The One About Ex-High School Rivals: The Reunion by Elizabeth Drummond | Book Review

One of the best things about NetGalley is getting to explore and discover books that you have never come across before! Sometimes those books become your new favourites, and other times they don’t end up meeting your expectations.

This book was one of them.

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The Reunion

by Elizabeth Drummond

Format: ebook, 298 pages

Expected Publication: June 10th 2022 by HarperCollins UK

ISBN13: 9780008520045

Goodreads blurb:
The brand new enemies-to-lovers romcom for fans of Mhairi McFarlane and The Love Hyphothesis.
‘A properly joyful caper of heads vying with hearts. Drummond had me laughing, ‘eeek!’ing and ‘aaah’ing, as Posy and Lucas navigate their fake-wedding planning, old animosities and new longings of the heart. A lovely funny uplifting read.’
Pernille Hughes

Two high school rivals. Ten years later. A vow not to fall in love . . .

School reunions: the perfect opportunity to catch up with old friends, dazzle old foes, and basically show everyone that your life could not be going better.

But for Lucas O’Rourke and Posy Edwins this isn’t quite the case. Lucas is about to lose his business unless he finds an investor fast, and Posy’s father has cut her off financially, just when she needs to get to Hawaii. And a reunion is the worst moment to come face-to-face with your rival. Ten years ago they hated each other, what could have changed since then?

As tensions rise, Posy comes up with a plan to solve both their problems, all she needs to do is persuade Lucas to go along with it. Trouble is, how do you ask your high school enemy to pretend you’re madly in love when everyone knows you don’t get along? And what happens when that plan involves a wedding, honeymoon and an old school bylaw stating that the school will pay for the entire event…

Surely Posy has thought everything through, hasn’t she? 

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I wanted to start this review off by saying that this book is apparently the author’s debut novel, and as such, I thought it was only right to make sure not to be so harsh when it comes to writing this book review.

After all, the debut novels are always the hardest.

The premise of this book sounds like something I would definitely enjoy— rivals to lovers, fake dating trope etc. I was so excited when my request got accepted via NetGalley. However, this book did not do it for.

First let’s talk about what I did like about this book; the tropes. I did like how the book used the rivals-to-lovers trope for the most part. There was some banter between the characters which was fun, and the build up of the relationship throughout the book was good. That being said, I felt like the characters lacked chemistry and that’s where the romance fell short. For the most part, it was like reading two separate characters and their own stories run parallel throughout the book but they never really connected properly. This is why I wouldn’t call this an enemies-to-lovers book because it missed what was vital to the relationship—the chemistry.

I also didn’t like the constant fat shaming and jokes made throughout the book. To an extent, I understand that the author probably wanted to sprinkle some jokes here and there, but there was just far too many fat shaming jokes in this book that I was really uncomfortable. I also felt like the book could’ve been shortened by a bit and there were a few scenes that were unnecessary and seemed to only exist to fill a word count.

Lucas was a good character. He was likeable for the most part and seemed liked he had good character development by the end of the book. On the other hand, Posy was just straight up unlikeable and one dimensional from start to finish.

I truly wished I liked this book more. I know the author and everyone who hadn’t a hand in publishing this book worked damn hard to publish this book.

2 stars.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for this ARC of ‘The Reunion’ by Elizabeth Drummond in exchange for an honest book review

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Do you read Romance novels? Any recommendations? 

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