I received an ARC of The Truth about Love from Laura Barnard but this in no way swayed my honest opinion about the book.
I feel like if I should start by disclaiming that I'm so not into instant love stories. If you've been here for a while, you know this. If you are new you'll catch up pretty quickly. But It's true. I don't like instant love stories. I like to see how the relationship grows pace by pace. The Truth about Love is a contemporary romance, instant love story that will be release this year on February 7th. I enjoyed reading it, nevertheless.
This book was like shortest thing ever. It literally has ten chapters in total and then is gone. I said I enjoyed this book because I really did. This, however, doesn't mean I liked nor loved it entirely. I just happen to had a good time with it for a while. Like so many contemporaries, this book is great for you to read when you're having reading slumps.
In this book, we are introduced to our main character Eve Harris who's got it all planned; find the perfect teaching job and live with her best friend, Cherry, and never ever get dragged back into the destructive world of her youth. The last thing she expects is to bump into billionaire heir Cameron Wallis on her last day on campus. Nor is she expecting to find that when she gives him a chance to win her over he's nothing at all the playboy the newspapers paint him to be. But family issues get involved and things go straight to Hell. Unless... unless they can find The Truth about Love before it's too late.
Two days. Two freaking days is what these characters are given to fall in love with each other. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Now, I'm no genius, but even I know that's impossible to happen. I get that this book is about finding love when you're least expecting it, but let's be realistic, guys. No one has ever felt in love with another being in two days. Not even when the other person is smoking hot. I believe there's no need for me to say that time was definitely an issue for me and probably the reason I did only enjoyed the book but didn't like it.
I also believe I'm sometimes (always) to hard with books. But let's be reasonable; someone has to. If I wasn't any hard with them, probably nobody would ever read what I recommend them to because I wouldn't be at all trusty, now would I?
No, the answer for that is no.
So, yes. Time was definitely an issue in this book. I really think that if the author had given the characters more time to actually get to know each other and make sure what were they stepping into, the book would be so much better. The problem when you write a very short book comes when you have to plan out the climax of the story. Every book has one. The climax represents the best part of the book, you cannot go around without a climax. That's like going around without your head or no pants at all (unless you're Nick Bateman, that's a given). This book, however, seemed to think otherwise because it has no climax at all. Being fair, this book doesn't have a problem. Yep. You've heard alright. It doesn't have a problem that needs to be solved. And I'm not talking about saving poor kittens from trees or preventing the Apocalypse (which by the way, Sam and Dean did in Supernatural). I'm talking about something according to the book. The nearest thing to a problem that seemed to be in this book were the family matters.
Eve and Cam have serious family issues that have to be discussed. Cam's father won't allowed his son to pursue his life dream to be a chef; Eve's mom's an addict who never gave a crap about her daughter. Cam has to deal with people judgments, and Eve has to deal with her own destructive world. Something I actually liked about this book was the fact that Bloom shows us two different problematics that people in real life struggle with. Both Cam and Eve want to be something. They're in need of support of someone else, and they believe they've found exactly that within the other.
If you are in the look for very, very short books with sparks of romance and young people trying desperately to become something different rather than what their families expect them to be, this is it. This is your book. I said it at the beginning of this post and I'll say it again: if you ever find yourself going through a reading slump, The Truth about Love has your back.
Rating: 2 of 5