The Virgin Game Plan
By Lauren Blakely
Release Date: June 9, 2021
Ebook Available from WV Reads!
3 Stars - This fun and light love story is an easy read. Reese and Holden are young and vibrant personalities with plenty of sparks and are definitely the best part of this little slow burn romance. It was always entertaining but a few factors kept this from really impressing me.
Blakely's got her own special touch. Her couples have this great combo of healthy communication and fantastic chemistry. Not often can an author convincing write two people clicking as friends and lovers at the same pace. But the plot in this one was a bit lacking. Reese and Holden could have had pretty much any jobs and backgrounds and we would still end up with the same version of the story. But Reese was a sweet and patient girl-next-door. She's just immature. And Holden was utterly charming and loyal. Both were mostly classy and smart characters that just seemed meant for each other.
My issues with Blakely's writing sort of bled into many aspects for me. She used really strange word choices sometimes. And it made the situations, characters, and dialouge (inner and outer) really unrealistic. I admit she was at her most natural writing during ghe steamy scenes, I thought. For example though, Reese refers to "after sex" as "apres sex" as in the French word. Why? At times, what was supposed to be sexy, witty banter, came off as immature or awkward. And the side characters conversations felt like a very generic rom-com scene rather than geniuene friendship. The movie references felt natural sometimes and not others. The couple's reasons for holding back from each other due to circumstance, family, etc felt unreal. And I couldn't call this a sports romance even though Holden was a baseball player. Overall however, I found this romance oddly refreshing. Reese is a virgin, no spoiler there. But she and Holden both managed to be completely loyal to themselves and each other. Their lack of relationship antics past and present made their love seem truly special.
(NS)
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