I started this book just for giggles when I saw that it was very loosely inspired by an American singer and her NFL boyfriend. I generally like a cheesy "Love Story", and I was assured online that it was "Clean" so I decided to give it a "shotgun shot in the dark." I didn't expect it to be on the level of a "Mastermind" like Shakespeare or Jane Austen. And "Oh, My, My, My," it really wasn't. I wanted to be generous in the first half, thinking I could give it 3 stars for being a generally inoffensive "Sweet Nothing" of a story, but the further I went, the more braincells I felt dying. At some point, I couldn't "Tolerate It" anymore, and it became a chore to finish--which I did, by sheer willpower, solely because of the sunk-cost fallacy and the "closure" of being able to say I actually finished a book. I hate to be "Mean," but I have to leave a 1 star review on a book when reading it feels like "Death By A Thousand Cuts." I kept asking myself "Is It Over Now?"
First off all, the characters are so painfully flat, and the writing is so bad it made me cringe (in the bad way). The lead female is very naïve--which ok, I don't always hold that against a girl since I, myself, get fatal cases of girlbrain now and again--But sis ain't even TRYING to think. What is appealing about her? I don't know... She's just a total "Blank Space." And the male lead is just a dude written by a chick. And he plays football. That's it.
The plot is a "Delicate" "Labyrinth" of excuses of why "This Love" can never be allowed, and every single one is a "hoax." After ONE mildly cute scene that took place when they were about "Fifteen," we are expected to believe that they can't live without each other, but when they meet up as adults, there's nothing to even indicate they SHOULD be "End Game." And I DO like a good fake dating trope, but it's completely wasted here because there's NO reason why they should be fake dating and no real tension between them anyway. It's just incredibly shallow and pointless.
Essentially every chapter is just one of the two characters basically being STUPIDLY attracted to each other, recapping to themselves the same contrived excuses why they can't be together, arguing about the same nonsense, internally denying their feelings, literally hating themselves for even HAVING feelings, and then acting like if they fall in love it will ruin their life. I have never seen such contrived "Bad Blood" between characters, and at the end, NONE of it even matters. She has the sudden "Epiphany" that she's in love with him and nothing else matters. Then he runs away like he isn't worthy of her EVEN THOUGH in his chapters he basically thinks of her as the "love of his life" and acts like he would die if she ever left.
The drama keeping them apart is thinner than an "Invisible String" and they have absolutely no foundation for a working relationship past the one scene when they were "So Highschool"
"Long story short, it was a bad time."