Title: Second First Impressions
Author: Sally Thorne
Rating: ★★½

ARC provided by William Morrow through a giveaway.

I was really excited to read Second First Impressions, but unfortunately the story fell very flat and the book was unfulfilling. I’ve regrettably come to the conclusion that, with the exception of The Hating Game, I don’t think Sally Thorne’s books are for me.

The story start out extremely slow. Not much occurs for a majority of the book and therefore I found it very difficult to become engaged with the plot or characters. Nothing held my attention and I debated DNF’ing many times before ultimately forcing myself to finish.

Another issue I had with the book was the character. I found neither the protagonist, Ruthie, nor the love interest, Teddy, particularly likable. Teddy was clingy, whined about everything, and overall was pretty immature acting. Ruthie could only be described as bland–and that’s putting it nicely–and it frustrated me to no end how much of a pushover she could be. Granted, part of her character arc included learning to stand up for herself and go after her own dreams but it was extremely hard to root for someone with no backbone.

While Second First Impressions is categorized as a contemporary romance, I would be hard pressed to call it that. The story is more a contemporary novel with some aspects of romance added. A majority of the book also focuses on how Ruthie cannot be in a relationship with Teddy, despite it being pretty obvious that they’re both into one another, however the reasons given are never concrete. I spent a good chunk of the book yelling at the pages to just get together already.

I was really looking forward to Second First Impression, but between the unlikable characters, the slow pace, and the lack of plot, I found it hard to enjoy reading this.