In the summer of 2000, AJ Graves is working in a video rental store when in walks Noah Drew, the son of the Drew acting dynasty and her life changes forever. Despite wildly different upbringings, the two forge a deep, cosmic bond first as friends and then acting partners until one day, Noah disappears without a word. Seven years later in New York City, AJ is shocked to find herself cast in the same intergalactic TV production as Noah, now a well-known Hollywood heartthrob. Unable to stay away from each other, AJ and Noah are forced to confront the truth of what happened years ago and the devastating secret that will send their lives careening apart, even as fate continues to draw them together.
I waited a long time to get this book from my library because everyone said how amazing this romance book was. Interestingly, I found a lot of it pretentious, and I rolled my eyes a lot. The first part of this book where they’re both young and are taking acting lessons was super boring and I was just waiting for it to get better. The acting exercises made me laugh out loud and if not that I committed myself to reading at least 100 pages a day when I read this book, I’m pretty sure it would have killed my reading momentum. Maybe I’m just extremely ignorant about acting classes but are these exercises actually grounded in reality? And also, all that talk about being acting partners and forging a connection that is just amazing and almost psychic just sounded like fiction to me and I want my romance to be grounded in reality and not sound like it’s some magical realism.
When they finally meet again after Noah has become a popular actor and AJ is a writer, I actually saw their connection. Their chemistry in this section of the book convinced me that they actually love each other and have a very deep connection. The Into the Blue show was actually really fun to read about even though I also thought – who would even watch this shit? How can you make a “scripted” reality show that is all improvisation and then manage to edit it all to seem scripted when this is not a comedy show but an intergalactic show like Stars Wars, I just couldn’t picture how they thought this was a good idea. When the author kept writing about how they could tap into each other’s emotions and minds, I could not roll my eyes any longer because I was scared it would actually get stuck in my forehead forever. I kept thinking is this book magical realism or is the author trying to show us how they’re such soulmate but all it did is make me believe less in their romance because it just felt like the author never actually let us see them fall in love, she just insisted that their connection was like magic and we’re just supposed to accept it.
When Noah finally tells AJ why he left and why they can never be together and why after filming, they would go their separate ways, they have sex all night and of course the sex is the best sex both of them have ever had. Fun fact about me, I skim sex scenes because honestly the only thing it really conveys is they had sex unless something actually happens during the sex that moves the plot forward then all I need to know is that they had sex. The funny thing is when I was younger and wanted to know all I could about sex I would read sex scenes so closely over and over again but now that I’m an adult I honestly do not care about spice and I rarely ever read a book because it has spice or smut, that just doesn’t convince me to pick up a book. That’s all beside the point. Anyway, the rest of the book is them going their separate ways, meeting, going their separate ways and meeting and obviously this is a romance, they manage to find their way back to each other.
This book is extremely repetitive and even though it’s sprinkled with things I’d actually love to read more about like the comedy scene in New York, the improv group, AJ’s time on SNL, more about AJ’s family dynamic it was just filled with AJ and Noah meeting and having sex. There’s a point in this book where there was 30 straight pages of sex scenes after sex scenes, like we get it, they’re soulmates who have amazing chemistry but by God, it got exhausting to read. Anyway, eventually we get to the end and the scenes about them staging the play for two weeks and having it be different endings every day was actually great. I didn’t expect to like it, but I really enjoyed reading about the different endings every day and how AJ tries to convince Noah to stay with her. This book is around 450 pages, and it should have been edited down to less than 400 pages, I just don’t think it has 450 pages of stuff worth reading.
This book is insanely hyped on the internet and I’m definitely part of the minority that this did not work for so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Anyway, I gave this two stars on Goodreads.
