I received a free copy of Trying Not to Love you in exchange for an honest review. Overall, this was a good read. I always like novels that are a "little rough around the edges," and this didn't disappoint. Marcus had a very difficult background, and probably wouldn't be someone you brought home to meet the parents, but he ended up being a stand up guy to Penny. Penny probably could have done better, but circumstances led her to Marcus, and in the end they were the perfect compliment to each other.

I found myself drawn to each of these characters once I started the book. Penny who lives with her grandmother and looks after her. I found myself liking the calm she was looking for. When she sees a new tenant to their apartment complex, she finds herself drawn to him though others are fearful of him she is not. She hires him as her bodyguard.
Marcus Drake has just been paroled and is waiting for his girlfriend Francesca to be paroled. Staying at an apartment he found he is hoping he can just make do until she is released. Seeing Penny has changed something in him and when his parole officer shows up, she announces that they are dating this is where the story really begins and you are taken on a ride of emotions highs and lows. You never know where the story is going that is what the beauty of this book was really about. The author captured everything from a woman taking care of her grandmother, to two people dealing with having been in foster care and not the good part. To a husband and wife grieving still for their child that they buried way too soon. Those were the real stories of the emotions tied to this book. When you finally get to the end I was hoping for more pages or at least an epilogue, that was just me. Overall a very good book with good characters.

Had a feeling I would like this book but didn't expect to absolutely LOVE it all!!!
Penny and Marcus are both a hot mess separately but their broken lives are forever changed when they bump into each other. Their start as awkward neighbours turns after a weird proposition is made that eventually leads to an unexpected "benefits with a time limit" that ruins them both. Not your typical love story, because that's the one thing they will avoid at any cost.
Heartbreaking and frustrating emotions lead you through their story while your rational side fights the idea of them ever ending up together. Obstacles are everywhere but you can't help but want these two to wake up before it's too late.
A must read if you want to give all your senses a serious workout.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley for my honest review.

Trying Not to Love you is a standalone novel by Amabile Giusti, and translated by Hilary Locke. It was published on July 28, 2020, by Montlake. I was able to read this novel by receiving an ARC on NetGalley after requesting it.

The novel centers around two individuals, Penny and Marcus, who could not be more different. Penny is shy and stays out of trouble while keeping her nose down and helping to take care of her grandmother. Marcus has just been released from prison and is counting down the days that his girlfriend will be released as well, and they can leave this boring town.

However, they realize they both need each other in their time of need, so they come to an arrangement that forces the pair to spend a lot of time together. This causes unwelcome feelings to arise in both, that could affect a lot of people around them, not just their hearts.

I enjoyed this novel. I came to care about the characters and was anxious to see how to story would play out. I ended up speeding through the end to ensure the ending was a positive one.

The only issue I had was the translation. There were a few errors in the novel where words were not correctly used, or the grammar was off. It would throw me off a bit, but not too much to deter me from finishing the book.

I rate this book as 4/5 stars. I recommend it for romance fans, but not for fans of other genres, since there is not much else within the pages.

This book is very different and in some spots the writing is awkward ... but that could be in the translation of the book to English. I really felt sorry for Penny having to work 2 jobs and look after her Grandmother. I just couldn’t see what she saw in Marcus because he kept telling her that Francisco was his true love and he treated Penny like crap! It took me a really long time not to hate him and he never did win me all the way over. I found myself skimming the book at times because it moved slow, but the last part of the book had my full attention.

I received an early copy courtesy of Amazon Publishing UK through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

This was a bit so-so with me, it was okay, but it definitely wasn't great. I quickly got bored of Penny allowing Marcus to treat her like crap. Generally a bit of a frustrating read to be honest.

Ok I love enemies to lovers story, and I tend to like jerks who eventually redeemed themselves, however this was not it. First Penny was weak, let him treat her like crap, knew about his manhorish ways. Marcus was a jerk and stayed that way, I personally hated him, and disliked Penny because she should know she could do better. And to top it all off I felt like sybil with multiple personalities since that it how I read it, there were too many peoples thoughts. So all in all I hated it. Read something else unless you want to read nothing but a whole lot of sex and no redeeming qualities.

This was an enjoyable quick read but fairly formulaic. Penny's relationship with her grandmother is lovely and adds depth to the story, but Marcus's propensity for casual sex and plan to wait for his "true love" Francisca to get out of jail seem absurd at times. If either one of them had actually said what they really thought it would be a different story.

Complementary copy given for honest review and opinion. I was not really impressed with this book. The translation lost some of its grammar. I did not like the author throwing in politics into the book.

Overall it was a good book and I enjoyed a lot of it, but I have some big problems:
1) The writing style. I don't know if maybe I wasn't paying too much attention to what was happening, but the story was confusing and hard to understand some times. It was also a little repetitive.
2) the romance pace. Our heroine falls in love quite quickly, which make it kinda unbelievable. Perhaps this also has to do with the fact that it is classified as "romance" but I would say that it is more like an erotic novel.
3) our hero. Not that I didn't like him as a character, but some of the things he said... yikes. This is directly related to the fact that it is an erotic novel and that is not my forte and it made me a bit uncomfortable, but it is totally in me.
4) an epilogue is necessary.

