Ella is a spoiled rich kid. Her parents decide to move back to Israel though, and because she moves with them, she is forced into two years of military service. There is a love story in there, and it’s not good. What is worse though, is the description of the war and the army. This book was a tough read. I would not recommend.

Ella is a beautiful Israeli American teenager whose life is upended when her parents decide to move back to Tel Aviv……oh ya, and she has to serve in the Israeli government for 2 years. Following Ella on the wild ride of this book had me feeling so many feelings….happiness, sadness, confusion, and anger, so much anger. I saw myself in Ella throughout this book. I would highly recommend this read!

You know what the world did not need? An off-brand "It Ends With Us" that romanticizes the Israel-Hamas war.

Because when someone writes a book about the IDF, and includes the date of 2022 as the start of a two-year conscription, it goes without saying that Ella is serving during the conflict. Yet the author essentially writes boot camp and service as summer camp, occasionally gross but otherwise crawling with hot people. The original premise of an American girl forced into mandatory service was intriguing, but the writing treats boot camp like Love Island. Knowing as a reader that her cutesy relationship is going on while thousands of innocent people are dying? It made me feel sick to my stomach.

Of course, Ella's situation is heart-wrenching as the person she deemed as her protector ends up being her abuser. It's all too real. But in the first half, Ella just comes off as a brat (and not in the fun brat summer way, in the spoiled way). She purposely ignores the red flags then acts surprised when they wave. No one deserves abuse, but it made the reading painful. I wish there was a deeper examination of culture, especially for a girl trapped between two, but any deeper look was neglected in favor of yet another example of verbal abuse. Again, reading was painful. Not in the rip-out-your-heart way, but in the keep-checking-Instagram way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Greenleaf Book Group for an eARC in exchange for my honest review. Sorry it ended up with brutal honesty.

I hope many young women see and read this because so many get trapped in relationships like this. Ella this bright woman who has passion and drive falls for a soldier and things are going great, until they aren’t and he gets very angry suddenly. Ella doesn’t know how to get out of this after repeating the same behaviors time after time. This story is so many peoples story trying to decide what is best for you and not wanting to hurt or upset a person you really care for. I feel it was very well written especially at the worst parts of Ella’s life you could feel how dark it was for her.

4.5 stars - this book was not what I expected. So if you are looking for a fluffy romance, this is not the book for you. But if you are looking for a book that is very similar to It Ends With Us, then you will love it.

At first, this book went into a lot of backstory and plot that didn't feel relevant to the story and a lot of it could've been cut short. But when we get into the story between Liam and Ella, I became hooked. I had never read a romance set in the military, and I absolutely loved the sneaking around! And the spice and chemistry was so good.

There was a scene in this book that seemed to be exactly like a scene in a different popular romance book (I won't spoil the scene), so that deducted half a star. If you read it, you will know what scene I'm referring to and the only difference felt like the characters names.

This story is very emotional and hard to read, but it is also a very fast pace read. I couldn't put it down, I had to know what would happen next! I also enjoyed the way the story ended for Ella. The subject matter can be very triggering, so be mindful of that.

I really loved Ella's father. He seemed like such a sweet, loving teddy bear!

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for the opportunity for review.

I really wanted to like this based on the description. It's about a girl who's uprooted from her life and sent to the army. The family moves due to anti-semitism, and there's a romance and chance for reinvention. These issues are dealt with in the story.

Unfortunately, this really didn't work for me. The very first paragraph is meant to be some existential questions the main character is thinking about, and they were way too melodramatic. Not a great start.

The biggest problem was an extraordinarily unlikable main character. Ella is a brat. She is given a trite description as the perfect American girl; beautiful, stinking rich, with a near-perfect SAT score. Spare me. But she is insufferable and selfish. All she does is complain and speak poorly. Unbelievably, when she develops a relationship with someone who says he can't get involved with her at the risk of losing his job, which he desperately needs to support his family, she just thinks about ways to snag him. I couldn't find myself rooting for her.

Oh, and about that relationship. It's not very credible. They meet on the beach and three seconds later are talking about intimate stuff...a normal person would run the other way. Somehow we're supposed to be convinced that he really loves her, even though they only met once in a completely superficial way. And that he think she's special...even though she's only acted horribly. Huh?

