ARC provided by author
Thanks, Kayley for the ARC!
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! She has been worried about Vivian’s funk and love of pies and announces that she hired the best personal trainer in town to get Vivian out of that funk.
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 who she had a two-person book club with, the one that she hurt terribly when she went to prom with his nemesis (the guy who unbeknownst to her bullied him). And he cut her from his life. Cold turkey.
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.
I totally understood why Brad felt the way he did. I felt sorry for Vivian too, because she lost the most important person in her life and she didn’t even know how. If only he had read those emails…
Kayley makes you like Vivian – she is a hoot – so you get 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 you have to do. Good for him that he turned that into a career and a new way of life.
I loved their inner monologues! They are so funny and quintessential Kayley!
Ah, and the epilogue is so cute! I am a sucker for epilogues and I loved this one!
We have kitties, meddling elderly folk, diary entries, old emails, banter, funny texts, ‘it’s always been you’ and a sister who knew exactly what to do!
10/10! All the Fs!
Content notes: fat-shaming, body image issues, cheating (not main characters), bullying
