Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

I was drawn to this book due to its stunning cover art and intriguing title. I think I thought it would be literary, or more of a romantic drama along the lines of One Day. It's not—it's a pretty straight forward frothy rom com. I love You I love You I Love you tells the story of Ella, who fell in love with her best friend, Lowe, when she was a teenager. For various vague reasons, they never cross the line from friendship into romance, despite both very obviously being into each other. Fourteen years pass. Ella pines. Lowe becomes a rockstar. Will they eventually cross that line?

The genre makes it obvious that they will, but by the end of the book fourteen years of dithering had drained me of my ability to care. Miscommunication/lack of communication is an annoying plot obstacle in the best of books, but dragging out "What if this harms our friendship? What if he doesn't feel the same way (despite constant signals that he does)?" for the entire story just made me feel like they were too able to resist each other, thus the romantic and narrative tension died. I found it believable that Ella would be hesitant to lay her feelings on the line when she was a young teenager, but once she became an adult, it just got irritating. The obstacles keeping them apart needed to be much stronger, much more insurmountable. Instead, it was just... them. Being obtuse. Which wasn't entertaining.

Basically, this was not a story worthy of an entire novel. A newspaper article, sure. Maybe even a short story. But 400 pages of pining didn't work. There wasn't enough plot outside the teased romance to keep me invested. And the narration was 90% tell, rather than show, so it all felt very distanced. Way too much summarising and not enough tangible detail and dialogue. There weren't enough 'in the moment' scenes; the writer didn't draw me directly into Ella's world to let us truly see Lowe through her eyes and make readers feel the same way. He was never developed as a character, just a fantasy of what she wanted and couldn't have. He had no flaws and never felt human or complex. The extended lists-everything being described five times with five different metaphors-grated quite quickly.

What I did enjoy about the novel were the period references, which were fun. And I liked Ella as a character: she was weird and not objectively beautiful and charming and, initially, her social awkwardness was very relatable. I would have liked a lot more detail about her family, about her ambitions as a writer, about anything other than just "I love Lowe but am too timid to tell him so" over and over again.

One last thing, a personal pet peeve: as an aspiring novelist myself, it's deeply irritating to read storylines in which someone spits out a first novel and instantly gets published. It doesn't work that way for the majority of people.

I was so desperate to read this book as soon as I'd heard about it, and for the most part, it really lived up to the hype! At first, I thought Ella's overthinking was a little bit grating, however, the more I read, the more I thought it was actually very realistic, and I understood a lot of the relatable anxieties that she had around her career/life, etc. It's a great love story and it is written in a pacey style - the only qualm I had about it was I thought the writing was (occasionally, not always!) a little too young, which I found a bit distracting. But it's a great story nonetheless. And a great cover!

So beyond ready and excited to read this gorgeous gorgeous book! I know so many people that have experienced this including myself and I think many readers will really relate to this one! I’ll be sharing a full review and thoughts very soon as I apologize I’ve been in the hospital unexpectedly due to health issues and falling a bit behind on my reviews but I promise to catch up very soon! Reading and acquiring these beautiful books for readers is the best medicine. HQ keep up your amazing work!