, for me, this book became unjustified expectations and disappointment; I did not feel sympathy for any of the characters and only closed the book with an exhalation of “finally.” Under the bright pink cover is a very sad book where everyone is traumatized and unhappy. My rating is 8/10.