Ali Hazelwood, despite my initial… reluctance about her work, became one of my auto-buy authors. I even pre-order her books sometimes now — talk about character growth! But all jokes aside, I’ve learned to appreciate her books for what they are and enjoy them as they are. Perhaps not the super unique and new romance novels, but fun and satisfying to read nonetheless, especially on those rainy days when you just need something simple and comforting.
Anyway, I stumbled into Problematic Summer Romance knowing very little about it other than it’s an Ali Hazelwood book and that it’s about age gap (the latter thanks to all the online outrage). And long story short, I had a good time.
It was quick, funny, at times swoony, but perhaps not particularly memorable. I stand by the fact that Ali Hazelwood shines with paranormal romance — she has such a good grasp on the genre, writes it just how I like it, and is allowed to be just as over the top and silly (but also a bit tongue-in-cheek) as she wants. Can you tell I’m excited for Mate?
But I digress. I went to it knowing very little, as I mentioned, and imagine my surprise when I realized that the names sounded sort of familiar. Eli? Rue? Well if it isn’t a continuation of Not in Love, a book I kind of liked, kind of disliked, but ultimately forgot about completely! It was not that book’s fault, to be clear. I just don’t like it when the main couple starts out their relationship with sex, and then builds the emotional stuff.
Problematic Summer Romance is a bit different, though. We have Maya, a twenty-three year old woman who is desperately in love with Hark, a man nearing his forties. In real life, if Maya was my friend, I would have warned her against this. But it’s a book, and in a book, age gap can be really interesting.
For example, I enjoyed reading Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas and the age difference there is similar, if not more egregious because the heroine only turns nineteen when the story begins. However, the author created these two characters to fit each other like puzzle pieces so while it’s still a little taboo, it makes absolute sense when they end up together.
Not to defend Penelope Douglas because she still wrote Credence and Punk 57, both of which are horrible books in my opinion, but if you ignore some of the outdated writing choices and misogynistic views in Birthday Girl (which is a lot to ask, I know), it’s kind of a decent book. More in the sense that the romance just clicked into place super well.
In Problematic Summer Romance, I’m not sure that it did, not fully at least. Maya doesn’t seem to know what she wants out of her life, or at least doesn’t seem certain about it. Consequently, that makes her appear younger than she is, more undecided, which doesn’t match a more mature and settled Hark.
And because of that, we go on this constant back and forth about this age gap and power imbalance, it’s exhausting. While I agree that these conversations are important, I feel like we’re going around in circles in this book. And it’s repeated so many times — every single scene where they interact, they have one of these talks.
What we needed instead was for Maya to have a stronger, clearer stance on what she wanted in life. But Maya is wishy washy about her desires. There’s a vague mention that she wants to be a teacher, that she doesn’t want to be this super genius that everyone wants her to be, but none of it is very clear. She reads very young as well, so it doesn’t leave the best impression.
In the end, I felt like Maya forced this man into being with her despite him still being unsure about it all. It felt like he gave up thanks to her constant badgering.
We hear all about these conversations they have had in the past, and how good of a friendship they have, but none of that comes through while reading. It’s told to us, not shown, and I wish we used some of the “I’m too old for you/no you’re not” conversations to instead show us why these two people work together.
So, the romance didn’t quite work for me. If only Ali relaxed about the age gap thing here as much as she relaxed about the werewolf thing in Bride, I think this book would have been leagues better and more interesting.
Other than that, it’s a worthwhile read. It’s summery and relaxing. The plot is not overly stressful either, so you can just sink into it and spend a few days with these fun people on an Italian island.
Like this book? Get it here.Discover more from Bookish Delights
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.