I love you . . . but what if I can't love your life?
Ava is sick of online dating. She's always trusted her own instincts over an algorithm, anyway, and she wants a break from it all. So when she signs up to a semi-silent, anonymous writing retreat in glorious Italy, love is the last thing on her mind.
Until she meets a handsome stranger. . . All she knows is that he's funny, he's kind and - she soon learns - he's great in bed. He's equally smitten, and after a whirlwind, intoxicating affair, they pledge their love without even knowing each other's real names.
But when they return home, reality hits. They're both driven mad by each other's weird quirks and annoying habits, from his eccentric, naked-sauna-loving family to her terribly behaved, shirt-shredding dog. As disaster follows disaster, it seems that while they love each other, they just can't love each other's lives. Can they overcome their differences to find one life, together?
Review: The meet cute in this novel was so sweet and I really loved the idea of two writers getting together in this way. I also really loved the humour and the writing style. Sophie Kinsella just has a natural talent when it comes to her writing. She has such a great sense of humour and its something that really appeals to me.
That's really where the things I liked in this book stop though. It's taken me a while to actually pen my feelings on this novel. I actually posted a video review of this when I first read it because I found it so hard to believe I didn't like something from one of my favourite authors but this book just really angered me and I just couldn't enjoy it like any other Sophie Kinsella novel.
Ava should have been a character that I really enjoyed spending this book with. I love the idea that she rescues everything i hr life, books, her dog, her furniture. She is a very sustainable character sure but she is hugely selfish and judgmental. She just doesn't seem prepared to bend at all in her relationships whether that's in her love life or in her friendship group. I ADORED her friendship group and would happily read more about them in future novels, however Ava really got to me in that she felt that Matt had to change in order to make their relationship work and she had no ideas that she could change or what compromise actually means. It actually just seems really sexist to me.
Matt and Ava go into their relationship agreeing that they will have baggage. They decide that they don't want to bring any of their previous relationship drama with them but that means, in this case, that they don't tell each other anything about their past. I love the idea of no baggage but it just can't work in real life, you need to know what someone has been through in order to grow a relationship with them. Sure we can have work acquaintances that we only know as their work persona but if you want any kind of deep and meaningful relationship with someone then you need to know what makes them tick and what makes them vulnerable.
I actually felt quite sorry for Matt at points in this book. His friendship group were also very true to life. A lot less likable that Ava's friendship group but still very true to life. Matt had a lot of pressure from his career and from his parents and so I really hoped his relationship with Ava would be a lovely and romantic thing for him but she wanted him to change everything about himself and so I found myself rooting for the relationship to fail and not for love to win!
Another thing that really struck me with the book is that the covers are so different UK to US and the way Matt is described in the book really fits both of these covers but Ava doesn't look like she is described in the book at all. So I know that writers doesn't really have a say in their covers but it's just another thing that bothered me when it came to reading the book and I read the audio so I didn't really even see the cover when I was reading!
This was such a hard review to write because I love Sophie Kinsella so much but I just couldn't draw a lot of positives from this book and so it is not something I recommend.
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