WE'VE HIT TURBULENCE

Olive Austin isn't a hopeless romantic, but sometimes life calls for a grand romantic gesture. Like leaving a week early to meet up with your boyfriend in Hawai'i. To surprise him. So romantic.

Definitely not a decision she made because she suspects he's been cheating.

Flying isn't something Olive loves, but it is a necessary evil in this case. What's unnecessary? Being stuck next to her ex on this 13-hour flight. Her ex she never quite got over. Her ex who has never been shy about making fun of her new boyfriend. The same boyfriend who doesn't want to return her calls...

THOUGHTS

Where was the plot? Where was the chemistry? Where was the island luxury? This book didn't hit any of the right notes for me, from an insufferable main character to an abysmal plot structure that made it so very difficult to get invested. I didn't like it. I can't recommend it. Sorry.

PROS

Emotional Cheat	Olive suspects her boyfriend is cheating on her at college, and she isn't quite right... but she isn't quite wrong. I guess I won't be digging into more of the details here, in case there's someone reading this who won't be dissuaded from picking up the book itself. But suffice it to say that emotional cheating is still cheating, and this book definitely knows it. So kudos to that. And a book where women aren't pitted against each other? I'll take that, too.

Family Foundation	I always appreciate a YA book where family matters to the main characters, and it's especially nice to see in a romance. Olive and her ex Tyler both have strong, positive relationships with their families, even when they don't always agree, and these family relationships play into their decisions, their worldviews, and their hopes and dreams for the future. I like that a lot.

Carefree Romance	I liked just how carefree Tyler is as a love interest. He's open and willing to live his life as it comes to him, and I liked that a lot. Do I think he's compatible with Olive? Probably not. But I did like him as a character, at least.

CONS

Tyler and Olive are exes, and the reason they broke up is stated over and over again. And it's a real reason to break-up with someone (though not necessarily an irreconcilable difference). And this is a second chance romance, but usually a second chance takes more time to get to. More time apart. More time to figure out what you want. More time to regret what you've lost. In this book, hardly any time has passed, and the differences between Tyler and Olive haven't been resolved. They haven't reached a place where compromise makes sense. And poor Tyler is stuck bending over backwards and getting dragged through the mud by Olive again and again. It's... not great. It's not fun. It felt kind of icky. This book might have a happily-ever-after, but I don't know that it's a happy ending for two characters who haven't resolved any of their issues. I don't think they're compatible, at least not in their current iterations. And that's no fun.	Unresolved

Hawaii has a bit of a tourist problem. The economy there relies on tourists, of course, but tourists also drive up the prices. Native Hawaiians are being driven out, and the landscape there gets devastated by tourists who see it as a commodity, not an ecosystem or a cultural heritage. So it's a complicated situation. And this book absolutely doesn't reckon with that in any way. In fact, all it does is glorify being a tourist in Hawaii, and I'm not sure that's what we want to be doing (especially because so many Native Hawaiians have asked people not to). It's a complicated situation, and showcasing just what makes it fun to be a tourist there definitely isn't helping. I... didn't like it.	Tourist Trap

Over half of this book is spent just on the plane. That's a lot of time to spend trapped on a plane. They reminisce a bit, but there are no real, long-form flashbacks to justify this amount of time spent on the plane. There's hardly any time spent on the island. Don't let the tropical cover convince you otherwise. It's a pretty quick turnaround, since we're somehow able to reschedule our plane for the next day when things don't work out with the stand-in boyfriend. It's a whole lot of nothing, and it just didn't work for me.	Plotting Problems

Rating

⭐⭐
2/10

Those who loved the travel-infused romance of Trinity Nguyen's A Bánh Mì for Two will like jetsetting with these former lovebirds. Those who enjoyed Karen Bischer's The Secret Recipe For Moving On might like learning to love again in this tropical romance.