Why Don’t We? by Jamie Ayque
Series: DigiKilig, #1
Published April 2018
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
215 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Review Request
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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Determined to impress her ex and get him back, 22-year-old Lexie Salvacion goes to an online buy-and-sell app and purchases an unused romantic dinner voucher from a guy named Kiko Malvar, who sells it after getting friendzoned by a girl he likes. It would have been the Best. Date. Ever. But things make a catastrophic turn when the ex makes a no-show and Lexie is forced to go through the whole date to save face—with adorably awkward, mobile app wiz Kiko.
What started as a disastrous encounter turns into an unlikely friendship between the two, fuelled by a shared fondness for desserts, geek talk over ice cream, naming cars and a common goal: to launch the country’s first-ever dessert directory app. Soon enough, Lexie feels her feisty, cool-girl exterior melt away as she lets Kiko see who she is IRL.
Something tells her this is definitely real. But just when she thinks she’s ready to turn it up a notch, past wounds are reopened and a family crisis pushes her to make big life decisions.
Review
The writing style. This is pretty much what I always notice first when I am starting a new story. And as for Why Don’t We?, I absolutely love the writing style! As some of you may have already known, I can always predict that I will like the story based on the writing style and as for this book, …well, I may not have hit the jackpot but I still enjoyed the overall story.
The start of the story was quite amusing that I’m not sure if I like Lexie (female lead) or hate her because of all the desperate things she did after the breakup. But I guess I should be thankful ‘coz she was able to meet Kiko because of that. The story of a girl who got dumped by her boyfriend because he chose his career over her and then while she’s still recovering she met someone. Sounds cliché, right? But I think what sets Lexie and Kiko’s story quite different was the addition of ice cream. Sounds yummy eh? Honestly, I thought at first that it’s not going to work out but then eventually, I just saw myself always looking forward to reading what kind of dessert Lexie and Kiko are getting next. Yep, I guess I’m quite taken by the dessert, haha.
I genuinely like the first few pages but then eventually I am starting to get bored. I usually love dual POV and this one’s a single POV narration and half of this book always just talks and describes – and I HATE that! It should have been done at a minimum but I guess that was necessary so we could really get to know the main characters better, but I’m still sore about it. Good thing that in the second half, the narration became better. Actually, I think that’s when I truly enjoyed the story. I giggled like a blushing teenager and imagined that I’m the heroine. So, I guess that’s really a good thing right? And that’s exactly why I am giving this story a 3.5 star rating.
Lexie and Kiko’s chemistry is so visible that I can almost taste it. I like that they didn’t hit off instantly and the author gave both of them the time to heal and get to know each other before falling in love. Their love story may be ordinary but it was ordinarily sweet for me. I dunno, I just like them together.
Plus, the setting in the Philippines and that seldom happens in an English romance story and that’s definitely a plus for me. Aside from that, you can’t resist the sweet HEA.
Favorite Lines
“I guess I love her so much that even if it kills me inside a million different ways I’ve never thought I could be killed, I’m letting her go. So she could dream more and be happy.”
“You can’t always hide behind those walls – someone will break through them eventually. And when it comes you won’t be strong enough to fight it.”
Challenges
- Goodreads Reading Challenge
- Alphabet Soup
- Strictly Print
- Review Writing
- New Author
- You Read How Many Books?
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