2.75 stars

In “The Near Miss,” Wren and Nick have deeply interconnected lives but have never met. Wren is a reporter and Nick is a handyman. Nick almost hits Wren with a pane of glass while he is installing it for her best friend. Wren almost hits Nick as she is driving home. Nick almost chokes on Wren’s lucky coin that she lost in a local coffee shop as he is drinking his coffee while Wren slips on a bandage that Nick left out (and so on). Their paths keep intertwining, many times with near death experiences, and yet they still don’t meet until they both travel to Italy from the UK. Will they have literal and metaphor sparks once they meet? If you like easy reads and very slow burns, you might like this book.

I think the book takes an interesting turn of phrase and pushes it to its limits well. And it was fun to try to figure out where the next near miss might occur with the clues left in the previous chapter. And I liked the other characters in the book, like Nick’s brother and grandmother, and Wren’s father and friend. But, I found it hard to connect with Nick and Wren’s relationship because they spent the majority of their relationship apart. It was hard to believe their chemistry and their connection because you don’t get to see them together that much and therefore, I found that I was mostly rooting for both of them not to get hurt instead of rooting for them to get together.

3/5 stars Buckle up, readers, because we have a slooooow burn.

This book started off with a really charming and precious premise - two poorly timed, meant to be characters that continually miss each other from meeting however how much fate deems their paths to cross. Invisible strings! Star-crossed lovahs! Well, to be completely honest, the number of missed connections (the first two coming almost comically to grips with one nearly killing the other), started to become one too many. You can easily see how the book was truly living up to its title - it's not even until the halfway point that the two characters meet, which for some, that is the goal of reading a slow burn. But for me, I was so exasperated, I don't think I could truly enjoy their connection once they finally met.

I did enjoy Wren standing up for herself in a thoughtless previous relationship, and Nick was a golden retriever MMC who just wanted to do whatever was best for his daughter. They were really sweet when they eventually get together, but dang, the journey to get there was just a touch too long for me.

Many thanks to Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley, and Lily Joseph for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts

I could NOT get past the third person POV. If the chapters are separated by characters, why do we still have 'Wren said...' 'Nick said..'. It makes it extremely hard to connect with the characters and almost impossible to stay connected with the plot.

The Near Miss by Lily Joseph is the latest of several new books that I have read. This one was a great read.