I was told by my book club that I absolutely HAD to finish this book before our next meeting so we could discuss it (even though it wasn’t even the book we picked for this month… haha). So, I put in my headphones and listened. I don’t think this novel blew my mind like some of the other books I’ve read this year, but it definitely was such a sweet romance novel that really touched my heart. 

Basically our plot is that Maddie’s brother just died and left her letters and instructions to spread his ashes across the states he’d never travelled to, but he wants his best friend, Dominic, to go with her. Maddie definitely thinks Dom is the enemy even though the dude literally just chills every single time she tries to start a fight. It felt very one-sided, this enemies-to-lovers trope, so I didn’t really get hooked on that. Visiting each state was super fun (I definitely have more on my own travel bucket list now), but I thought the huge time jumps were weird and unnecessary. Like they’d visit one start in spring, go to two in the winter, and maybe one in summer. By the time the novel ended, it had been two years since Maddie’s brother’s death. I guess the time jumps were for feasibility with work and overcoming grief, but it felt odd to me. 

With our main characters, Dom is honestly an angel and I want to wrap his responsible self into a hug. He and his twin brothers were my favorite (I also really liked Rosalind), but with Maddie? I don’t know what it is, but she irked the heck out of me. Okay, I do know what it is: that girl acted SO immature. It felt extremely unbelievable to me that a 26 (27?) year-old would act as childish as she did. Maybe it’s just because I’m at a different time in my life, but Maddie was annoying a lot of the time. She jumped to conclusions and shut people out over literal semantics. It was very hard for me to get emotionally invested in her and Dom’s relationship when she kept acting like a 13-year-old girl. 

As for the writing style, it was so fun and light and fluffy. Very easy to read and super easy to binge. I liked how full the world felt and how much went into this novel. Despite my lack of love for Maddie, I really did like the depth given to the MCs and their emotions. I think Lauren Connolly did a fantastic job and has a writing style that I’d read any day. 

So, the steamy/spicy scenes that everyone keeps talking about? They are indeed graphic. I’m not sure I really liked them in the context of this novel though because so much of this book is spent without graphic smutty scenes that the intense ones that were thrown into a couple chapters in the middle felt out of place. That’s just my opinion, though. 

Overall, I thought this was a fun, cutesy romance novel that brings you on the roadtrip of a lifetime. I do think that some of the characters acted really immature for their age and that the spicy scenes felt out of place (maybe because of that same character’s immaturity?). Other than those two things, though, I enjoyed all of this novel and felt like it went by way quicker than 450 ish pages normally goes by. Solid 4/5 stars. 

Source: Book of the Month

(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)