Our Stop – my first 1-Star rating of the year

Arc provided by Publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Buy it on: AMAZON

☆ ONE STAR

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. I really, really wanted to like this book. I mean, look at the cover art! It’s bright, gorgeous and paired with the premise seems like the perfect rom-com in a book. Sadly, there were just one too many things in this book that didn’t quite gel for me. I’ve read some reviews that are a complete 180 to mine though, so perhaps it was just me who didn’t get the FEELS with this book.

This story follows always-unorganised Nadia and completely organised Daniel in an opposites-attract romance. When Daniel decides that his unrequited love for Nadia, the breathtakingly beautiful woman on the train, has gone on long enough he posts an ad in the local newspaper’s Missed Connections. To his surprise, Nadia replies! What ensues is a slow-burn (emphasis on sloooooow) romance about two people who connect through Missed Connection posts and a sequence of convenient near-misses, before they finally meet.

So what prompted me to give this seemingly delightful rom-com my first 1-Star rating of the year? It was boringly slow and a bit vulgar. While I adore the idea of writing messages and falling in love without meeting (see my reviews of The Flat Share and Top Secret), this story just didn’t do it for me. The messages seemed a bit contrite and the chemistry just wasn’t there.

Daniel always seemed to be more involved in the relationship (or… their Missed Connection) while Nadia never seemed to make up her mind. Quite frankly, almost nothing had happened at the half-way point in the book and I was sooo close to a DNF. If this wasn’t an ARC read I would have quit. As it was an ARC, I felt obliged to finish but certainly didn’t warm up to the book.

While I didn’t feel the chemistry between Nadia and Daniel, I’ve still enjoyed books in the past that had this problem. I’ll admit, I generally  prefer character-driven stories. Usually an action-driven plot can still make up for this but unfortunately this book was just so slow and hardly got anywhere. Plus, the humour was quite offensive to me and vulgar. I just couldn’t relate and this is what stopped me from rating this book 2-Stars.

“The most memorable bloke was Period Pete, a friend of a friend, who liked performing oral sex on menstruating women, and who the three (of us) collectively decided must have an undiagnosed iron deficiency.” 

CHARACTERS:

Nadia – A perpetually late, unorganised and intelligent woman. This intelligence is surmised from the fact that she worked in a robotics lab. Her emotional intelligence however was a bit stunted. She got petty and jealous over the smallest things and pined for her ex when she still apparently didn’t care for him. She was still a kind, considerate person though.

Daniel – He was a shy, romantic guy that had a secret level of confidence that was quite contradictory to his shy nature. His initial thought to message in the Missed Connections was sweet and that’s probably the adjective that best describes him: sweet.

I have to admit, I feel absolutely awful about writing this review and have been putting it off for a while. I’ve genuinely tried to find something to say about what I enjoyed in this book. Lorenzo was the only character that I actually enjoyed reading about. He was straight-forward, snarky and a total junkie. His advice and comments were actually funny and I enjoyed the chapters that involved him.

 While there were issues with pacing and character development during this book, it was still well-written in the sense that the sentences flowed easily. I would consider reading another book by this author in future, as it could have just been these particular characters that I didn’t enjoy and an odd bout of weird humour.

// have you read this book? what causes you to rate a book 1-Star? //

Jen