A smart and funny exploration of modern dating and relationships. I especially loved the friendship between Holly and Fliss.

With some absolute killer lines, like "a successful open relationship involves the right amount of honesty and the right amount of tiptoeing around the giant, unholy elephant in the room" and"it's funny how you can not care what most people on planet Earth think about you but still be desperate for your parents to approve of your new cutlery", #OpenMinded is a unique and very different take on the traditional RomCom and I adored Fliss and her relationship with Ash.

I really enjoyed this exploration of relationships and dating. It's funny, smart and fresh in a crowded romance market, and I'd love to see more "nontraditional" relationships represented in the genre!

This isn't my go-to genre, but I was intrigued by the concept, and I do like to have a break from thrillers every now and then! I absolutely would not enjoy an open relationship myself, but it made for fun reading. The writing style was really enjoyable.

I liked both main characters Holly and Fliss and was invested in their respective stories. I found the personal journeys they went on really interesting to read, and I liked that the book didn't just focus on their relationships, but also on their work lives and friendships. Having said that, their dating adventures were definitely the highlight of the book. The side characters were well developed and added value.

My only issue was that I felt the book tried a bit too hard to be inclusive. There was a non-binary character shoehorned in as a reference and we never heard about them again, and the author seemed to have a checklist of races and made sure she had at least one of each in the cast. The constant name-dropping of random TV shows was a bit jarring also.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this.

Personally, this book just wasn't for me. Initially the synopsis intrigued me and I really wanted to give it a go. However, I did end up DNFing this book at 52%.

Unfortunately, the characters did not grab me and I didn't feel like I could connect with them. It seemed like they were a little two dimensional rather than building a world I felt like I could step in.

On reflection I think the subject of it being an open relationship story has potential but I think the characters were just not for me.

This was a great read, showing the many different types of love and how they can develop and change with your relationship.

This loooks so so good! I love all of HQS books they are one of my favorite imprints to acquire. I can’t wait to read all about Flisss and Ash and see if the open relationship really does work in their situation. I’ll be sharing all my thoughts and a full review here very soon!