Author: Kayley Loring
Kindle Edition, KU
Three months ago, Vivian’s boyfriend dumped her. The same boyfriend she upended her life for so that he could accept a great job. She has been eating her feelings and wallowing in her post breakup funk, when her sister calls her to announce that she is not only engaged but that the wedding will be held in three months and that Vivian is a bridesmaid. And that said boyfriend is in the wedding party with his new fiancée! There is another little problem: she has already bough Vivian a dress. A dress that is two sizes too small. She apparently did that to make Vivian get out of her funk and get back in shape. She also announces that she hired the best personal trainer in town to get Vivian into that dress.
Enter Mitch, personal trainer extraordinaire, with the body of a greek statue, who makes heads turns when he walks by. But Mitch is not exactly Mitch, he is Brad Mitchell, Vivian’s childhood friend. He’s the chubby teenager that was her best friend in high school, the one she “practiced kissing” with, the one that, when she got “popular”, she dumped for the guy who bullied him, the one whose prom invitation she refused because she was going to the prom with his nemesis. Feelings resurface, good and bad ones. Can the hurts be forgiven and forgotten and lead to a future together, even if just as friends?
I confess I was afraid of reading this one. I don’t like the whole “revenge weight loss” idea. AT ALL. But I trusted Kayley to make me like Brad/Mitch and Vivian. And she did.
We all know how high school can be hell: the pressure to fit in, the need to belong. I was really pissed at Vivian for doing what she did to “Fat Brad”and I totally understood why Brad felt the way he did. Since most of the book is how they deal with their past and how they get to be together I am not going to say much more so as to not spoil anyone. Well, it IS a romance novel and it does have an HEA, so you know you will get all the feels in the end.
Kayley makes you like Vivian – she is a hoot – so you try to forgive teenage Vivian and root for her. And for those who think that Brad was holding a grudge for too long, well, you definitely have never been bullied. That was him switching self-preservation mode. You do what what you have to do. Good for him that he turned that into a career and a new way of life.
Ah, and the epilogue is so cute! I am a sucker for epilogues and I loved this one!
Possible triggers: fat-shaming, body image issues, cheating (not main characters), bullying
