This was a new author for me and I really enjoyed her writing and story line! It was the perfect pleasure read about love finding the way, forgiveness and understanding difficult family history. ( )

The Neighbour Favour (sorry but I have to use the spelling I’m used to here!) is a book with a great premise that introduced the reader to a variety of interesting characters. But somewhere along the way it lost me as it didn’t seem to dig deeply into those characters, just coasting along without exploration. It had promise, but fell a bit flat. Or maybe I’m just over books set in publishing with acopic editors for now.

The story starts brilliantly and really grabs the reader. On a hot subway train on the verge of fainting, Lily discovers her favourite author (who nobody else has ever heard of) now has a website. She emails him and he emails back. This is the start of an electronic pen pal friendship, but he bails on her when it comes to FaceTiming each other. Lily is disappointed, but gets on with life. She’s an assistant to a hyper suspicious, technophobic editor and her career isn’t going anywhere. Her more successful sisters keep trying to match her up with men and her parents want her to continue her studies. She’s living on her sister’s couch and is kind of over it. Then she meets new neighbour Nick, and they become friends when Lily enlists him to help her find a date for her sister’s wedding. The problem is that Nick is Lily’s favourite author who ghosted her, but he doesn’t feel he can tell her because very few people know about his ‘author’ past. Nick has a lot of trauma about his family and his author life, and it’s difficult for him to get past it. Can he tell the truth without hurting Lily and more importantly, can they find romance together?

The whole push-pull part as Lily and Nick nearly got together then didn’t was a bit repetitive for me. Nick lost some of his shine for me as he debated if/when/how to tell Lily about his life as an author and the emails. Both he and Lily let themselves be dictated to by others (mainly their families but in Lily’s case, her boss too) which made them a bit less likeable and the redeeming climatic scene was a bit too cheesy for me. I felt that the dialogue and actions of both Nick and Lilly read quite young at times compared to their mid- to late- twenties ages. As the story continued, I didn’t feel it had the depth of exploration into what made Nick in particular what he was and his anguish at holding a secret from Lily. It felt a bit too simple in terms of plot and language. Lily was a bit too compliant at times (seriously, leaving a family dinner to deliver business cards to your boss?) and she didn’t really seem to have much of an existence outside work and family.

The supporting characters like Violet, the sister who is a celebrity stylist and her rapper friend, Karamel Kitty were really fun. I’d highly consider reading the next book in the series about Violet (The Partner Plot) – she’s wild, unconventional and seems to be much stronger and secure in her life. I want to see more of that, and less timid characters.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Rounded up from 3.5 ( )

The Neighbor Favor

I Picked Up This Book Because: Not sure, cute cover?

Media Type: Audiobook
Source: BC Public Library
Dates Read: 2/1/24 - 2/3/24
Stars: 4 Stars
Narrator(s): Keylor Leigh and Malik Rashad

The Characters:

Lily Greene
Nick Brown

The Story:

I’m apparently not in the mood to “review” so All I can say is I really liked Lily and Nick’s story. Their email exchanges tickled me and the way they couldn’t stay away from each other kept me glued to the page. ( )

I wanted to like this but it was just a snooze.

I liked the premise of book nerds falling in love over email and even the next phase with the "I'll help you find a date" awkwardness but in the end the conflict didn't work for me and the side story about the sister just seemed to take up too much time for no reason except I guess to set the scene for a future book. Also way too much time spent on Lily's job and her terrible boss for essentially zero payoff. ( )