Leah's Reviews > Late Bloomer

I received an ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“Late Bloomer” is a perfect example of don’t judge a book by its cover. I loved the cover and was sure this was going to be a great read. Unfortunately, that’s not how it turned out.

For a romance without a lot of plot it’s pretty critical that the characters make up for it and make you want to read. That isn’t what happened here. Both Opal and Pepper got on my nerves and I found them more irritating than anything else.

It starts out pretty badly. I was yelling at my phone by 10%. I can handle a lot of things but stupidity is not one of those things. Opal wins the lottery and decides to buy property, sight unseen, off of Facebook Marketplace. She has no one look at the paperwork, just writes a check and goes on about her day. My suspension of disbelief couldn’t handle that.

Opal is not a character I really sympathize with anyway. She’s a doormat to her friends and ex-boyfriend, like ridiculously so. It was so painful to hear her justify their awful behavior to herself and others. She has ADHD but it felt very stereotypical.

Pepper, while not quite as bad as Opal, wasn’t a favorite character either. She’s also neurodivergent and while it was quite so stereotypical, it also wasn’t fleshed out very well. Both felt more like caricature of people than actual humans. There was no depth, tension, or chemistry. It all felt forced and rather boring.

Also, the author used “she giggled” so many times. I’m sorry but grown women giggling all the time just sounds immature. Although, I guess that does track since I felt both Opal and Pepper were immature for their ages.

While I can’t recommend this there were others who seemed to enjoy it. I would take a look at other reviews and see if my issues were a me thing.