Read Me by Lauren Connolly is another BookTok rec that I picked up. It absolutely is not what I typically pick up for romances but it was super cute and I really enjoyed it! The relationship made sense, the MMC literally so good and the FMC, though way over the top, was still fun.
The spice is pretty vanilla. I want to get that out of the way immediately. Like I said, I usually don’t read regular fluff romance so the sex scenes were pretty forgettable for me. The romance was okay. It was heavily one-sided and almost felt instalove if we weren’t told time had passed.
Plot was a bit of a mess because there were so many different storylines crammed together. There was Summer and her stalker drama that was BARELY touched on. It felt almost like oh yeah btw I have a stalker and that was as much knowledge as we received. We have the side story of side character Jaime who is going through rough times at home due to his sexuality. We have the struggle of the local shelter where Cole worked. We have Cole’s dad’s struggle. We have Summer’s mother’s drama. We have Cole’s struggle to become an author. And then the main romance plot line. So much to cram in just to have tiny points/pivots for the story to ding off of to keep going. It was a needless mess that could’ve been trimmed down.
Before I get to what actually pushed this up to 3.5 stars, let me get on with the female main character. Summer was extremely cringe. She never goes into why she’s so dead set against developing a relationship with Cole. We only get that he looks like a bad boy and she doesn’t go for bad boys. Summer has bouts of anxiety but seems surprised about it. We never hear anything about Summer seeing a therapist for her stalker or daddy issues. She’s also super weird about authors, which I honestly do not understand. I mean, I love books (obviously). I am not going to have a freak out over meeting one. I mean, I’ve been a kpop fan and also never had a freak out over that either, so it just felt really weird and, again, cringe. There was something I did like about Summer, though. Or, perhaps related to instead of liked. Despite being very obviously in a relationship, she continually lived in denial, believing it wasn’t anything serious. She continually had one step out of the relationship for fear of being hurt. It felt realistic.
Now, hard turn to MMC Cole. I absolutely loved him. I loved how at ease and natural View Spoiler » I loved how in love he was with Summer. I’m beginning to think that might be my ultimate romance trope. Just give me an mmc that is so wildly in love with the fmc and desperate to prove themselves deserving of love. It was just, ugh so good. It is what made me continue reading and continue thinking about this book after I finished. Despite how in love Cole is with Summer, he is adamant that he respects her choices and will not override them. It is so refreshing compared to other romances where no doesn’t really mean no according to mmc. Things happen and he respects Summer’s decisions, despite not agreeing with them. It was just too endearing.
Sometimes, good characters happen to bad books and I think that’s the case with Read Me by Lauren Connolly. It was a middling book with a good character. I think, if you’re looking for fluff and have Kindle Unlimited, I would recommend this. If you have to purchase the book like I did, maybe don’t.
