I'm too old to have read Harry Potter fanfic so I appreciated this novel without any previous mental constructions
I liked this enemy-to-lover story, the slow burning romance and how the character faced their past and their present.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Rating: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5
Spice: 🌶️ 1/5


Tropes/Topics:
MM Romance ✔️
Enemies to Lovers ✔️
Opposites Attract ✔️


J A C K & T H E O
While they were parts within the book that i fxckn ADORED, I didn't really FEEL and ultimately, that's how I rate my books. but the type of FEELINGS i get from it.


What I L O V E D:
- The description of the book and the simply beautiful cover is what GOT me! & yes, I know we're NOT supposed to judge a book by it's cover but I DID! 😩
- Although their marriages weren't PERFECT (but really whose is 🤷🏻‍♀️) I loved that they still LOVED their respective wives but unfortunately they weren't IN LOVE.
- The spiceeeee was N I C E


My d i s l i k e s:
- The hardest part was actually FOLLOWING. The timeline was a little bit EVERYWHERE.
It would change right BEFORE the chapter & sometimes DURING (MID) chapter. It was ODD.
- There was more focus on their childhood than in the NOW
- Before anything i want to state that there IS an HEA for Jack & Theo. But that ENDING? just... idkkk.

1.5 Stars. This book was painful to read and honestly I feel accomplished by the fact that I managed to get it finished and didn't just give up on it, which is the only reason it's getting 1.5 stars. First of all it is poorly disguised Drarry fan fiction and given the turf-queen's hatred of queer people I feel really icky reading a queer book based on her writings. I absolutely hated how the book was written. The book did a whole lot of telling and very little showing. There were entire chapters without dialogue which made everything seem to just drag on and on and on. The book jumped in time and between POV without clear designations and I found myself having to go back and restart sections because I thought I was in someone else's POV. On top of this the whole tone of the book felt smug. Like the author was going, I'm not telling you something and you won't know what I'm not telling you until I decide you deserve it. There are ways to do the time jump and not give the whole story in a way that keeps readers hooked and intrigued, whereas the way this was written just turned me off.

Now for the characters. Everyone in this book has a name that sounds made up by Stephenie Meyer (derogatory). Half of the names I couldn't tell how they were pronounced by how they were written. I did actually somewhat like Jack as a person. Theo on the other hand was just awful. I get that he's the Draco character but he is a walking talking red flag. The fact that at 14 he was punching walls and by 38 he was throwing Ming vases around tells me that he doesn't need to fall in love. He needs therapy and anger management classes. He has no redeeming qualities other than the fact he loves his son. Every single moment he and Jack are together, Theo is borderline abusive and sometimes full on abusive. It is not a healthy relationship and I do not want them together.

In addition to the above, I had to keep a running list of things that just didn't make sense because they were driving me insane as I was reading:
- There are no references to condoms or STI status despite it being 2002 and just slightly post-AIDS
- Where did Jack get the money for a hotel in Ireland? Isn’t the main thing about him that he’s poor at that point in his life
- There are references to people crowded outside pubs and night clubs in Ireland in 2002 when smoking was not banned from inside these spaces until 2004
- Jack is sleeping on the couch at his house. His kids are at boarding school, why doesn’t he sleep in one of his children’s empty bed’s and if he’s so rich why doesn’t their house have a spare bedroom
- Every single music reference was 80s or early 90s, no matter if it was 2002 or 2022. And not even the most hipster of kids was listening to vinyl in 2002

Just save yourself and read Cat Sebastian's Tommy Cabot Was Here instead because it has a similar plot and feels like a warm hug.

I really enjoyed this one. It's about Jack and Theo who met during their first year at a prestigious private school. Jack the poor, scholarship student, and Theo, the rich boy with everything at his feet.
This is a second chance, enemies to lovers, the storyline that alternates between the two of them and then into their past where they begin their relationship and its evolution.
I thought the writing style was very interesting, I had first thought that the style of pauses and restarts in sentences would get old but it really worked for these two and put you inside their heads. I thought Jack and Theo were very well fleshed out, their faults and backstory with their parents and how, even though they had grown up in different worlds, they still faced similar struggles. Then how as 37-year-old adults they had tried to change from who they were as children and admit their mistakes. I think if anything, I would have liked there to be a little bit more from when they were children and how exactly they sort of became 'enemies' other than Jack being the poor overachiever and Theo, the rich snob, and how those opposites typically seem to clash.
Overall, I enjoyed this read and I'll buy it for myself when it comes out.

