Rating: 86% | B | ★★★★ Warnings: + Sexual content Synopsis (from Goodreads): Three years ago, Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen were the brightest literary stars on the horizon, their cowritten books topping bestseller lists. But on the heels of their greatest success, they ended their partnership on bad terms, for reasons neither would divulge to the public. They haven't spoken since, and never planned to, except they have one final book due on contract. Facing crossroads in their personal and professional lives, they're forced to reunite. The last thing they ever thought they'd do again is hole up in the tiny Florida town where they wrote their previous book, trying to finish a new manuscript quickly and painlessly. Working through the reasons they've hated each other for the past three years isn't easy, especially not while writing a romantic novel. While passion and prose push them closer together in the Florida heat, Katrina and Nathan will learn that relationships, like writing, sometimes take a few rough drafts before they get it right. Spoiler-Free Review: The process of acquiring this book taught me much about myself—specifically, about my pettiness. First NetGalley rejected me for an ARC of The Roughest Draft. Then Edelweiss+. I was fully prepared to boycott this book until my dying day in retaliation (because of course Berkley Romance would notice my absence and bend themselves over backwards to mollify me!) but my mind kept straying back to it every time I found myself inexplicably shopping on bookstore websites again. (We've all been there: you black out for a few moments, a few keystrokes, and suddenly you've made a $60 purchase for three hardbacks.) It was as if Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka took one look at my folded arms and said, "We can fix that." The Roughest Draft is a rich tale that boasts a beating heart in each chapter—a tale spun with rich, golden metaphors that makes this novel so much more than its central story. This is a novel for writers, by writers—it is not only a love story between writers but also a love letter from writers to their craft, no matter how capricious it is. The Post-it flags in my copy are almost opaque, built one on top of each other, so many of them forced to share consecutive pages because of how many quotes I was desperate to remind myself to savor again. Of course, as most of the Goodreads reviews will tell you, this is an unconventional love story. There are some gray areas when it comes to fidelity, and I wish Katrina and Nathan's romance had been more developed in general, but overall The Roughest Draft is a page-turner sure to satisfy romance fans. And, most importantly of all, the cover is sweat-resistant—a quality I value beyond words. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) Plot (27/30): Beginning (10/10), Middle (10/10), and End (7/10) The Roughest Draft begins as a mystery: who are Katrina and Nathan, and why did they split up? These questions buoy the first and second acts, their answers unfolding slowly and richly, like pulling at tufts of cotton candy on a cone and savoring the taste of the sugar melting on your tongue. The pacing of the novel is measured and careful; the authors are cognizant of the need to strike a balance between the past and the present, making sure not to reveal too much to the reader all at once. But by virtue of the blurb and of pure marketing, most readers will expect a happy ending, and it is this predictability that makes the last act fall short of perfect. The oft-maligned, last-minute romantic catastrophe between the love interests feels too artificial to hold any weight, damaging the pacing and making the epilogue less triumphant than it should be. I also wish that more of Nathan and Katrina's origins—what their partnership was like in its infancy—had been explored; there is a need for the reader to slightly suspend their disbelief, given that so much of the story focuses on a single isolated crisis. Characters (25/30) Development (12/15) and Allure (13/15) While Katrina and Nathan complete their character arcs—they come to terms with what they feel for each other and what writing means to each of them—neither seem to overcome fantastical odds. This perhaps links back to the haunting lack of stakes in this novel, that the expectation of a happy ending is what ultimately drags parts of the story down. While the reader will certainly rejoice in Katrina and Nathan's victory over their own fears, it does not feel as though they conquered any challenges they were in severe danger of failing. Similarly, the likability of the characters falls just short of perfect. While Katrina is an even-heeled character, both as a character and in her appeal to the reader, Nathan has odd moments of arrogance that detracts from the reader's ability to root for him. Readers love a cocky hero, but Nathan toes a fine line between cocky and incorrigibly infuriating. All in all, however, the characters in this novel insist on their humanity: they make mistakes, they run from them, and they try their hardest to own up to them. Writing (17/20) Descriptions (9/10) and Pacing (8/10) Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka's prose is gorgeous and precise; their skills are especially powerful and discernible when they detail the writer's mind—how the writer sees books as learning experiences, how writing consumes all aspects of the writer's life, how easy it is to teeter on the edge of obscurity. The authors breathe a voice into sensations that tend to fade into the fabric of ordinary life. I studied their expressions—Katrina's smile—with the resentful half disbelief reserved for cruelties you knew fate might deal you but hoped it wouldn't, then I locked my phone. Closure / Set-Up (17/20) Logic (7/10) and Closure (10/10) It's owing to the weaker third act that the ending doesn't feel quite as solid as the rest of the novel, but it is nonetheless a fitting conclusion to a lovely novel. It's refreshing to see Nathan and Katrina as themselves—the versions of themselves they've spent the entire novel trying to unbury. The future seems to glimmer before them, and as any author knows, the world hungers for new stories. I stare out, following the black horizon. It reaches forever.
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