Evie Lang's life is in shambles. On the heels of losing her beloved aunt, she's unceremoniously fired from her poetry professorship. Lacking income and inspiration, she has no idea how to move forward - until hope arrives in the form of a surprising letter.
Auntie Hảo has left her house in San Francisco to Evie. The catch? To inherit, she must go on a pre-arranged matchmaking tour in Việt Nam.
Adam Quyền has a chip on his shoulder. He's working for his sister's elite matchmaking company and desperate to prove himself, so when she challenges him to join the first tour, he reluctantly agrees.
Adam thinks Evie is chaotic and unpredictable. Evie thinks Adam is grumpy and uptight. But their chemistry is undeniable, their animosity charged with attraction. Will they find their perfect match in the last place they thought to look?
An enemies-to-lovers romcom for everyone who's lost their faith in love.
Comment: This book hasn't been long in the pile (it was also only published last year) and I've decided to give it a go now because it fit one of the topics in a challenge I'm doing with one of my GR groups. I was also convinced by the idea this would be an enemies to lovers trope.
The gorgeous cover of this book is certainly a good marketing tool to make this story seem wonderful and I will confirm that all the scenes set in Vietnam and the descriptions of the idyllic scenarios do match this ideal. In fact, everything related to Vietnam's culture and tourism made me curious and I've looked at some of the places mentioned. Sadly to me, the rest of the book wasn't as appealing.
The story isn't really bad, only it didn't captivate me in the way I imagined. I let myself be led by the cover and the labels and thought this would be a sweet romance, like many others, about two people who are misunderstood by those around them or who aren't as their best and a chance situations makes it possible for them to meet and to find ways for a relationship between them to work. Usually, this is a tactic we find in most romance books with similar patterns to this one, whether the content is more serious or lighter.
While reading, this notion didn't really work out for me, though, and that happened mainly because the main characters weren't very appealing to me, I struggled a little to like them or to feel some sort of connection with them. I suppose this is mostly due to the writing and not the characters alone, since I have had other books with similar characters and I could empathize easily with characters in those other books. As a couple, Evie and Adam were cute and clearly found a connection, but when the conflicts towards the end happen, you know, the old tactic to judge if they really are in love,I wasn't that bothered if they didn't make it as a couple... I knew they would have a HEA but if they didn't, I wouldn't mind it.
As individuals, they read differently to me. I didn't mind Adam and could understand the weight on him, especially the pressure form his father and culture, to see him succeed but a lot of his life is linked to his family's money. Of course he learns what he should by the end of the book, but for the most part, he isn't that approachable and seems too set on carry on a situation where he is not happy. I can understand the family duty and the idea of pleasing his father, even if that is not practical nor emotionally sustainable but even knowing this, and realizing he isn't a great person sometimes, I still understood the author's choice.
In regards to Evie, I wasn't as certain. She is a poet and to be very honest, I don't enough poets who are only poets to have any kind of idea of what this could mean to her, professionally, but the way her character is written makes it seem as if Evie would never be at ease in her own skin. She works in academia and is not doing well, and from the start, this situation and her personality just didn't mix enough to me to feel much connection with her. I think in part is is due to writing choices; I think the author could still have given us an introspective and unsure Evie, which I'd likely sympathize with, but with other things different... as a heroine, she just didn't win me over.
Thinking about how everything was put together makes me conclude this story was a bit too focused on certain elements and those might not have been the best. Or, perhaps, this story should have been labeled differently. It still has the ingredients to be a romance novel, but that cover and the labels can be misleading; I'd say this is more a contemplative plot than a cute/light one. The writing style simply doesn't give the vibe this would ever be fun and light and sweet. I'd not re-read this for fun, as I might other similarly marketed novels.
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