Series: A Perfect Fit, #4
Traits & Tropes: fake dating; weight loss journey
Publication Date: 02.01.22
Genre/Setting: Contemporary; Granite, Texas, USA
Heat Level: 2
Rating: 2.5/5
Narration Rating: 4/5
Despite the fact that she’s never set foot in a gym before, Preslee Owens knows she needs to make some lifestyle changes for her health and today is the day that begins. What she didn’t expect was to accidentally broadcast her Stairmaster mishap live on her vlog, giving strangers, plus everyone in her small town, direct access to her fitness journey.
She’s shocked and embarrassed to find that she’s actually a huge hit and most of the feedback is positive, so she returns to the gym, albeit reluctantly, bolstered by the fact that her coworker and crush, Josh also works there. It also doesn’t hurt that the gym’s owner, Adam, has offered to be her personal trainer and make sure she doesn’t her herself. He’s even offered to flirt with her a little to rouse Josh’s interest.
With Adam’s help, Preslee gains confidence little by little, until she almost doesn’t recognize herself. She’s also becoming way too attached to Adam and her feelings growing entirely too real, but her recent confidence boost doesn’t mean she’ll have enough gumption to be honest with him about her true feelings for him.
I really enjoyed this book for the first half or so. I liked the dual narration which really pulled me into the story, and I was utterly charmed by the relationship between Adam and Preslee developing as the two worked out together. That made this a great book to listen to on my daily runs and I was really getting into it up until too many side characters started getting in the way of the feelings developing between these two. With Adam’s older brother Michael being introduced it was this weird shot of masculine competitiveness in a book that otherwise had rather watered-down male leads and seemed to just come between Adam and Preslee for no good reason other than to perhaps introduce Michael before giving him his own book later in the series. This wouldn’t have been a big deal for me if it weren’t for the fact that we already had other man drama going on with Preslee’s attempts to get her newly hired coworker Josh to notice her as more than a friend and her using Adam to catch this other man’s attention. I probably wouldn’t have minded one of these tropes, or even both of them, if they’d been handled differently, but the whole Preslee/Josh situation just went on too long, with Adam still thinking Preslee was in love with Josh long after the reader knew better and long after I wanted to see her being honest with Adam instead.
For all this confidence Preslee supposedly gained, I sure didn’t see much of it in her behavior towards Adam, or really anyone, even the women of the town who were trying to befriend her. I also never really got Preslee’s hang-ups about everyone leaving her which mostly stemmed from a childhood friend moving away. This just seems like something that shouldn’t still be holding back a 28-year-old adult to the extent that it was here. At times Preslee’s character read more like a new adult just moving out on their own than an established woman seeking to better herself. I also think it was weird that crash dieting and unhealthy supplements were thrown in here almost as a teaser and not really given a lot of page time, with Preslee mostly brushing off both Adam’s and Michael’s concern for her health.
There may be some mild spoilers in this part for some. For the most part, I just found Preslee to be overly and annoyingly judgmental and very unfair to Adam. Even when Adam tells her repeatedly of his attraction for her and he’s given her absolutely no reason to doubt him, she’s still so quick to jump to conclusions about him. I loved that he called her out on some of this, as that, along with his continued niceness to her made him a more likeable hero. Her insecurities and struggles with her body image were so relatable that I desperately wanted to connect with her and root for her and then she would make these terribly, nasty comments to him and I just couldn't do it. I just found her to be overly dramatic and repetitive in her reasoning much of the time. Sure, Adam and his friend shouldn’t have done what they did to get the ball rolling on Preslee’s personal training, but it was (a) before Preslee and Adam had ever even met, (b) not something that was harmful to her and (c) something that she actually also benefited from, though of course she conveniently forgot this in her overreaction. She was justifiably angry, but she blew things way out of proportion and never even gave him a chance to explain and then froze him out for way too long. I was also not on board for the description of him having sunk into a depression and gained twenty pounds over the month they were separated. This just seemed like an unfair plot device that didn’t give depression the weight it deserves and more or less glossed over Adam’s pain. For me, this actually came off as a way for Preslee to “win” the relationship as the person who cares less, with Adam clearly desperate to be with her again, meanwhile she’s had this drastic glow up in their time apart, and it just felt wrong. This rather killed the romance for me because when you love someone the way Preslee claimed to love Adam, you don’t let them suffer like that knowing you’re the cause. Rather, Preslee was just focused on her on hurts so much so that she was oblivious to or uncaring of her capacity to hurt others. The whole basis of their relationship development was how they made each other happy and brought out the best in each other so this just undid all that charming groundwork for me.
Overall, there were too many mixed signals between these two to be plausible and so many missed opportunities for the mature, healthy communication that I so long to read in romance, and instead we get a separation just as these two finally get it together. It just didn’t jive for me that she couldn’t face Adam and talk things out in a mature way even after all the great confidence she’d supposedly developed. I found the ending to just be bizarre and abrupt. After way too long of a separation, it just felt like it was meant to provide gratification for Preslee in that she met her goals on her own and not with Adam’s training, which just undermined the whole premise of their relationship for me. This made the ending not feel satisfying and made Preslee and Adam feel uneven in their relationship. There was such a good build up of tension between these two and such capacity for honest communication that it makes me sad to see the romance die the way it did. Other than that, I did enjoy the writing and the small-town setting so I may try another of this author’s books in the hopes it was just Preslee’s character that threw this one off for me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book and its audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/4141367528
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4645380660
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