The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

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Title: The Proposal
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Published by: Berkley
Release Date: October 30, 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 336
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Multicultural
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 Platypire Diversity Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 Reading Assignment Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

The author of The Wedding Date serves up a novel about what happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own...

When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise--or happen in front of 45,000 people.

When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans...

At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes...

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3 stars — I was really looking forward to this book, and the main reason is the obvious awesome diversity!  Not only is our author a person of colour, but so are BOTH of our main characters!  And I’d seen some good reviews for Ms. Guillory’s debut, The Wedding Date, so I figured it was a no brainer!  Unfortunately, while there were some great moments, on the whole this book fell flat for me.  Which is a mega bummer.  Also, while this can totally stand on its own, it does have crossover characters with The Wedding Date.  That doesn’t bother me, but I know some find it frustrating when that’s not obvious.

So hmmm…what to say.  Like, what do I mean by flat?  Well, the characters felt flat and two-dimensional.  The conversations, the dialogue.  The inner thoughts.  It’s like it was missing some polish you know?  Like everything felt very matter of fact and perfunctory, but I didn’t FEEL anything.  Now, there were moments…a scene here or there, some glimmers of a spark, but it just wasn’t enough to sustain me.  On the whole I was just left feeling bored and meh.

Nik and Carlos both appeared great on paper, and I didn’t dislike them or anything, but I never really connected with them either.  I never quite understood (in my bones) why they were both anti-relationship, I was just eventually told you know?  Like for some reason I didn’t get the extent that Nik was scarred from her relationship with Justin until nearer to the end when it was already too late for me to be empathizing with her.  Similarly with Carlos, I was told he was concentrating on his family, and I guessed there was some fear, but I didn’t *feel* it.

Gosh, I didn’t even really feel their funny moments.  There were scenes where I’m sure I was supposed to be giggling, but I was just like “oh, yeah, I guess that’s funny.”  It was like their reactions were over the top.  Or their dialogue would go without breaks in between.  Honestly, I’m not a writer, I just know when something doesn’t work for me.

Samesies for their romantic chemistry.  I appreciated their friendship, but when we got to the romance, I never felt any tummy tingles or butterflies.  Heck, even the steamy scenes were very perfunctory and essentially fade to black.  I don’t mind fade to black, but I want to *feel* something in the kisses then.

Honestly, there were two things that kept this being an OK book (and not a bad book).  First, the diversity was fantastically done.  I mean, there were times where I kind of felt like white people were being made fun of, and while part of me gets that, it felt more mean somehow…which, find, I guess, I don’t know.  But so many fantastic characters of colour, and some great LGBT representation too.  Second, the scenes at Natalie’s Gym, and Natalie’s entire story were really affecting to me.  I truly felt so much.  If the rest of the story had had that same level of emotional involvement, I would have felt differently.

So yeah.  I don’t know.  It was missing book magic for me.  Maybe the delayed release means they’re going to inject some magic into it?  I hope so, because it would be a shame to waste all the potential.