Meet Cute

I went into this Rom-Com expecting a light, hopefully humourous read with some heart too. I liked the idea of a woman meeting up with her childhood crush years after a dispute back in college.

This book had bits of heart (and loss) and Hunting tried for some mystery involving Dax's kid sister, Emme (whose story line takes over the plot a bit too much). But the plot was predictable with a capital P with the nefarious plot surrounding Emme being obvious to everyone except the two highly educated lawyers. There were also some plot points that weren't believable, the main one left me questioning if real-life conservators have such deep involvement with their charges' lives. Hmm.

Initially, I liked the enemies to lovers trope (even though the enemy aspect was decidedly one-sided and silly), but I couldn't get past the flat characters and how Hunting relied on 'telling instead of showing'. Actually, it was more 'overthinking instead of showing' since readers are held hostage inside the minds of Kailyn and Dax (not great places to be as they hum and haw over trivial things). We're told about Dax and Kailyn's chemistry and there are some steamy scenes, but they were sometimes cringey and the forced dialogue lacked emotion and romance. I wanted to yell, just stop talking!

So why, you may ask, did I pick this book if it's not my cuppa tea? I'm drawn to lighter Rom-Coms for audiobooks because their plots tend to be simpler and they have a smaller cast of characters to keep track of as I'm commuting to work. But there's simple and there's too simple. My issues are solely with the story since the two narrators were quite skilled (particularly Holly Warren who changed the intonations of her voice to suit the female characters she was portraying).

I probably should have DNF'd this book and moved on to something else. This was just too simple and missed the mark in too many areas.

My Rating: 2 stars

Author: Helena Hunting

Genre: Romance

Type and Source: eAudiobook from public library

Publisher: Hachette Audio

First Published: April 8, 2019

Narrators: Holly Warren, Teddy Hamilton

Run Time: 9 hours, 18 minutes

Opening Line: Eight Years Ago -- The key to success is to visualize it.

Book Description from GoodReads: The New York Times bestselling author of Pucked and The Good Luck Charm delivers a Hollywood happily-ever-after where a famous heartthrob falls for his ultimate fangirl in this sexy standalone romantic comedy.

Talk about an embarrassing introduction. On her first day of law school, Kailyn ran - quite literally - into the actor she crushed on as a teenager, ending with him sprawled on top of her. Mortified to discover the Daxton Hughes was also a student in her class, her embarrassment over their meet-cute quickly turned into a friendship she never expected. Of course, she never saw his betrayal coming either...

Now, eight years later, Dax is in her office asking for legal advice. Despite her anger, Kailyn can't help feeling sorry for the devastated man who just became sole guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister. But when her boss gets wind of Kailyn's new celebrity client, there's even more at stake than Dax's custody issues: if she gets Dax to work at their firm, she'll be promoted to partner.

The more time Kailyn spends with Dax and his sister, the more she starts to feel like a family, and the more she realizes the chemistry they had all those years ago is as fresh as ever. But will they be able to forgive the mistakes of the past, or will one betrayal lead to another?