*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: The Quit List
Author: Katie Bailey
Genre: Romance
Rating: ★★★
Spice Level: 🌶️ (Only Kisses)
He quit believing in love
a long time ago. She won't quit until she finds the One... and he's
everything she's NOT looking for.
Holly Greene is on a mission
to find her happily ever after. And her journey to love
does not include a detour to Bad Boy Bartenderville, population Jax
Grainger.
Jax may be witty,
smart-mouthed, and handsome, but he’s the kind of guy who views love as a
four-letter word… and the last thing Holly needs is to waste any more time.
She’s in her seeking Prince
Charming era, not her playboy villain era.
But after he saves her from
the world’s worst date, Holly sees an opportunity: Jax may not check any of the
boxes on her list, but he’s the perfect person to help her find a man
who does.
All she has to do is stick to
the plan—and stay out of the sexy bartender’s arms.
Easy peasy lemon sque... Oops.
The Quit List is
the latest low spice romance novel from author Katie Bailey. This was my first
time reading anything from the author and it was a cute generally low-angst
easy read, perfect for the summer months.
Told through a
dual POV narrative, The Quit List explores the dating coach trope as unlucky in
love Holly seeks help finding ‘the one’ from bartender turned wilderness
mountain man Jax. Holly and Jax had brilliant banter which added a nice element
to the story as we followed them from strangers to friends to lovers. I’m a
sucker for a ‘Screw It’ moment and there’s a brilliant one that I went
absolutely nuts for. There’s also an ‘Only One Tent’ moment which is a great
variation on the typical ‘Only One Bed’ trope.
Holly was a
likeable FMC who I was really rooting for. But I did find that she
generally read as a younger character than she actually was. Jax was my personal
favourite character (bartender AND rugged mountain man? YES PLEASE) and I loved seeing
his growth over the course of the book, becoming someone who was open to love
and understood that he deserved to be loved. The way he takes care of Holly throughout
the story was wonderful to see.
However, the main
thing that I think let the book down was the fact that the narrative skips over
the majority of their time in the wilderness, which is where most of their
relationship building happens. We’re told afterwards how significant it was for
their relationship and how it gave them the opportunity to really get to know
each other on both a personal and romantic level, but as readers we’re not given
the opportunity to witness this. Taking us out of these scenes really impacted
on how emotionally connected we were to the characters and their relationship, particularly
when we’ve already skipped over other important relationship building scenes
such as when Jax dropped Holly off at her house. These frequent jumps forward
in the timeline and abrupt endings to chapters did also affect the flow of the
narrative which made it less engaging overall.
We do also have
to go through a good 70% of the book before we get any real romance. I do like
a slow burn romance but I will admit that this started to really drag. Personally,
I think the narrative would have worked better had we got to the wilderness
section much earlier. That would also have given us the additional page space
needed for the relationship building scenes to have been explored in greater depth.
If you are
looking for a cute low-angst romance which is packed full of your favourite
tropes without any spice, you will like The Quit List.
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