Fall Into You

So I am someone who has never really been into audiobooks, I have ADHD and if I am not actively reading words my mind starts to wander and I’ve now missed 3 chapters of the story. But I have recently started to listen to books on my commutes to work. The other side of the book world that I am missing is romance novels. Especially recent ones. I really don’t like books with a lot of smut and if it has some “spice” it needs to serve the story. Also if a book is overtaken with sexy scenes I find my brain tuning out. I have always valued narrative over unnecessary smut scenes. For all these reasons and more the romance genre has simply never appealed to me. However I decided to give it a shot with my first ever audiobook because if I zoned out I knew I wouldn’t have missed anything, and I would have no problem turning off when I got to work. So let’s review my first ever romance novel, Fall Into You.

To start I thought the book was funny. It made me relate to the main character and it contained the appropriate amount of second hand embarrassment. Liza is a very understandable character and is very much like I was in my early 20s. Matt is easy to visualize and he says all the right things. I think he is actually my biggest issue with romance novels. Men (most men) are just not that open and free with their feelings. That seems so unrealistic. Then I remember that I am married to a man who once cried because he loves me so much, so ya know. Maybe because Eliza seems a lot like I was in my younger days it feels like having a man with his shit together seemed so unrealistic. Perhaps I was projecting a bit too hard.

My biggest actual issue with the book is honestly, I think I’m too old for it. I definitely wasn’t the target demographic and the language just felt very young Gen Z and therefore it threw me out of the story a little bit. The slang was just a bit to internet for me. That said I do think that was my biggest problem, so it's passable.

There is some smut, but I knew that there would be going into a romance novel, it feels impossible to find a love story without it. But I don’t think it was ever too graphic or lingered too long for me. It was definitely more than implied but it also didn’t make me feel like I was listening to straight up porn, so it had a decent balance.

Overall I think it was good, it wasn’t phenomenal and I’m not going to re-read it or run out and buy a physical copy. But it was good, listenable. It served exactly the purpose I needed it to, on the way to work entertainment. I liked the family dynamics aspect of the story and the relationship between the main characters felt real without being too nauseating. I even found myself saying “aww” out loud. I really want romance books to be my thing, I just don’t think they are. I need a really strong narrative where the love story is secondary. All that said, I think the book is worth the read if you are someone who is drawn to that genre. It is a personal 3.5/5, as I don’t indulge in the genre very often I can’t really rate it against other romance novels. But the writing style was solid and save for the Gen Z slang, none of the writing was bad.