HORRENDOUS, TERRIBLE, INFANTILE AND IRRESPONSIBLE HEROINE 🤡🤬🤮
Disclaimer: I usually don't hate heroines, it's too much of a strong feeling for me to experience towards a written character, but this time i wanted to slap the heroine, Lottie, across the face. Repeatedly. With a shovel. 👁️👄👁️
So the plot: Lottie, a 28year old down on her luck, gets fired by her "friend", needs to move out from her parents ASAP, has only 3 grand in her bank account and 30K of student loans. Living in LA, this is not enough to cover rent, so she gets drunk with her sister and has the "marvelous" idea to go to the rich neighborhood and find a rich husband to solve all of her problems. In an old, ratty T-Shirt with holes in it 👉👈🥹 First day is a bust, so instead of actually sending out a couple of résumés to potential bosses (did I mention she has a degree in business?🤡🤡🤡🫣), she decides to go AGAIN in search of a rich husband. Enter the hero, Huxley, a 35year old billionaire 🤣 who needed to close a 10 mil deal SOOOO BADLY that he lied to a potential partner about having a pregnant fiancee from Georgia. Huxley is terrified his deal will fall through plus bis reputation will be ruined, so instead of coming clean or telling one of his NUMEROUS ASSISTANTS (that a true billionaire will 100% have) to contact some acting agency (it's LA, come on!) and hire an actress to play the fiancée, he goes on a walk to "clear his head" 🕵️🤨 He then meets Lottie on the street, where she rambles about needing a rich husband, so he jumps on the opportunity and everything starts from there.
Now, this is one of those books, where in order to make it funny, the author made it OTT unbelievable. Plus, the hero, a supposed billionaire, has the personality of a dead fish and nothing unique about his thought process, way of thinking or acting, his business plan to make him a billionaire. It was so farfetched, so it felt completely unnecessary. The author should've made him at least a millionaire, so that his attempt to close a 10 mil deal would seam somewhat more logical. All in all, Huxley was not a bad hero, but he was also not good: bland, unmemorable, mediocre. I didn't like his hot and cold game he played around the middle of the book, and the reasoning behind it was weak.
But the real assholette of this book was the heroine. I barely finished the book, that's how infuriating she was to me! 🤬🤬🤬🤬 It wasn't even the situation she found herself in and the way she tried to resolve it (although combating homelessness and unemployment with just taking a stroll in a rich neighborhood is up there), but her reaction towards everything around her and her victim mentality.
- the hero was basically a stranger to her, who payed off 30K of her student loans, bought her an expensive designer wardrobe, gave her a roof over her head (a stylish McMansion), and even fed her gourmet meals on the daily. All she had to do on exchange, was to play his pregnant fiancee a couple of times and "suffer" through uncomfortable outings with the pregnant chick. Lottie CONSTANTLY complained about how the hero was CoLd towards her (while they were still strangers with a shared goal), so she irritated him to no end, tried to be funny, which resulted in her looking like a fool all of the time.
-Lottie and Huxely signed a contract with ALL of the terms, explanations and rules regarding their "partnership". You'd think that a person with a BUSINESS DEGREE would read the damn thing, but our hilariously dumb heroine thought it unnecessary. Her own SISTER is shocked by this behaviour, advised her to read it ASAP, and what do you know? THE HEROINE STILL DOESN'T READ THE F*CKING CONTRACT! 🤡🤬🥹🤧 so ANOTHER situation arises, the hero says that everything she needs to know is in the contract, and she is shocked about it and says she thought the contract was just...SEMANTICS. And didn't actually mean anything 😭😭😭 #helphowisshesodumb
- Lottie's sister, Kelsey, gave her a job, even though she couldn't afford to do it. They got a meeting with a potential client (Huxely's BILLION dollar firm), the sister is rushing there to get on time, to which Lottie says "Don't worry, we still have 2 minutes, just RELAAAX" 😫 the sister explains the significance of this meeting and asks Lottie to take it seriously. Minutes later, Lottie makes a complete fool of herself, embarrasses herself, her sister, sits on Huxely's lap and tries to kiss him, while looking scared and confused. The sister was calling after Lottie numerous times, but she ignored her and cost her this meeting. When they were done, Lottie was more concerned about her own personal drama than her sister's business, and ONLY AFTER the sister gave her a piece of her mind (very deserved and logical, might I add) did Lottie understand the gravity of the situation.
- the whole 3rd act breakup (that lasted a whole day🤣🫣) was laughable and should've NEVER happened. Lottie overreacted WAY TOO MUCH for the thing that Huxely's done (yes, he was rude and could've handled it better), but he believed her as soon as she gave him an answer, apologized IMMEDIATELY, and was running after her to stop her and BEGGED her not to go. Meanwhile Lottie was a dumpster of unnecessarily OTT feeling like "feeling too raw to talk" (sis, seriously? Too raw? Are you an egg waiting to be boiled?), "too out of it to face the situation" and crying all over different locations without stopping for what seems was the whole 24-hour breakup 😬🤡 and the hero constantly bringing up the fact that she "chose to sleep on her SISTER'S FLOOR instead of in my bed" to describe how he "screwed up" was laughable 🤣🤣🤣 a lot of times someone in my family had to sleep on the mattress on the floor, when the house was full of guests. Welcome to the land of the regular people NOT in the US 🤷🏼♀️😆
I HATED how the hero lamented all through the last chapter and the epilogue, how lucky he was that the heroine forgave him, how he will treasure her for the special flower she is and never take her for granted again. As if HE (a billionaire with a huge dick and knowledge how to use it, male model physique, neverending love and loyalty towards the heroine) lucked out in this relationship to be with the heroine (who likes to have holes in her T-shirts) 🕵️👁️👄👁️
I will be reading other works of this author, because I LOVED book 3 of this series (friends-to-lovers; sexy nerd; great banter). Hopefully this was an unlucky one timer with the author's work for me🙏