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2.75!

“She may have robbed him of his peace of mind, but he still wanted her to have hers. One more fault to add to the humbling business of falling in love, he supposed.��

If you want enjoy this book, manage your expectations because it is not a bad book it's just very different from what Ali Hazelwood usually writes so it is definitely not for her normal target audience. I myself feel like I would have enjoyed this book if I had known what I was going in for. I did try to expect something different when I read the note that its more of an 'Erotic romance' rather than a 'Rom-com' and it made me enjoy the book more and tbh I may change the rating in the future, this is just based on what I felt right now.
This is Hazelwood's most distinct work as of yet. It doesn’t have her super quirky female leads who are as usual oblivious and tiny and it also lacks grumpy, broody male leads. The writing style for this book was so different because the last book that I read by her was 'Bride' and it was so different, this just didn't feel like a book written by Ali Hazelwood at all. She finally took the genre 'New Adult' to her heart because it was so realistic, her characters were very realistic and the whole vibe of the book was more intense rather than fluffy. So, yeah do NOT expect a rom-com.

Rue was our FMC and a very different mc from what the author usually aims for and I didn’t mind her at all she was fun to read about but that was pretty much it. As for Eli, our MMC he was so in love with the Rue, like he was the definition of downbad. The way he would speak about her in his inner monologues or how would be willing to do anything for her but then again that was pretty much it. It for me felt like Eli's whole personality was lusting over Rue and thinking about having sex with her. There was such minimal connection that I felt towards the characters and that almost never happens with her books, even if it does happen I can still enjoy it because of their nature but despite Eli and Rue being more different, mature and realistic than her other character, they still failed to deliver on making me understand or sympathize with them.

Now, I did not mind the erotic theme, I did not know that this book was actually a part of that genre because I really thought that this was just an Ali Hazelwood with the most steam, it was worrying because her smut scenes aren't always well written but here, I must admit some of the scenes were well written and handled well, don’t get me wrong there were cringe scenes but it wasn't her worst, it had some good scenes 😭😭. The romance besides the smut��..I did not care for, truth be told I did not even care for the smutty scenes because there was this lack of connection between the characters and the romance did not feel good. It was also the fact that the romance was overall very insta-lusty and I wasn't a fan of it. The romance also felt very mid because it started of with them being enemies with benefits and the transition into love felt so sudden, I didn’t feel like we got enough time to even process what was going on.

As for the plot, I couldn’t really care for it either.
Its not that I did not enjoy this book, because there were moments that I really enjoyed but most of the time while reading this book, I was so conflicted as to what to think of it and I think if I had a sense of what this book was aiming before I had set all my expectations or if I had known how different it is from her other works before I got this book, I might have had a better experience. I was so sure that it was a stem rom-com with enemies with benefits but failed to see the change that was going to come with it. I can see myself giving this book a 3 but nothing more than that because I enjoyed it that much only but it was a very interesting take and I would like to read more of Ali Hazelwood's books with the same style.
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OMGG A WEEK TILL WE GET ALI'S FIRST DOUBLE POV BOOK WHERE THE FMC'S TITS DEFY GRAVITY APPARENTLY?!?