The Reunion by Elizabeth Drummond

Rating: 3/5

It did take quite a while for this story to pick up but once I reached the main storyline I found it to be original and the writing was good for an airy, quick room-com. It had some of my favourite tropes of enemies-to-lovers, a marriage of convenience, fake dating and dual POV.

Posy was a fresh face in the rom-com world which I liked. I did find her quite annoying at some points but this played well into her character and who she was. Lucas was a good male MC. He was the complete opposite of Posy which the author made clear.

It was quite cliché and predictable. I would have loved to see a bit more character development but I did like how they stayed true to themselves.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for a copy of this eARC!

Argh!! I really wanted to like this one. Unfortunately, I found it really difficult to connect with the characters; Posy in particular. The writing also felt a little bit clunky and YA rather than an adult romance.
Some bizarre (and offensive?!) choices were made regarding humour - fat-shaming for one + harmful stereotypes which for me was an instant turn off.
For a book that should be everything I love - enemies to lovers, hello - it completely missed the mark for me.
I DNFed unfortunately.

The Reunion is a debut novel with all the pieces for a great novel, but it, unfortunately, fell short in a lot of areas for me. Honestly, I normally do not DNF novels as I love to see them through to the end, but this one came extremely close for me. The only reason I kept going was because it was a debut and I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. On its surface, this novel is about two characters who did not like each other while in school. They meet again to see that each of them is in a place where a relationship of convenience would benefit them. The two of them end up spending time together to see that maybe they are no longer enemies after all. This general premise is something that sounded amazing, but, again, it unfortunately just never got there for me.

Posy Edwins and Lucas O’Rourke first met at the elite Arundel College. Posy was a rich socialite while Lucas was attending on a scholarship as the son of two staff members. They each became Head Girl and Head Boy during their final year with a school rule where if the two prefects marry, then the school will pay for their wedding and honeymoon. This comes back to Posy’s mind when she is older, and her father has cut her off as he wants her to start being more serious. As a photographer, Posy has been invited to a festival in Hawaii, but she now needs the funds to pay for the trip. Enter Lucas, who now owns a wealth management business, and has his own issues as he tries to gain clients. After meeting again over ten years later at the reunion, the two figure out that a marriage could solve a lot of problems. Posy could use the money to go to Hawaii and Lucas can use Posy’s connections to help his business. The two begin a relationship and begin to get to know each other and let their guards down.

Everything in the above summary sounds right up my alley for a story, but Posy was extremely unlikable. It was set up, I believe, to have opposites attract where Lucas came from a humbler background and Posy was part of the elite/rich crowd. He had to work very hard for anything he had while Posy had everything handed to her. The two characters go through a process learning about each other; however, they did not interact enough where I would believe that this occurred. The two also lacked chemistry where it felt, at times, that the novel was about the two characters on separate journeys and occasionally overlapped rather than a story to bring them together. Posy goes through some redemption, but there is not enough to make me, as a reader, root for her. The same went, unfortunately, for their romance. There was no build up where I could believe these two went naturally from enemies to lovers. As there were some subplots throughout the story, I wish the author deleted those and instead focused on building the romance.

While I can understand where the author was going with Lucas and Posy’s story, the one area that just truly did not work at all were the fat-shaming jokes. As a plus size person, I even partake in my own jokes amongst my friends/family and am not a stranger to them being used in a negative way. The way they were written in this story came across as attempting to be humorous, but it just came across as mean and unnecessary. Fat-shaming was not the only one that was bothersome as there were many others, including economic-shaming as even Lucas’s nickname was “Helpboy.” I’ve read many novels that included all of these more “offensive” topics, but they were handled in a different way where they did not come across as just being there for the sake of trying to be funny. If the author wanted to include any of these “jokes”, then it would have been more beneficial, for me, to put some more care where they felt like natural banter and not mean.

