Second First Impressions

[alaterdate]

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne is hilarious. Everyone is incredibly weird and that added to the laughs.

Ruthie Midona works the front desk at a luxury retirement villa and is so into her job that she even lives on the property herself. When the retirement villa is purchased by a big wig property developer she has to start thinking about her life and career for the first time in years. What's more, the property developer's "lazy" son is moved into the empty room next to Ruth's! They have a slight "meet-ugly" before striking up a friendship and maybe more? Of course more, this is a romance book. And there's a subplot with some very nice old ladies.

But the romance? Meh. I never cared whether or not the leads got together. It would have added a lot more tension and interest if Ruthie had actually gone on a date with someone else. I didn't particularly like Teddy, what was he seeing in Ruthie? A girlfriend or a mom 😕

So the love interest and romance really didn't interest me and sadly the sub-plots got tidied up way too quickly. Hey, at least the huge fallout didn't happen AT the party like it usually does in romance novels! Oh well. I did like Ruthie though. I thought she was competent and passionate about her job despite her naivety in general, which was nice. And I have to admit that I did think it was funny and endearing that she was... well... a loser. Can't believe she deleted her forum without making an announcement post though. Fandom archiving nightmare! A bit unbelievable for her tbh. In the end her online friends meant nothing to her?? Not now that she's got a BF huh?? wow lollll. The side character Melanie at first seemed like a vapid cut-out, but she turned out to be so much better than I expected and I liked that as well.

Most of the writing is well-done and a breeze to read even though I agree about the hiccups with the dialogue other people have mentioned (having to backread to try and figure out who was saying and doing what in a convo), but I laughed a lot and didn't hate it, so 3 stars. Sally Thorne's novels are more miss than hit, but this one was fine and I'll probably read her next one. In fact I saw it at the library the other day, but I didn't have a sec to grab it, hopefully it's there tomorrow when I go and I can grab it.