This reads like garbage fanfiction.

I'll never hold against the book that it's a cliché so-called enemies to lovers romance (they find each other hot from the get-go but their "hatred" exists because of bad first impressions that could have been cleared up from day 1 by ~ communicating ~) but the writing I can't let slide... The inner dialogue from both characters is very heavy-handed and filled with "He does this. She makes him feel xyz. This is bad. He can't help it. She's so attractive, he's already hard." or "She feels something in her chest. Why does he act like this? He looks at her like xyz. She refuses to think about it". No sense of mystery, no depth, everything predictable, everything spelled out at all times, zero "show, don't tell" to be found. The plot is no better, this could all have been an email.

Honestly I was just bored, the romance never made me swoon and the smut wasn't even hot 💀

it's a mid, mid, mid book

started off strong, 4-star level of strong but quickly i realized two things:

1. i don't like dual pov books. this one isn't my first but it finally clicked for me. i don't want to be in a man's head, i don't want to know his thoughts, i don't want to hear how hot he finds the FMC, how attractive she is to him. it's almost repulsive to me. i Want him to feel that way but i only want to know through Her eyes.
2. you can really feel that the author drafted each beat the main characters needed to hit and where. he/she is hot, i may not only hate him/her i think i feel more, it's a crush, it's deeper than that, it's love, etc. it's way too transparent and way too synchronized between the two of them. romantic books are already predictable enough but this really removed any sense of mystery, of wondering, of reading between lines. and both characters knew/guessed how the other felt too! it killed the tension.

by the third act, i was emotionally checked out. i didn't feel any emotions for the characters and i felt that their romantic relationship fell completely flat when there was more of a spark earlier on.

not the excellence of people we meet on vacation but leagues above book lovers.

this book had me hooked and i kept looking forward to the next scene between daphne and miles - the chemistry was good! and the sexual tension! the vulnerability! the friendship!

but i have some complaints (spoilers ahead): i do feel like the book could have been edited a bit more. for example, miles "circling daphne's wrists and caressing her veins with his fingers", miles smelling like "ginger and woodsmoke", those things are said A Lot throughout the book. sure he does do this a lot, sure he will always "naturally" smell like this... but do we have to hear about it so much? if we do, aren't there other ways to word it? is there really a need to mention his smell all the time? another thing: the loop of "oh i'm attracted to him, there's sexual tension between us, we hook up, we can't do this because of... reasons (unclear), let's be friends, oh i'm still so attracted to him, the sexual tension between us is killing me, we hook up again, we can't do this because... our friendship has become too precious to us, let's just be friends, oh i'm still so attracted to him, the sexual tension is still so there, we have sex, we fall into a typical miscommunication trope that keeps us apart", it just felt weirdly repetitive, especially the second time around, and oddly the main characters never mention this loop they're in? they seem unaware of how inevitable their hooking up seems to be? i understood why they stopped themselves in the car, they couldn't risk losing their friendship, it meant too much to them, they needed it too much, okay sure, but at the same time it felt like a forced way to stall the relationship. though timeline-wise, them getting seriously together within two months of really knowing each other would have made me cringe. so i guess there isn't a right answer here.

as this is my third emily henry book, i also do start to see similarities between her works: the opinionated and vaguely guiding best friend, the spunky little sister, the loving but sometimes-strained older sibling-younger sibling relationship, the main character in need of therapy because of trauma linked to one or two parents, the strained relationship between a main character and their dad, the in-need-of-a-home-and-of-a-sense-of-belonging 30-something main character, the romance set in a small town over one summer, etc. it's not necessarily a bad thing but it does remove any sense of surprise for me as a reader of this story.

miles felt too good to be true, too perfect, too almost-immediately involuntarily (?) flirty (so i was sold chemisty-wise but not entirely sold on him as an interesting layered mmc) but then emily henry gives him depth and trauma and i sort of understood what his childhood and teens were like i think (it was giving jennette mccurdy and her mom) but every time the characters talked about how it was still affecting him, how it still influences his behavior now i was left a bit confused? it felt like we were told those things but never shown? like except for that one thing in the third act (which even that emily henry kinda lessened after revealing there was some miscommunication/misunderstanding there), he always seemed like a great friend, an amazing best friend, a good brother, we were shown that, and i still don't understand what it really means when we're told miles doesn't know how to "trust his own feelings". like what does that mean? and how did he have an unhealthy (because of her and her family) yet lasting and so healthy enough relationship with petra before?? they looked so happy in the pictures according to daphne and he called petra the love of his life and could've gotten down on one knee for her yet he's a man who never knows how to trust how he feels, who panics easily and who never felt worthy of her because her behavior and her family's shady comments...? i don't know, i still just sort of don't understand that one.

to quote miles himself: "I don’t always think things through, and my feelings aren’t something I can trust." and in the third act he runs to daphne's dad to demand he comes back to her, without thinking it through, because he knows he fucked up by helping out his ex after she asked him to, he apologizes for it to daphne and begs her to stay and start a romantic relationship with him but we're never told he finally understood his lesson and will now think twice before doing something. we're also never told he finally said his goodbyes to petra and will now cut her off or at least never rush to go find her when she asks for help anymore. in fact, he tells daphne he still cares about petra. where's the growth there? the reassurance? i get that emily henry's romances always (or at least, always in the three books i've read so far) come down to being brave enough to take the risk and dive into a serious romantic relationship if you wanna know if the love you're feeling is the one true love that will last until death do you part and so daphne loving miles and miles loving daphne is enough to make them brave and they're both taking this leap of faith. miles's growth is seen in his capability to stand firm and take a chance and ask her to stay with him. but i don't entirely trust that they're going to last in the long run because i'm not sure he's grown and changed enough to not hurt her or break her trust later. and i get that we too, as readers, just have to trust just like our main characters do, we're asked the same in book lovers and pwmov and for example i know some fans don't think pwmov's poppyalex will make it long-term due to a level of incompatibility but because i love poppyalex's love more and because i trust them as people, as lovers more, i see them making it to their death bed and i can't give that same sense of faith to daphne and miles. and as a romantic, that frustrates me just a little.

badly written, way too much smut (though i do get that sex informs where the charactera are at romance-wise), dragged toward the end but overall inoffensive? will tune in for the tv adaptation