Betting on You

I was recommended this book because I asked for “hot kissing scenes but no sex” and it partially delivered. There wasn't sex. But there was definitely a lot of talk about it.

When I first started this book I was worried they were going to turn Bailey's quirks into some flaw that needed to be changed. I was gonna rage and then DNF this so hard! Luckily they didn't go that route, so I'm happy to say I finished until the end.

The story has promise but I feel like it was too long and had too many side stories that didn't go anywhere. There are so many things we could have explored more like Charlie's OCD/anxiety about germs. And unfortunately I feel like we spent too much time on the whole divorced parent thing. Look, I'm a kid of divorce, but you want your mom to be happy but you don't want her to be happy? And then we find out her soon-to-be-husband was also a child of divorce but didn't think twice before proposing infront of Bailey's mom, but also doesn't apologize for it?. Are we even trying?

This would have been a 4 stars if the ending was solid, but it wasn't. It felt rushed and unearned. If you're gonna give me a 3rd act breakup, Charlie doesn't get to just show up at prom with a cat and it's okay. I also feel like the characters wasted too much time on this fake-dating thing. Surprisingly, though, I didn't care about all the Taylor Swift references. But to fair I probably missed half of them.

So, it was okay. The kissing scenes could have been hotter and the ending could have been better. I don't think I'd re-read this again, and I'd be hesitant to recommend it to someone else, so just under 4 for me.