Everyday Rowena

This was a novella featuring Jake Dublin, freelance writer who has a popular sports blog. On this sports blog he talks about whatever he wants to talk about. Most of it is sports but from time to time, he blogs about his personal life and when he meets his new neighbor, she makes it onto his blog. He’s completely smitten with this girl and wants to get to know her so when she shoots him down that first time, Jake takes to his blog and talks about it. The closer they get, Jake starts to realize that he needs to come clean about who he is and what he’s doing on his blog. Sophie (aka Elevator Girl from the blog) really likes Jake and she likes that he likes whatever she likes and that he’s hot and well, just a lot of things. One of those things that she loves about him? That he doesn’t like sports (haha). The story takes place while Jake is trying to come clean to the girl that he’s quickly falling for and the fallout from what happens when she finally realizes who he is.

This was a short story and it definitely felt like it was a short story. It really could have been a cute story but there was so much cheese thrown in that by the middle of the story, I almost DNF’d it. Jake was a likable character and I thought his blog was pretty decent as well. It was actually pretty funny to see his readership get really into the stories that Jake posted about Elevator Girl. Not once did I think that Jake was this phony guy in his interactions with Sophie but holy goodness Sophie was kind of dumb. I mean, the fickle way that she was about Jake liking sports. First it’s a really good thing that he hates sports and she really likes that he hates sports and then she wants him to like sports just a little bit because sports is a huge part of her family. The connection that Sophie had with Jake’s favorite football coach made me roll my eyes down the street and her cousins? They didn’t come off as protective brothers, they came off as idiot jocks that I couldn’t be bothered with.

I went into this story, wanting to like it and while there were times when I laughed, for the most part I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t care for Sophie as a character, I didn’t understand why Jake fell so hard for her. I didn’t like her at all. Her whole wishy-washy crap and then the way she reacted to Jake’s blog, ugh….it was all just so juvenile. When the book ended, I was glad. It just wasn’t for me.