You Look Like (a) Taylor Swift (inspired romance book)

The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther

Pages: 359 Genre: YA romance

Rating: 3.5 Star

Kindle Notes and Highlights

Meredith Fox went to Martha's Vineyard every summer as a child. Now, it's been a few years since she's been back, and this will be the first time since the death of her sister, Claire. She's there with the rest of her family to celebrate her cousin's wedding. And, at the request of the bride and groom, the traditional game of assassin is back on. This is the distraction Meredith needs: from the grief over her sister, and from the fact that her long-term boyfriend broke up with her a week ago. When she forges an unexpected (and secret) alliance with an attractive groomsman, she is putting her heart — and her game strategy — at risk.

I had this book saved for a long time, and I couldn't remember why until it started making very blatant Taylor Swift references. Since I had decided to start reading all these random saved books (and, I mean, if there's ever a time to read a romance, it's now), I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. This was fun. Not perfect, and probably not one that I'll be revisiting any time soon, but it was executed well enough and followed through on its promises.

I will say, though, that placing so much stake on the Taylor Swift thing is always going to feel like a mistake. I thought this book did well enough to stand on its own, but I think it would be better if it didn't rely on a gimmick to sell it. I mean, truly no hate to the author: she is not the first to do this, she will not be the last, and ultimately if it worked then who am I to judge? But in general I thought the best executed moments were the subtle references that could've fit in without the book begging me to like it because we share a favorite singer.

Now, I'll put my soapbox aside and discuss the actual book.

The backdrop of the assassin game was fun, but the way people reacted to it just felt crazily unrealistic. Sure, things like breaking alliances or getting someone out who you are close with might be annoying, but at the end of the day it's just a game. The way some of these characters were behaving would have you thinking that they were genuinely killing each other. Walk it off, lick your wounds even, but then laugh about it together. I easily got on board with the concept, but the actual execution was a little overwhelming.

The romance was ... fine. I liked Meredith (I'm assuming named after Taylor Swift's cat?) and thought she was able to hold her own as a main character. She felt like a whole person. Wit (yes, that's really what people call him, but it's an explained nickname so I'm allowing it) was really weak, though. You could tell that he existed to be a romantic love interest. Sure, he had vague motivations, but not really. Nothing that made me care about him outside of Meredith telling me I should.

The two of them got together really quickly, but I (professional romance hater) think that's sort of a symptom of the genre. They have to have an inexplicably immediate attraction to each other because this book is 300 pages long and we need to have time for them to get together, bond, break up in the third act, and then fall in love in the epilogue! So while there was no reason for them to fall in love that quickly other than the meta-narrative of being leads in a romance novel, I have a hard time blaming this book specifically. The thing I will blame this book for was that all their bonding happened either entirely behind-the-scenes or in a flashback. I think it would've been better to substitute some of the overt-flirting scenes for those moments of them genuinely getting to know each other, because as it was it left the romance feeling very hollow.

I also could not get behind the non-romantic conflict. Meredith and Wit's conflict was fine, but there was a whole subplot centered around Meredith's friends that was so weak. First, the friends were really obnoxious, and many of their issues with Meredith were unfounded at best and borderline cruel at worst. But honestly, there were some complaints that they had that were entirely justified. But we never saw Meredith actually change in that regard, she sort of just apologized and we all moved on because the book was ending, choosing to instead focus on the first brand of complaint. It would've been more satisfying for Meredith to actually get some character development while also standing her ground on the things that the friends were being unfair about. Given her full arc, I think this would've fit well into the overall message of the story and would've flushed out that whole subplot better.

On that note, I did really like where Meredith ended the story. Especially since this is an older YA novel, I thought it had a very realistic conclusion with a helpful little message attached.

Overall, I found the writing itself to be pretty good, but there was one quirk that really started to bother me. It's not that this author did it, it's that she did it frequently enough that it became glaringly obvious. Let's say there was a scene taking place in the evening that would get cut off. Then, we'd go to the next morning. Once it was obvious there was missing context, we'd jump back to some time the night before for a conversation that fills in the story. This isn't a horrible way to tell a story, but it did start to get confusing with the frequency that it was occurring. I think the book would've benefitted from being just a little bit more chronological.

If you know me, it's no secret that I don't love romance books in general. As far as the whole concept goes, though, I enjoyed this one. It was a fun, quick read for the season.