Rating: 53% | ★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): Interior Design School? Check. Cute house to fix up? Check. Sexy, grumpy neighbor who is going to get in the way of your plans? Check. Unfortunately. Grace Travis has it all figured out. In between finishing school and working a million odd jobs, she’ll get her degree and her dream job. Most importantly, she’ll have a place to belong, something her harsh mother could never make. When an opportunity to fix up—and live in—a little house on the beach comes along, Grace is all in. Until her biggest roadblock moves in next door. Noah Jansen knows how to make a deal. As a real estate developer, he knows when he's found something special. Something he could even call home. Provided he can expand by taking over the house next door--the house with the combative and beautiful woman living in it. With the rules for being neighborly going out the window, Grace and Noah are in an all-out feud. But sometimes, your nemesis can show you that home is always where the heart is. Non-Spoiler Review: I really wanted to love How to Love Your Neighbor. This novel has everything I typically love in romance stories—an enemies-to-lovers trope, a contemporary meet-cute, an idyllic setting—but in the end it was a struggle to keep reading. The characters don't quite mesh together, the story is a little too ambitious for its execution, and the ending is a little too neat. First, the positives: Sullivan doesn't skimp on the interior design details. Grace is a professional interior designer, and it shows in the detail Sullivan pays to the decoration in both Grace's and Noah's homes. It's believable that Grace knows what she's doing, and that level of expertise is always helpful in putting the reader at ease and immersing them in the fictional world. The secondary characters are also quite lovable: Morty (not of Rick and Morty fame, for better or for worse) perfectly fits the curmudgeon-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, Josh is a good counterbalance to Noah, and Rosie is a loyal friend. Sullivan's writing shines best in the moments that involve primary and secondary characters playing off each others' personalities. However, this novel suffers from an odd gait when it comes to plot and to character development. The plot never truly climaxes anywhere; it stays at the same relaxed level throughout the novel, even when Grace and Noah debate their relationship status. Moreover, as the novel progresses, Sullivan continues introducing new aspects of the characters' pasts—aspects and details that would have been best confined to the exposition. In short, it feels as if the reader never truly knows Grace and Noah. New information is constantly unearthed, information that feels critical to know yet odd when introduced in the later stages of the story, as it too often is. That being said, obligatory disclaimer: most readers enjoy this novel greatly! I can't exactly count myself among them, but if you're thinking about picking this novel up, please don't let me stop you. Thank you to St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. How to Love Your Neighbor is out January 18, 2022.
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