Overall, the premise was amazing and drew me to read this story. Posy may have been introduced as a very unlikable character, she had potential for redemption. This kept me reading as I kept hoping for her to grow and become better, for me. Lucas started great as he was likable from the start, although I am not sure if he truly was likable or just likable in comparison to Posy, but I did not feel any growth from him except for the allowances he made in his life to accommodate Posy. The writing and pacing worked well for me, and I liked the author’s general style at its core. This novel was not for me and, unfortunately, one that I would not recommend; however, there is enough in the author’s style where I would give her next novel a try.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, HarperCollins UK, for the opportunity to read this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed are completely my own.**

(2.5 stars, rounded up)

Content warnings: extramarital affair, breast cancer, classism, loss of a parent at a young age

In high school, Posy Edwins is the popular, rich head girl who is interested in using her position to make memories through social events. Lucas O'Rourke is the head boy at the private school on scholarship who has spreadsheets of how to make the students more college-ready. The other students call Lucas "Helpboy" because his parents are "the help" -- his father is in charge of school security and his mother is the chef.

Ten years later, Lucas is in wealth management and his once profitable business is struggling. His best friend and coworker convinces him to go to the reunion to drum up new business for their firm. Posy is an adrift party girl whose rich father cuts her off right before a photography event in Hawaii that she needs to attend for her big break.

In a last-ditch effort to make it to Hawaii, Posy approaches Lucas to invoke a centuries-old school bylaw that says the school will pay for the nuptials if the head boy and head girl ever marry. The headmaster is suspicious and sends a school employee to all of the wedding appointments in order to catch the couple in a lie.

I pictured Nathan from Ted Lasso every time I read Lucas' chapters. When the author physically described dark-haired, white Lucas my mental image revolted. He's your typical sweet but driven guy who hasn't quite made his huge success, but he's on the path.

Posy is also what you'd expect -- a spoiled rich girl who's grossly out of touch with what things cost for humble peasants. She considers her photography hobby to be a viable career option after a long string of other hobbies that didn't work out. Despite her upbringing, the way society treats Lucas makes Posy realize how shallow and reprehensible their behavior is.

While the story is interesting and the characters are likable, there's nothing in the novel to make it stand out from a plethora of other contemporary romances. Recommended only for voracious romance readers who are running out of titles to consume.

Representation: Indian side character

I tried with this book, I really did and I was sooo very excited for it, but it just was not for me. It had everything I could want in the premise, in terms of tropes but....I felt the main character was shallow, spoiled and rude. Some scenes were poorly written and don't get me started on the jokes that were just in very poor taste and I just could not make myself read anymore. It's a no from me.

Thank you to Netgalley for early access to the EArc

[Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the ebook. This review is my honest opinion but just another opinion, you should read this book and judge it by yourself]
//REVIEW IN ENGLISH SOON//

Sencillamente horrible, no hay por dónde cogerlo. Yo le he puesto muchas ganas al leerlo, ya que es un fake dating y enemigos que se trincan vivos, dos tropes que me encantan, pero creo que una tortura china me habría resultado más placentera.
Ninguno de los personajes tiene encanto, son planísimos y más tontos que Pichote (en serio, tontísimos, solo se libran dos y son secundarios). No hay evolución en ellos, no hay enamoramiento por ningún sitio, no hay tensión, no hay nada de nada. En serio, un coñazo. Tal vez si se le hubieran dado cuatro vueltas más a la historia y se hubiera reescrito podría salvarse pero tal y como está, megamñe.

I struggled with this book at first as I didn’t like the main character posy. She came across as very selfish, entitled and unkind. I’m glad I stuck with it as that was part of the story.

What a lovely story in the end. I really wanted her to find happiness but she was looking in all the wrong places when the right place was in front of her the whole time. I really enjoyed the book once I became engrossed in it.

Didn’t particularly like the characters but I hoped for the best for them all.

Thank you for the arc, I definitely recommend and if you stick with it you’ll have a very lovely story to read.

I saw so many mixed reviews of this book so I was scared to give it a shot but I am so happy I did. I devoured this one in one sitting as I was so in love with the characters and the banter and the plot lines. This has the marriage of convenience trope which is definitely one of my favorites and The Reunion delivered with this one. I had such a great time and I will definitely be picking up more of this author's works in the future.

