Problematic Summer Romance
If I thought I loved, Not in Love, then I must have really loved this one. I ate it up faster than Maya eats her Sicilian granita and brioche con gelato for breakfast (it’s now crystal clear to me we’re doing breakfast all wrong in America).
Problematic Summer Romance follows characters introduced in Not in Love. Maya is Eli Killgore’s younger sister; she’s 23. Conor Harkness is Eli’s best friend and partner in business; he’s 38. Suffice it to say, I was cautious about the 15-year age gap with the brother’s best friend trope. But Ali convinced me the whole way through.
Despite not knowing exactly what she wants to “do with her life,” Maya is intelligent, self-aware even when angry (lots of therapy in her past), articulate, and persuasive. She knows what (and who) she wants and it isn’t some unrequited childhood crush that’s creepy. Conor, often bullheaded and extreme when it comes to considering Maya’s “youth,” sometimes comes off as infantilizing in his rejections of her. But here’s the thing: Maya calls him out on all of it. She tells it like it is.
Everything that seemed "problematic" was made logical, and the singular plot point that made this work for me (because honestly, this may not have worked without it) is that Conor and Maya have a much longer, deeper friendship and history than the description or these characters’ slight introduction in the previous book led me to believe.
There’s a dual timeline I wasn’t expecting, proving to readers that these two have been intimately connected emotionally for some three years. Usually a dual timeline in romance drives me batty, mostly because of what I call “the big reveal” factor. It’s when some mysterious event in the past led to the now-disintegrated relationship, and no one, not even the first-person narrator will talk about it. It lasts until 70% through the book and is often less of a big deal than it seems. In this novel, we know there’s a reason Maya and Conor haven’t talked in 10 months, but it’s not such an ominous, looming mystery for us readers. THANK YOU, ALI HAZELWOOD. * Cassie claps *
Another key point I valued was that over time, we realize (at least I did, as a reader), that Conor’s hang-ups with Maya have much less to do with her and more to do with Conor—his childhood, his father’s revolving door of age-inappropriate women, and his fear that attraction to Maya will make him just like the man who raised him. Through this, what we learned, class, is that Cassie swoons for a main male character who is buttoned-up and self-controlled in every area of his life except for when it comes to his woman. Conor Harkness to a tee.
I’ve already mentioned the Sicilian food, but the setting and picturesque “views” of Isola Bella, Mount Etna, and the Ionian Sea took me straight to Italy. (I actually visited in 2016, but Rome and Florence were as far as I made it; now I have new bucket list locations). The destination-wedding subplot was perfection. If you read my review of Heart Strings by Ivy Fairbanks, you’ll remember that I was disappointed about the lack of page-time for characters from Morbidly Yours. I wanted more wedding festivities and friend-group time. Well, this is how it’s done. * she claps again * We get everything we’d ever want for Eli and Rue, Sul and Minami, etc., etc.. The sibling dynamics between Eli and Maya are superb and tender. The discussions of family and children between the main characters made me melt a little. This felt like a true sequel and I’m glad I didn’t skip Not in Love (despite my apprehension due to the volume of sexual content) because it got me here.
I’m gushing. I know. I didn’t think it could happen, but Maya and Conor may have dethroned Adam and Olive (from The Love Hypothesis) from their reigning positions as Hazelwood favorites. Their connection was palpable and I was rooting for them the whole time. Like I said, I loved this.
And yes, I ordered a trophy copy of this for my bookcase already. Order’s in mail, folks.
A few favorite quotes:
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This one has several explicit, open-door romance scenes in it. If you’re a skipper or skimmer, avoid parts of chapters 19, 27, 30, 36, and 42. If found these to be slightly less graphic and descriptive than those in Not in Love though.