The next problem was that the language is terribly vulgar. Why? I had to skip over many lines.

Finally, this is supposed to be like boot camp. But there is zero respect or discipline. It makes a real joke out of combat training.

I just didn't find this endearing, realistic, or even fun. I hope other other readers enjoy it more.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced copy for review.

Personally, I think the relationship in this book was too toxic for me to really enjoy. It started off okay but seemed to be red flag after red flag.

I also didn’t like how it seemed to be all over the place, honestly. From we can’t be together to we’re in love to meeting the family to her moving away to him suddenly being back and marriage.

Where Love Lies
By Raz Tal Schneider
Publication date: August 19, 2024


Ella Davidson is living the All American spoiled rich girl teenage dream. One night her parents drop the mother of all bombs, they are moving back to Israel and Ella has to join the Army in 2 weeks. As Ella is sulking on the beach in Tel Aviv with her Louis Vuitton purse and drinking a bottle of wine from paper cups, she meets her dream guy.

Liam Lavine is a gorgeous 20 something who throws sand on her as he is running by on the beach. He apologizes by taking her to a pineapple bar to get drinks and pizza. They seem to connect but no plans are made to meet again.

As Ella enters the army, supposedly the worst experience of her life, all she can think of is Liam. But, to both of them, Liam turns out to be Ella’s commanding officer.

This book was bad. Bad from page one. I had to stop shortly after starting chapter 10 because I was getting eye strain. Eye strain not from reading but from rolling my eyes. I was pretty appalled by the Author’s depiction of the army. Being in the army myself, I could tell there was no military training or even an attempt to learn military procedures, codes, rules, training. Men do not command women during basic training. Liam demanded to be called Commander Levine but he calls his second command by her first name Commander Mia. all soldiers are referred by rank and last name, just rank or just last name, but never by first name.

Basic training is to break a soldier down first, then build them back up. Ella went in to the army with one objection-to get Liam. She talks constantly of wanting to F#!$ him. There is no mention of the strenuous training that gives you no energy to think of anything else but eat, sleep, next mission. But somehow Ella has time to make her bed in pink sheets and a pink comforter. She has time to run to the bathroom to straighten her hair. She asks her mom to alter her uniform so she can show off her curves-have fun crawling around in skin tight clothes.

Things that happen in the real army during basic training:
-They don’t get their phones every night for an hour
-You do not choose your bed linen, its given to you
-Soldiers have to clean their space from top to bottom, this was never done
-Female soldiers are NEVER alone with male soldiers especially commanding officers
-You don’t get an M16 as soon as you get off the bus. You wait until you have been trained and then you are issued one
-You don’t get to talk to your commanding officer ever unless they speak to you first
-You don’t get to have mommy get your uniform altered so you can show off your curves and have it delivered by a taxi with gummy worms
-You don’t get time to put on makeup or do your hair especially with a flat iron

My final eye roll, when I decided I am not finishing this book, was when Ella became upset at a grandmother who took her phone to tell her sister the way to win a man's heart is through his stomach. Ella said the older lady was vulgar. VULGAR. I just read 9 chapters of either Liam or Ella (mostly) talk about f@#%ing and she is appalled by this grandmother. Nope, I’m done.

I received an advance copy of this book to provide feedback for the author. I did not receive any compensation for this review.

Wow! This book had me coming back for me with every turn of the page. It was a quick read and I read 64% of it in one day!
Ella is a beautiful Israeli American teenager whose life is upended when her parents decide to move back to Tel Aviv……oh ya, and she has to serve in the Israeli government for 2 years. Following Ella on the wild ride of this book had me feeling so many feelings….happiness, sadness, confusion, and anger, so much anger. I saw myself in Ella throughout this book. I would highly recommend this read!

I loved the plot idea of this book. The characters were well-developed, and the action was spot on. From the first few pages, the book entertained me. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was emotional, warm and a witty read. Plus, has that delightful elements of a rom-com. It’s fun and easy to read, and remains clever and thoughtful. I loved it.