Stuck with You is a story about two students in Milan, Lavinia and Sebastiano, who are required to work together on a project in their last year of university. Neither one wants to do the project, but it will give Lavinia some much needed extra credit -- if only she can get Sebastiano, with his superior attitude and rigid schedule, to cooperate.

There is a certain awkward charm in this book. From what I've read, Anna Premoli has several popular Italian-language novels. I don't know if she enlisted the help of a translator for the book (I didn't see any reference to one), but I'm willing to bet that she wrote it in English herself. There is a stiltedness to the writing that makes it clear that English is not Premoli's first language. She mixed British and American slang with what sounded like Italian slang translated into English. There was also word usage that didn't seem to fit at all. For instance:

"No, but it's your fault that you insist on not pushing the beds closer together. If we accosted them, we would have a bit more space."

The word "accosted" does have an ancient definition of "side by side" but most English speakers wouldn't use it this way. Once I started reading this book with the same mindset I use to watch Korean dramas (with all their delightful foreignness), I started to enjoy the book more. Even using my Kdrama lens didn't make the sex scenes easy to read, though.

Even with the stiltedness, there was some charm to this book. My interest in the situation itself kept me turning the pages, despite the awkwardness in the writing. Some of the banter between Lavinia and Sebastiano was cute, and I kept rooting for Lavinia to break through his defenses.

This can be an enjoyable romance, as long as the reader remembers that it is not written in the average American or British style. That can be refreshing sometimes, can't it?

Three and a half stars. Hmmm, a difficult book to rate.

I love Anna Premoli but her books, for me, have been very uneven. She is not a native English speaker and that comes across in her writing, she tends to use longer words than a native English-speaker would do.

This book is set in Milan, Italy. Lavinia is a people-pleaser, the antithesis of her older sister who has left home after an argument with their parents. Lavinia is in the final year of her economics degree (chosen by her father) when their professor announces that the final project will be a collaboration with students from the computer engineering department of a rival college. Already horrified by the news, Lavinia is dismayed when her 'partner' Sebastiano outright refuses to participate, claiming he doesn't need the extra credits.

Lavinia is a perpetual smiler, she likes chart music, social media, Apple products and romantic comedies. Sebastiano is a hard-core programmer, he scorns all the big name global IT brands, he enjoys LARPing and sci fi. But Lavinia is also persistent and she slowly wears Seb down by stalking him.

I liked this because it was different. Set in Italy, discussions of cryptocurrencies, realistic descriptions of kissing, it was all good. Then there would be the odd jarring note - for example not knowing what LOL stands for. Also, and perhaps because of the aforementioned non-native English speaker issue, Lavinia and Seb seemed very young, more like 16 or 17 than 21 and 22.

I enjoyed this but it wasn't my favourite book by the author.

Despite being an Italian book, the translation was one of the best I've read. That being said, I found this book extremely depressing!

I haven't read a story with quite this plot line. I loved the opposites attract storyline. I also enjoyed the buildup. I found that so many times stories rush through the story and the journey of the characters. I felt the length did the story justice.