Thank you Netgalley and Carina Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanna start by saying how much I absolutely adored this story. I love enemies to lovers and I love second chance romance and the way these two tropes were blended together was just perfection.

I got swept away by the prose, too. Unconventional and a little messy, but absolutely beautiful nonetheless. The dual timeline, telling their past story alongside their present, was such a good narrative choice.

These characters, their pain, their love and hatred and all the in-between was so achingly real and raw and I just felt so much while reading these two idiots sort their messy, complicated lives out.

The problem is, I could read this as the fanfiction it originally was. I could have those characters already in mind which added so much context that I think was lacking from this as a stand alone book.

There were also a lot of inconsistencies, or perhaps just moments lacking clarity, and while I did adore the messiness of the prose, again, I feel it’s better suited to fanfiction and not traditional publishing. Unfortunately I feel like this book needs a VERY heavy edit to really stand out as a piece of original fiction.

Giving anything less than four stars would be lying about how much I adored this mess of a book, but it has some gaping flaws that it feels wrong not to point out.

This is out December 27.

DNF at 25%. The story introduced too many characters all at once, I had a hard time following who everyone was and it became unenjoyable

All the Way Happy was, in the moment, a book which I very much enjoyed. But in the sense it was a little like a fever dream and, thinking back on it, I find my thoughts on it wavering more and more.

The story is, essentially, repurposed fanfic of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. I, to be perfectly frank, did not realise this until I’d read a good half to two thirds of the book. And for the remainder of it, I did my utmost to forget this fact. In this, your mileage may vary. My mileage is pretty short.

The book flips back and forth between the present day and the past, when these two characters first met and their relationship began. It mostly does this well but there are a few points where the lines between present and past blur to the point where you don’t know which you’re in at any one time. This is, on the whole, not a massive issue, but one I did notice. However, this is also a book that does a second chance romance with flashbacks well. I think that’s in part because it’s not expecting too much to happen in the present. That is, the present day narrative doesn’t cover a long stretch of time, so, when more time is spent in the past to explain the relationship, the present doesn’t feel too rushed.

Really, when I think what I liked about this book, it’s less anything in particular and more that reading it was like some fever dream. I pretty much binged it in a sitting and, while reading, I was enjoying myself. It’s after reading that I started to pick it apart a bit more. While the main characters were, I suppose, quite distinct, the side characters were pretty indistinguishable and the really minor ones I kept losing track of. But they were kind of distinct in the way where someone else has already done most of the character work for you, so you don’t need to.

On top of that, it felt a lot like self-indulgent whump at times. And, sure, to each their own, but you know you don’t have to put all those angst-ridden tropes in at once, right? You can give each one time to breathe and yourself time to deal with them maybe? Especially since it ends up feeling a little shallow in the end, whereas limiting that whump-ness might have led to better characterisation too. Again though, to each their own.

It didn’t help that there was a certain amount of florid, try-hard prose at times. That’s not to say romance novels should try to avoid poetry in their writing. But there’s poetry and skilled depth to writing, and then there’s whatever some of this was. That sounds mean, but yeah.

So really, what I seem to have done here is just talk myself into a lower rating. While I was reading the book it was good. When I finished it? Less so.

This book started off strong for me. I thought it was well-written, and the characters and plot seemed intriguing. Quickly, though, my enjoyment began to fade. There was a lot of back and forth through different time periods, in a way that made it really hard to follow what time period and setting you were reading about. I ended up almost unable to distinguish the characters, who didn't feel fleshed out enough. I did still think the writing style was good, but the story was so hard to make sense of otherwise that I didn't end up enjoying this.

I wanted to enjoy this but was overly unimpressed with the relationships, the dynamic, and the plot felt convoluted.

At first I didn't know this book was like a draco- harry fic. But after reading some of the reviews it was so apprant.
I liked the book but it is the kind of book which is not memorable.

