Maybe I’m just not in the right mental headspace for this book as I have just finished a long dark book series. Zadie Smith’s On Beauty is my favourite book of all time. I read it when I was twenty years old and trying to find my place in the world, just like the characters are – even the middle-aged ones. It felt like a guide, somehow. There’s a scene where three siblings on the verge of adulthood bump into each other in the street and go for coffee together for the first time, and how she writes about them realising they exist as family outside of their parents’ watchful eye is just… perfection. I re-read it every few years. It’s a signed copy, actually – I saw her speak at Swiss Cottage library and afterwards she told me she liked my shirt. If you’ve seen how well she dresses, you’ll understand my glee at that anecdote.

Lovestruck by Laura Jane Williams Book Review - The Sleepy Reader

I can't remember the last time a book made me forget I had a phone. Pure escapist fiction!' Stacey Halls Read more Look Inside Details Fireworks are great, big laughs and huge passions – but day in and day out, it’s nice to rub alongside somebody comfortably. A lot of life is just sitting beside somebody else, after all. Sitting on the sofa. On a plane somewhere. Being side by side when you drive in the car.’ friends to lovers and slow burn. this is the kind of romance i live for. and the fact that i didn’t even expect this book to have these two tropes. i am obviously elated. Laura Jane Williams (she/her) is known as the queen of the meet-cute. She is the author of seven novels and a novella.I absolutely loved this book! It was my first Laura Jane Williams book and it will not be my last. I loved the two timelines, especially the cheeky little crossovers between them. The characters were so well written, it’s one of the very few romcom books where it wasn’t immediately obvious who I was supposed to root for! Also it’s set in Kings Heath and the surrounding areas! Which meant I could picture it so well having grown up not far from there! Oh I wanted to love this book I really did. The switching between events was a little too much, I couldn’t keep up with what was happening when and with who with the two different narratives.

Laura Jane Williams books and biography | Waterstones Laura Jane Williams books and biography | Waterstones

Hanna Caspian, Dani Atkins, Laura Jane Williams, Iny Lorentz, Gabriella Engelmann, Lilly Lucas, Nadine Lipp - Übersetzer, Anne-Marie Wachs - Übersetzer Although initially confused about what was happening, once I got into the book I realised that it was operating on a ‘sliding door’s’ narrative arc. Sadly, the eventual outcome seemed so obvious that there was no real question in my mind and the characters were, for the most part, simply too two-dimensional for me to really get onboard with it.Unfortunately I couldn’t make it past the first 2 chapters, I’m extremely disappointed but I don’t necessarily think it was the authors fault at all, I just couldn’t get into the writing style and that’s more of a me problem than anything else! I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Becca is a very relatable main character. She suffers the same awkward, cliché blunders we all do in the dating world – she’s an over thinker which is a very relatable trait. When Becca convinces her friends to join her in performing a manifestation ritual, she declares to whoever might be in charge of such things that a year from now, she will be married to her one true love.

Lovestruck - Penguin Books UK

I loved the ending and was willing Becca to make the right decision and I even shed a few tears towards the end as I was so invested in her making the right choice. I really enjoyed this one, there’s just something about this author that draws me in and makes me all cozy while I read their books. I loved reading through the two timelines for the different options she faces, does she choose her ex or start new? I couldn’t figure out who I should root for in this one for a while because both options seemed good for Becca. The banter was absolutely hilarious and I couldn’t help but absolutely adore Becca’s friends. Becca Calloway is a hopeless romantic. She's also achingly single - and the first person to admit she could use a little help.Firstly, a big thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House (Cornerstone) for the ARC and the opportunity to read this fabulous story. I thought the characters were great and loved Beccas relationship with Jia-Li and Carlos and found the characters very relatable. Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. I’ll be honest, it did take me until halfway through the book to realise each chapter worked in this way but I’m not sure if that can be blamed on the author or my tired mind! This week, we're hearing from Laura Jane Williams, whose debut novel Our Stop was an international hit. Her work has been translated into 11 languages in 17 countries.