I've been trying to get into the contemporary romance genre lately so I picked up this book, winner of the 2021 GoodReads romance category. As soon as I started it, I found it kind of cheesy, and then immediately thought to myself that maybe I was forcing something that wasn't really me. Maybe I won't ever really like to read contemporary romance.
Sally Rooney's shining glory in this book is that she is able to so clearly distinguish right from wrong, and in doing so, she redeems Love. There is one moment towards the end of the book when Marianne finally stands up for herself in which we can see this very clearly. Rooney said that CWF was a love story but NP is much more so. This is her better novel between the two. It is intricate, it is complex, it is uplifting where her first novel was only depressing. I am excited to read her latest work, Beautiful World, Where are You? It's supposed to be her best yet.
I picked this book up because I'm interested in reading a bit more romance, since all the romance I've actually read is from Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters. While those books are great and undoubtedly one of my favorite classics, I was looking for something more actualized. So I picked up this book thinking I'm going to read some of the best in romance. Sadly, my hopes were thwarted.
This is the second book by Taylor Jenkins Reid that I've read (the first one being Daisy Jones and the Six) and it's, quite literally, a stunner. I was afraid this book was too hyped up, and I went into it feeling a little disappointed because while I was reading it, I felt it was okay, but not great. All of that changes by the end. At first, the character of Evelyn Hugo feels like a caricature. By the end, she's so fleshed out and human that I feel like I know this character better than I know myself.
The Literary Bend 