Had I known that this was re-worked fanfiction, I wouldn't have requested it. It's not that I don't appreciate the effort that goes into writing fanfiction, but I think it's a different creature than a novel. I think the main issue is that fanfiction is written with the assumption that readers will already have a connection/ understanding of the characters and I didn't have that with these two. It takes a great deal of reworking to make fanfiction into a novel.

I found the characters angsty pining annoying and I'm afraid there wasn't enough in the present of their story for me to buy into their relationship. I like to get to the end of a book confident that the characters are well suited for one another - but that's just me... perhaps the author has different preferences.

I would be very curious to know how this book reads if you're not hyper aware of the Drarry of it all. I found it too distracting. And as much as I love a second chance romance, these two didn't spend enough time together in the present for me to believe they should get back together.

This book was just so...angsty for being about two grown adults. I understood the flashbacks being filled with pining and tension and angst but the present day setting being filled with much the same seemed jarring to me. I did like the setting and the characters but wanted more from the book.

This was a beautifully written romance, full of the heartbreak of teenage years, the realities of middle-aged parenthood, and a sweeping overarching love above all.

One of the parts that worked the best for me, was the use of the coordinated timelines. Each chapter covering the present day - Jack and Theo meet up again 17 years after their brief but intense love affair and heartbreak whilst dealing with their respective divorces and children, before switching to the past and their troubled relationship at prep school in Baltimore, then their affair in Ireland. The combination of the timelines worked really well for me in building the narrative tension of what happened in the past, and deepening the knowledge of the characters and how their backgrounds influenced their perspectives on their relationship and on the decisions that they took.

It was gorgeously written, with some beautiful bits of prose; heartfelt and tender.

It was not faultless however. I personally wanted there to be more of their reconciled relationship in the present day; it is one thing to feel love still for the teen who you had a passionate love/hate relationship, and then a few months of bliss with, but I really needed more of a feel for how these men in their late 30s would find each other in a new romantic relationship, and how they would adapt and grow together. The book instead just skimmed over that in a brief epilogue, leaving the sense of a HEA harder for me to grasp. This is possibly a YMMV thing!

Also I struggled a little with the time period and some of the settings. There was very little date settings, perhaps a deliberate choice, but the reference to listening to LPs of David Bowie, Led Zep and Tiffany when in Ireland had put the past in the late 80s maybe, so the the early noughties for the present day (which fitted with no social media references for example). Except later there's a mention to the legalisation of gay marriage and so instead I rejigged the times to the past being in the noughties instead but then the LPs stuck out...I don't know, it just kept dragging me out of the story a bit!

Also for a story that had a lit of repression of sexuality, there was very little homophobia, which I should add makes me happy in general in books, but I'm not sure how well it worked here.

Despite these points, the writing was so lovely and the narrative so compelling, that I think this author will definitely be one I'll look out for in the future.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*

Boy howdy am I annoyed that I got suckered into reading a Draco/Harry fanfic thinly disguised and rewritten. Upon realizing what it was, I'm surprised I didn't catch it when reading the description, but it becomes fairly obvious the further into the book you get. It’s like when I learned Red, White, and Royal Blue was originally a The Social Network fanfic, once you see it you can’t unsee it.

I can't even properly get into what I didn't enjoy about the book, as it's just a simple regurgitation of timeworn tropes for a decades old pairing and rewritten backstory adapted from the actual HP novels.

The only positive to any of this is that J.K. Rowling doesn't get any money.

All The Way Happy has some truly wonderful prose and characters that accompany the love story at its core to root for. I would have loved to see more of Theo and Jack's family members, but I loved just about every moment with them that was in the book. My only concern with the book was that the way it hopped around to different periods of time was confusing in several places and could use clearer transitions.