Whoooooooo boy, it’s an understatement to say I didn’t like The Reunion‘s heroine, Posy. She’s a snob, rude, flighty, spoiled, entitled, and a complete waste of space.

Since graduation she’s been doing nothing but spending her father’s money while doing nothing worthy. And now, when her father has cut her off, her only option is to convince the man she once bullied into pretending to be in a relationship. For Lucas, he gets a new wealth management client, and for Posy, she gets her father’s money back.

But that’s as far as I got. I don’t want to read about a mean girl who hasn’t changed nor feels remorse. So that was the end of The Reunion for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter/Harper Collins UK for the review copy.

This was a fun, quick read.
Childhood enemies to lovers and fake dating, both tropes which I love.
I enjoyed this story and liked the characters but it felt like something was missing for me.

Really funny book enjoyed it from start to finish. The characters were really well rounded and fun to watch their life unfold.

A lovely romcom with some serious themes of how much words can cause hurt throughout our lives.
Posy starts off as a vapid, queen bee, cheerleader type that you know you hated at school while Lucas was the overachieving, socially awkward nerd that everyone looked down on. As adults Lucas has worked his way up to make his life a success while Poppy is struggling to prove herself to her friends and family.
An old school bylaw results in a humorous adventure into falling in love and realising their true worths.
Really well written, the author has a great flow and wit to her prose.
Really enjoyable.

The Reunion by Elizabeth Drummond is a quirky but fun read. I loved the characters of Lucas, but Posy annoyed me. However, together they are likeable. As the reader, you want them to be together and somehow find yourself pushing them to make it happen. While most rom-com's are predictable, even this one, you still want to read on and know everything. Overall, a good quick read.

I was excited when I had read this synopsis for this book, but the story didn’t fall through for me. I really wanted to love this book. An I tried to get into the story, but I found myself just skimming through because some places the story just didn’t flow very good. I think there could have been more romance and it could have taken less time for the main characters together. The main characters were a little hard to connect with. I just couldn’t feel the chemistry between the two. I really had to push through to get this one finished.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and the author for sending me this eARC for my honest review.

Right off the first few pages, I determined that I didn't really like Posy. A few chapters later, I think I decided I didn't really like Lucas either. However, I also could not stop reading this book until I sped through to the conclusion. I maybe liked them better at the end, but I loved reading this book.

Just couldn't like it. Boring characters that I couldn't get into. Storyline seemed slow.
Hope you enjoy it more than I did.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an early release of this book.

I really struggled with this book, I have to say it got there in the end but it took a while, I found that when a question was asked it took so long for the person to "think" about the answer that once they answered I had forgotten what the question was, it did seem to be "padded" it would have been a 5 star novella but its only a 3 star book, shame really as once it got towards the end I found I wasn't skim reading, just a shame the middle was so long.

A fun easy read but also very engaging. The characters of Lucas & Posy are really likeable and you are willing them to get together. Even though the ending was predictable, I couldn’t stop reading and had to find out what was going to happen.

The Reunion by Elizabeth Drummond features a fun premise. Two former high school enemies meet at their ten-year reunion and discover that they're not enemies anymore. Sounds fun, right? It is, but I don't think this book delivered to the best of its ability. This is Elizabeth Drummond's debut so I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that her future works improve. I will still probably check out her next works just because I think this one was *almost* there.

My first grievance was Posy's character. She is spoiled, entitled, and downright unlikeable. Not exactly how I like my romance heroines. She essentially bullies Lucus into getting what she wants and I just was not a fan of that little arrangement. It does not seem like Posy has matured at all since high school.

There are points in the book where I don't think the story was progressing and I got quite bored. This is already a short book, but it could have been even shorter and been fine.

There are also quite a lot of fat jokes and harmful stereotypes that I found distasteful. It felt like lazy writing. Other people should never be the butt of your joke.

Thank you to NetGalley for this digital arc in exchange for an honest review

Enemies to lovers at its best! Having all of the background information in the beginning and seeing how they two end up working together and falling for eachother was amazing!