When I received Love Square via Netgalley from HarperCollins (thank you, as always), I was super excited. I’ve read a couple of thrillers in a row and thought a bit of chicklit would be a nice relaxing and fun change. I’ve read great things about Williams’s first book, Our Stop, so it would be a good quality chicklit read, I assumed. But my enthusiasm waned soon enough…

Seriously, nothing happened for the first half of the book. Okay, stuff happened but it was boring, boring, boring. Penny has a boring meet-cute with Francesco and we get every word of their boring dates (hint for writers: recapping the routine convo your leads have is okay - I do not need to read boring word for word transcripts - just cut to the chase), they flirt boringly, they kiss boringly, they have boring sex (literally, this is a plot point) and then Penny has to go up north and she doesn’t want a long distance relationship (I googled it and it’s probably around a 3 hour drive away at the most - every Australian rolls their eyes at the ‘distance’) and they break up and she meets other boring men.

Penny has had breast cancer and is in remission. I’ve been searching for a decent post breast cancer sex scene in a book for a long time. I’ll need to keep waiting.

Williams presented the cancer storyline without any consideration of the ‘show not tell’ style of writing. Penny just basically gave Francesco (and us) an info dump early on. Love Square reminded me of another couple of books I’ve read where the writer has obviously had good intentions by adding a medical issue to raise awareness but fail to make it work. In those other books, and this one, it was a case of poor execution. Here it became like a textbook list of symptoms and side effects without any sense of timing for any of the reveals to make anything heartfelt.

Even though Penny has a plethora of men, she has no chemistry with any of them. Nor did she deliver any humorous lines (stuff I think was supposed to be funny really wasn’t).

Diversity is also poorly executed. Every supporting character ticks off something from the ‘Diversity in Books 101’ list. Except, of course, for Penny. I felt like Williams wanted to have her cake and eat it too. If she really wanted to make a difference, why not just make Penny the diverse character! Or at least give one of the diverse characters some point.

Williams actually had other checklists besides the diversity one to tick off. There was also the Modern Technology in Chicklit one (dating apps and texts and podcasts and inability to answer a real phone call), the Required Occupation in Chicklit one (owner of a coffee shop/qualified chef, just don't expect mouth watering food porn - apparently having one of the characters calling out ‘chef’ now and then covered all bases), and the Pop Culture References in Contemporary Chicklit one (why did they have to spoil Frank Ocean’s music for me).

I’ve also got to mention all the weird head hopping Williams indulges in. For example, it’s Penny, Penny, Penny and then - bam - Francesco for one or two lines before we rush back to Penny. It made my head ache.

No, I did not finish the book. I began to skim more and more and it seemed pointless. I didn’t care about the outcome. (I’ve now found some spoilers and I can’t quite believe I wasted my time on reading as much as I did.)

Disappointing with a capital D but I have a zillion other books to read so, thank you, next.

1 out of 5