(4.5) ******Thanks Net-Galley for the arc********
Jack and Theo are two of the most frustrating/flawed characters I have read. I wanted to smack them into sense. I wanted them to make better choices. I wanted them to stop hurting. I wanted the adults around them to step up.
The book is written in a very interesting pause/talk dialogue. Honestly, people in real life talk like that too but reading it was a little off-putting. I can see why some readers won't enjoy this as much. It is not a fluffy book. It is a dark one with everything that Jack and Theo go through individually and together.
I loved the women in their life (not the parents) and how they were written. Jack's childhood broke my heart because sometimes family is your biggest trauma in life. You become so afraid of being them that you lose your identity(Jack). Sometimes your parents mess up so bad and that makes you motivated to never let your own child down(Theo). I felt so bad for them but glad that it worked out for them in the end.
I loved the theme of this story. It is hard reading about characters who make decisions that make no sense, You want to yell at them for being stupid, but you have to understand that Jack/Theo's story didn't start in the current time. It was before gay marriage was legalized.
You can see yourself in Jack/Theo. How would you turn out to be if people in your life would have made better decisions? How would you be today if you actually listened to your heart? Would you be a better you today if you made all the right decisions or if all those hard moments made the today you? Who would you have been if societal norms never influenced your way of living?

One of my favorite lines from the book:
"Maybe, in trying so hard to grow up in an acceptable way, he never grew up at all."

I had read reviews before reading the story, so I knew that this was essentially a re-worked Drarry fanfic, however I’m not sure how much knowing that impacted my enjoyment of the story.

At face value, this is an utterly emotional romance about two people fighting through feelings and circumstances and eventually (and always) arriving back to each other.

While I didn’t read this as a fanfic, I’m a HUGE Potterhead, so I enjoyed making the connections between this story’s characters and the ones in the Potterverse.

While I did generally enjoy the book, I didn’t love that it existed in both the past and present as it got hard to follow at times. I also found it to be SUPER cringey that their sons got together at the end. I found that it ruined a perfectly wonderful HEA for the two MCs and I could’ve done without it.

I was given an ARC by NetGalley and Carina Press & Carina Adores (Harlequin). All opinions are my own.

Split along two timelines, Coltrane's All the Way Happy is a second chance romance about acceptance and allowing one's self to love. After a chance encounter at their elite boarding school to drop off their sons, Theo and Jack are forced to face the past and the hurt that they have caused with one another.

In the past, Theo and Jack's story is an enemies to lovers romance, with fast paced writing, deep emotional shifts and a lot of fear of being out and the disappointment that may bring. The present is a much slower burn, a rekindling of a romance buried for 17 years.

The distinctly different pacing between the two time periods really works. It's probably my favourite part of the novel. Where the past is fast, arrogant and passionate, the present is a much more cautious, open and reflective tone. They feel really distinct, and that tone does convey the passage of time.

The book uses/abuses the em dash, thoughts repeatedly getting interrupted in an excessive manner. After a certain point I was able to focus on other things, but it was really distracting.

The book felt very stilted in the first few chapters before settling in. While it did a lot of exploring of Theo and Jack's relationship, I never felt like we got a good look at the two as fully fleshed people, and they didn't do a lot of growing over the course of the novel. Other characters equally felt somewhat two dimensional (for example Meg).

Overall, I felt like it was a nice, leisurely read. A great effort for a first novel.

Ok, so fresh off finishing this, I’m going to give it 4 stars. I am so conflicted on what to rate this so don’t be shocked if this changes at some point.

I’m one of the very people who has never read or watched anything Harry Potter related, so I genuinely was blind to the fan fiction connection most people have been picking up on. So take that info as you want.

Overall, I adored this book. I loved the dual perspective and the dual timeline aspect to the book. I also love angst and second chance romances, so the tropes worked for me in that regard. Neither of the MC’s were great people in the “before” timeline but I genuinely thought the author did a good job addressing some of the “why’s” to certain behaviors without excusing them, so I did find myself rooting for Theo and Jack hard. I do wish there was more interaction in the present-day, but it didn't necessarily take away from my reading experience!

This book also tackled the concept of living authentically really well in my opinion. Although coming out and living truthfully is much easier today than it was in the past, it's certainly not easy for everyone. Our childhoods are so formative into how we accept ourselves and the biggest contributors to our thoughts on what we can/can't have and deserve in life. I thought this was shown very well between the "then" and "now" timelines.

There was one moment in the penultimate chapter that had to do with side characters that I’m really hung up on (hence the inability to give a solid rating). I don’t know if I’m overanalyzing, but if I’m not, I have no idea why it was included? (If you’ve read this and know which scene I’m talking about, I’d love to discuss because I’m very confused lol).

However, despite those few lines towards the end, I really did enjoy this book!