One of my absolute guilty pleasures is reality TV romance novels - because they are high emotion and very trashy, all while calling out the reality TV show industry. It's always the perfect combination of crazy and caring, and the characters are always larger than life. It's the perfect way to escape when you know the predictability of the genre, everyone will always have a happy ever after. I discovered Not Here to Make Friends last year, and it sat on my bookshelf, waiting to be my Valentine's Day read. I was extra excited when I realized Jodi McAlister wrote her dissertation on The Bachelor franchise, which I thought would add to the trashiness of the story. I went into this book with high expectations.
And honestly, I was left a little bit underwhelmed by the story.
Now, I think part of the problem for me was this was the third book in a series, but I didn't find out until I had started reading. I think the twist of Lily being cast on the show and being a producer would have been a much more interesting reveal after two books of Lily Fireball's antics - only to realize they had been scripted the entire time! Not to mention, the fact she went on the show in the first place after the death of her husband, I think I would have loved her character a lot more if I had the two-book build-up to the craziness she would cause.
In addition, the book focused a lot on how these shows were forced to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it did add some interesting drama to the story, it also was mentally exhausting to read how many bad memories so many of us have about the pandemic. I get the author wanting to keep the series true to life, but I learned very quickly I do not appreciate COVID in my romance books. I know some people won't mind this, and I think it's worth saying that the drama it generates is delicious because the story's plot wouldn't have worked without it.
This book is also told from two perspectives: Murray and Lily. However, Lily's point of view chapters were entirely in flashback, which was to show how the two of them had been two ships passing in the night for over a decade. I hated this decision because I wanted to know Lily's opinions about the crazy things she was doing on the show! I wanted more insight into her modern-day antics, her gossiping with the other contestants, and her making the decisions she does in front of the camera. One of my favorite parts of this subgenre is to see how the relationships between contestants grow, and Murray was the only modern-day perspective. And I think this is another reason reading this book first put me at a disadvantage: both other books in the series take place during the same season with the other two couples who formed during the filming of this show. What I had hoped to see in the book, I was never going to because it would just be repeating the same things from books one and two.
I truly cannot tell if I am going to go back and read the other two books, just because I already know how they end. I know the main struggles the characters face, mostly from Murray's point of view, and it would feel repetative to me to read the stories again and again. I think it's an interesting twist, writing about the same season of a TV show from different perspectives, but I just don't have it in me to read another COVID romance.
Overall, I think Jodi McAlister is incredibly talented at what she does, and I am looking forward to reading some of her books outside of this specific series. This book just didn't have the sparks I needed to give it a rose, and I wish it was the story that was hinted at in the last chapter instead.
Not Here to Make Friends is available through Simon & Schuster