Beth Reekles

Love, Locked Down is set at the beginning of the pandemic in an apartment building. As one person in the building contracts the virus the whole building is put into a seven day lockdown at short notice. As you can imagine, whilst some people are locked down with the people they normally live with, others find themselves in a rather unexpected position.

We follow five sets of residents throughout the week. My favourite set was Imogen and Nate who had only got together for a one-night stand. Other couples are Isla and Danny who haven't been together for long, Zach and Serena who have been together for a while but find that a chance bit of information changes everything, Ethan and Charlotte who end up reluctantly spending the week apart, and Olivia who is forced into spending a week with Bridezilla and other members of a pre-wedding get-together.

This is the author's first adult novel, following several successful YA books. For me, this book felt quite YA in style but with adults as the main characters and I sometimes found it a little tricky to really gel with them. However, the more I read the more invested I became in their stories and in finding out how they felt about each other at the end of the week-long lockdown. I found myself smiling at some of the moments that occur and thought there was a certain charm to the whole thing.

Love, Locked Down is a light read looking at some important life choices for these millennials (and maybe some less important ones like whether they like pineapple on their pizzas or not). The author set out to write something like Love, Actually and it does feel a bit similar in that there are these separate storylines linked only by the building the characters live in. Although I didn't feel like the target audience, I enjoyed my visit to the apartments on London Lane and if you like a good rom-com then you will too.… (mehr)