“Nothing good ever came from right-swiping on a guy holding a fish on a dating app. Double red flags if said guy’s name was Todd.”
Plot 4/5
For the plot of this book, I gave it a four out of five. I liked the whole concept of the best friend’s brother trope, and overall, the story itself wasn’t bad. I didn’t feel myself connecting to it as I did with the other twisted books, but there was nothing with the plot that really stood out to me as being great or bad.
Structure 4/5
The structure pretty much gets the same exact rating as the plot. Again, nothing felt too rushed or forced. It just felt pretty standard to me. It also helped me that this story was part of a bigger story, so I knew about the characters already, and I already knew about the place they were living and how they were living.
Spoilers begin here!
Characters 5/5
Here’s where things get a little controversial for me. I gave the characters a two out of five mostly because, towards the end of the book, I hated Josh Chen. Now, I know this is probably going to be extremely controversial, but he did not meet the mark for me. I was especially disappointed because Josh is the name of my fiancé, so I really, really wanted to like this. However, during their fight towards the end, I thought his behavior was absolutely unacceptable. So now I did add a slight spoiler warning at the beginning of this review, so this is part of the review where there will be a spoiler because I need to vent. Okay, last chance. If you haven’t read it or you don’t want spoilers, this is it. So they had their fight because Jules stole from him and lied to him, which was the big problem. She came out and said that she messed up right away and he knew that she came right to him after everything. I understand he might not believe her because, again, she did just lie to him. But as a person, I would like to think that if this is the first time something like this happens, and the person seems really genuinely sorry, I’d be upset, but I would forgive them. She also returned everything she took. For him to go and then have sex with her and mid having sex telling her, “Remember when I said I forgive you, I lied,” and she starts crying. I was like, absofreakinglutly not. It felt very much assault to me and not justifiable at all. I was livid reading this and felt awful for Jules.
“Everyone changes. Without change, we might as well be dead.”
Feeling 2/5
For the feels of this book, I gave it also a two out of five. I felt very bad for Jules, and I felt very uncomfortable, which really isn’t a feeling I like to experience when I’m reading, especially when there is smut involved. I also have really no empathy for Josh. Maybe I’m just being a little too hard on him, but I cannot get past how terribly he treated Jules at the end. The only person I feel bad for or any emotion is Jules.
Spice 3/5
The whole concept of the book was that Jules and Josh were basically enemies with benefits, so there was a good bit of spice in the book. There was also a little bit more kinky interaction between the two, like bondage, which was pretty fun.
Overall 3.5/5
Overall, I gave this book a 3.5 out of five. I know I’m so sad to rate this one so harshly, and honestly, for me personally, this was a 2. I’m trying to keep my opinions MOSTLY to myself to help others decide if this is a book for them. For me, I just couldn’t forgive Josh after his TERRIBLE actions with Jules when she came clean. I felt so gross reading that part and couldn’t get rid of that feeling for the rest of the book. However, this might just be me. I know a lot of people who really like this book, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
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