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: ⁣
Gonna keep this short and sweet! I rated this ⭐️⭐️.5/5 stars!⁣
I started reading this and actually wasn’t a huge fan... It was cheesy, childish, and seemed to have a lot of pointless drama. It almost seemed like the beginning half of the book had been written by a teenager and then the last half was written by someone more mature. I think the last 40% of the book redeemed it for me and I ended up liking the way it ended! It wasn’t a perfect love story by any means but I tend to enjoy that more than the unrealistic fairy tale ones anyways. ⁣
Overall, not the best romance I’ve ever read but certainly not the worst! I also want to note that this was originally written in Italian and some of the charm of the book could’ve potentially been lost in the translation. ⁣
⁣
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰. 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐰𝐧! ⁣
⁣

This book was an okay read for me. I feel like there may have been some of the story lost in translation. I did not like the characters all that much, especially Marcus, but I was able to finish the book. It could definitely use an epilogue. Overall, I don't know that I would read it again, but it was an somewhat enjoyable book. It had the potential to be more, but it fell a little short for me.

Thanks so NetGalley and Montlake for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am sorry to say this book just wasn’t for me. I am not sure why, but I just could not get into the characters and so it just wasn’t that enjoyable for me.

Thank you Net, Montlake and Amabile Giusti for the ARC.

Trying Not to Love You by Amabile Giusti is a romance book that was translated into English.
I honestly had a hard time getting into this book. I think maybe details were lost in the translation. It is a story about a girl named Penny, she works in a bar but also takes care of her Gran who suffers from dementia.

I think the idea of the story had potential but it was missing something.

ARC provided from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

I was pretty excited to read this on because I thought I'd really connect and like the main character. Instead this turned out to be more erotica than romance. That's not an issue except when you're in the mood for a romance and end up with a lot of nakedness.

Okay, so I finished reading this romantic fiction, a steamy one. I like reading love stories. And I like the plot of Trying Not to Love You. It has potential. It's a translated work and like the writing style, even though certain chapters are too descriptive. But as I kept reading, two things started to bother me:

1. Portrayal of Marcus. It's hard to like a love story if I don't like the male protagonist. And I didn't really like the portrayal of this character in the beginning. The kind of things he says...Maybe it's translation or Or maybe it was done on purpose to make it a little erotic, but it really bothered me. However, his behaviour changes with time, transforms in fact...But you know what I mean.

2. The PoV. The story has been told from multiple points of view (mainly dual). I understand that a story told from multiple PoV has its own advantage and purpose but what annoyed me is, the same scenes have been told from the different points of view. It makes it repetitive, so much that sometimes I skipped certain pages, almost sure that I could read the same thing from Marcus's point of view. And I wasn't wrong.

Overall, it was a quick, entertaining. At certain places, it's really nice. I liked the ending. You would like it if you like reading romance, and if could ignore above mentioned points.

Thank you, Netgalley for the ARC.

I read this book really quickly but I’m not sure I’d say it was all that enjoyable. I didn’t like the repetition of having POV from Marcus after having read it all once already.
I get the broken bad boy is a great romance character but this version wasn’t appealing to me.
I did enjoy their romance and the HEA ending

My apologies but this book did not capture my interest and I gave up and did not finish about 1/3rd of the way through the book. I love books that are romances with a hint of danger but this one just did not capture my interest. My apologies.

This was an odd duck of a book. As other reviewers have noted, it's hard to see what draws the novel's heroine, Penny, to our hero, Marcus. Beyond his (per Penny) physical beauty, he's a rude, chain-smoking, selfish bruiser with anger management issues. Initially, I had no idea where this story was set--it seemed like a vaguely anonymous city, maybe London--so I was surprised when well into the book the author tells us the setting is Connecticut. The characters also speak like Europeans: At one point, Penny went for a "weekly food shop," instead of "going to the grocery store" or supermarket to get groceries. (These quibbles might be the result of something lost in translation, perhaps?) The book also changes voice a lot: Most of the book is written in third-person, but three characters chime in throughout with first-person chapters; this is problematic primarily because we often go back in time in the narrative, reading the exact same events again through a different voice. This slowed down the story's momentum.

With all of that said, I cared about Penny. I also came to care about that rude chainsmoker of a man she loved, Marcus. I was invested in them, and rooting for them, because the author made them come alive for me. This book IS an odd duck, but different isn't bad.

The cover is lovely, btw.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

My emotions were all over the place with this book. In the end, I’m very happy I finished it and the ending was put together very nicely and definitely helped my final thoughts on the book. Even though this book is translated it was still written very well and was easy to follow. It follows Penny, a girl whose life is busy working two jobs and taking care of her Grandma with dementia, meeting her new neighbor Marcus who just got out of jail. They do not get off to a good start but when Penny asks for Marcus’ help - they inevitably have to spend more time together. She starts realizing she may have feelings for the ex-con, as rude and brash as he may be.
For the first 1/3 of the book I was ready to DNF it. I hated how Marcus was treating Penny; I hated the way he told her he wouldn’t have sex with her even if his life depended on it. I didn’t like how, in spite of Marcus saying rude things, Penny still was overly nice to him and didn’t get offended when he treated her like trash. As the book progressed and the characters grew and changed I started to warm up to them and wanted to see how this book wrapped up. The reader can see Penny growing into a confident woman who won’t put up with shit from guys and Marcus grows and tries to allow himself to let down his guard a little more. I liked at the end there were a couple different perspectives put in, other than just Penny and Marcus’, to show their relationship from an outside view and really tie the ending together. Over all the ending was well thought out and put together and made me happy that after my initial thoughts I still gave it a chance.