by Elena Armas
The Spanish Love Deception is an “enemies-to-lovers”, fake-dating romantic comedy. Perfect for those looking for a steamy slow-burn romance with the sweetest Happily Ever After.
Honest opinion this book just wasn’t it for me. The Spanish Love Deception sealed my decision to stop reading books hyped on Tik Tok and Instagram because 3 in 5 of those books are sometimes bad recommendations. However, those 2 that end up being good books are always good as hyped. however, I will still be reading less over-hyped books for now, except it is by an author I already like, have read in the past or I have good reason to.
Blurb
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A TikTok sensation, this rom-com about a young woman who agrees to fake date a colleague and bring him to her sister’s wedding has “everything you could want in a romance” (Helen Hoang, New York Times bestselling author).
Catalina Martín desperately needs a date to her sister’s wedding. Especially since her little white lie about her American boyfriend has spiralled out of control. Now everyone she knows—including her ex and his fiancée—will be there and eager to meet him.
She only has four weeks to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic and aid in her deception. New York to Spain is no short flight and her raucous family won’t be easy to fool.
Enter Aaron Blackford—her tall, handsome, condescending colleague—who surprisingly offers to step in. She’d rather refuse; never has there been a more aggravating, blood-boiling, and insufferable man.
But Catalina is desperate, and as the wedding draws nearer, Aaron looks like her best option. And she begins to realize he might not be as terrible in the real world as he is at the office.
The Spanish Love Deception Review
The Spanish Love Deception was not as good as expected. It was promoted as “enemies to lovers” so I was really interested in that. Well, I didn’t get enemies to lovers. They weren’t enemies. They were more people who couldn’t stand each other due to certain circumstances that could have been avoided. (Plus I think Aaron had liked her all along and Catalina was just misinterpreting some of his actions)
In this book, the main character Catalina is in desperate need of a fake date for her sister’s wedding- where her ex happens to be one of the best men. She tries to secure a fake date to accompany her to the wedding, when Aaron Blackford her “enemy” from work, offers to be her date.
She eventually accepts and he goes as her date. Up till this point, Catilina was under the impression that Aaron hated her. “But does he really hate her?”
Well, I guess that’s another deception in this book.
Another thing that I didn’t really get in this book and probably my second biggest issue apart from the fact that it is an enemy-to-lovers book as promoted but was heavily marketed as such is the main character.
Catalina, I never understood her character, is she supposed to be a teenager? young adult? or an adult? She made decisions and spoke like she was very young I just couldn’t relate because she had a grown-up job with grown-up responsibilities.
This book was trying to add a lot of tropes it may seem. Hence we had the “sweet and broody” dynamic too but it was so lost on me because Catalina spoke a lot and did a lot of things that were so hard to believe for someone her age, despite the suspension of my disbelief.
Aaron in a bid to make him broody and whatever barely said a lot and his character was barely fleshed out apart from doing a couple of nice things here and there like- learning her favourite things, food, and learning another language to please her family.
However, he couldn’t ask her on a date for two years and did everything but that for 2 years. Also, it’s so much worse because we barely know where Catalina’s mind is because everything Aaron does to her she assumed is with a negative motive.
I don’t want to give much effort to this review, I already put in a lot to finish reading the book. I’ll just end here for now because, but I could go on and on about how I didn’t like the book.
One thing I’d commend on however is that it was so well written so that’s that. My friend also read this and liked it so you might still want to give it a try. These views are mine and mine only.
Pretty nice book. I think the writer did a good job on this. However, a few pages too long in my opinion.
And when they say slow burn, guys, expect a slow burn.
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