Book Review: Not in Love

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Genres: Romance, Chick-Lit

Pages: 384

Wow! I’m too stunned to speak about how awful this book is. If I could give "Not in Love" by Ali Hazelwood zero stars, I would. This book is like the universe’s cruel joke on anyone looking for an actual romance novel. I thought I was in for a steamy love story, but it’s just another erotic book focusing on lust. Yet, it’s marketed as a "romance" novel, and I was fool enough to fall for the trap.

First off, let's talk about the characters. Rue, our female leading character, might as well be a robot. Except for that I've seen more emotion in some robots. Her personality is so flat for a human being!

And then there's Eli, and honestly, he's just obsessed with Rue and does nothing but get horny over the thought of her and her mouth or whatever. Like seriously man, chill the f*** up, that’s not sexy! If I had a dollar for every time Eli was being a total creep, I could probably start my own business. That dude openly said he would have cheated on his ex-wife with Rue… Ew!

The "romance" between these two is nonexistent. Seriously, where is it? There’s no chemistry, no connection, nothing; just two red flags who met randomly via an app for sex. It was like watching two rocks try to f***. All we get is a whole lot of lust, and it was all unbearable.

Was there even a plot? Because I couldn't find one. The story meanders around with no real direction, leaving you wondering what the point of it all is. The entire Kline vs. Harkness drama is a hot mess. I couldn’t care less about it cause it felt so irrelevant. I failed to push myself to the end of this book and had to dnf at 60%, and I was just relieved the struggle was over.

And don't even get me started on the writing style. Switching between first-person and third-person POVs? Really? It's like the author couldn’t decide how to write the story, so she just threw both in there and hoped for the best. And, to me, it didn’t work. The shifts were jarring and made the whole thing feel like a disjointed mess.

To sum it up, Not in Love is a colossal waste of time. I’m absolutely NOT IN LOVE with this book, its robotic characters, its lack of actual romance, and its writing style that feels like a bad experiment. Honestly, I don’t think I’d read anything worse than this book this year.

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