Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood
on May 27, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Contemporary, Fiction / Romance / General
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
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“Maybe he was the love of my life. No, I am certain that he was. But happy endings are not the rule. Sometimes you give it your all, and things still don’t turn out well. Sometimes A for effort looks just like an F in a funhouse mirror. It’s okay. I’ve survived a lot of bad shit, and I know the trick to pull through. Breathe. Just breathe. And then breathe again.”
Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.
Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.
It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.
But not everything is as it seems, and clichés sometimes become plot twists.
When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs, even if it’s a problematic one.
This is a hard one for me to review. Definitely not a favorite of Hazelwood’s but it was not that bad either. I mean, age gap romance where he wants her but refuses to let himself have her! Totally my guilty pleasure. This was supposed to be my favorite Hazelwood book by miles. It was shaping up to be exactly that, from a picturesque setting to the lovable characters, to the discussion about women’s agency and freedom of choice. But about halfway through, it falls apart. Maya loses her sense of self worth, and Conor only becomes more distant. She gives all of herself to him again and again, and she gets nothing in return. So, instead of leaving handprints on my soul, it became entirely unimpressive and, occasionally, nearly intolerable.
That being said, I still rated this novel four stars. I still love Hazelwood and will continue to buy her books until the end of time. I wouldn’t say this book ticks all the boxes for what I usually look for in a good brother’s best friend book, but I am still happy with how it turned out. It does not offer me all the tensions and forbidden romance narrative I expected since Eli seemed completely unfazed by Maya and Conor’s relationship despite the age gap. I was not feeling that edge-of-my-seat anticipation on that front, but I did appreciate the more mature direction the story decided to take, giving the trope a fresh, grounded feel.
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