I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH! Everything about it was just amazing, and although some may say it was full of cliches, a bit silly, and so on, I really don’t care. Sometimes, when reading a book, you don’t necessarily want the greatest piece of literature to exist, sometimes you just want an easy, light-hearted read, and if that’s the case for you, I highly recommend this book.
Bailey and Charlie met on a flight a few years before the main plot started, where they established the fact that neither of them liked the other. After sitting next to each other on the plane, they parted ways and didn’t intend on every seeing one another again. A year or two after this, they meet again at a cinema where Bailey is on a date with her boyfriend, as is Charlie with his girlfriend. Once leaving the cinema, they think that will be the last of their unfortunate interactions, but obviously they’re wrong.
The main plot begins as Bailey breaks up with her cheating boyfriend after spying on him in a coffee shop. Her friend suggests she join her in getting a job to take her mind off things, and so they apply to the new hotel waterpark opening nearby. They both get the jobs and go to the two days of mandatory staff training. Here, Bailey is given the job of a receptionist, as is her friend. Only 10 minutes later, Charlie shows up to join the team working as receptionists and explains they placed him in the wrong section; Bailey and Charlie meet again.
Overtime as the two work together they grow closer, but Charlie denies that men and women can ever only be friends. Bailey is insistent on proving him wrong and so they bet on the two other people they’re working with who seem to have been getting along suspiciously well. Anyway, this is only the side plot, the big thing is so much better.
After working together for a while and the two get to know each other more and more, they start texting outside of work and Bailey asks Charlie for help deterring her mum from the new guy she’s seeing. He begins to go over to her house and calls her regularly, up until the point where they are very good co-workers (not friends apparently).
Bailey’s friend was going to go on holiday with her but had to pull out last minute, so instead Charlie says he will go with her, and so he does. I’m not going to spoil what happens at this point, but I will tell you it’s by far the best part of the book.
They get back, there’s some drama and they end up not talking to each other for a few weeks. Charlie gets his shift at work changed so he doesn’t have to see Bailey. It’s all very dramatic as I said, but I don’t want to completely spoil the plot so that’s all I’m saying. I will tell you, however, that they’re together at the end.
The book is dual POV so you get to see what each of them think of the situations they get themselves into which I really enjoyed. It made me feel like I understood the motives of them both much more thoroughly. Something else I quite liked was the gradual lead up to them properly meeting and becoming friends, and then eventually to them dating. The first time they met, they hated each other, the second time they seemed to be a little more tolerant and by the end, well by the end they were dating so they must’ve liked each other. This is a fast-paced book, however I think it’s just right for the genre, as a story that went by in a couple of seconds would not be ideal, but neither would a lengthy, mega-detailed one that takes a couple years to get through.
Bailey was a great character. I loved her background and especially how it was written. Often in books like these I feel like the author has simply decided they need to give their characters a backstory and so they chuck in a paragraph explaining how the mother tragically died in a car crash when they were 8, but it was not like this in Bailey’s case. Pieces of her backstory were embedded throughout the book, whilst of course there was some to set the scene at the beginning, it wasn’t an overwhelming amount. This is very similar for Charlie’s character, and I genuinely just really enjoyed this book.
I know this isn’t exactly a literary masterpiece, but the vibes of the book and the plot as a whole made it easily enjoyable and a good read overall. Not every book needs to be life changing, they can purely be a light read to entertain during your free time, and this definitely accomplished that.
★★★★★