Try Hard by Jacqueline Ramsden

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


How to rate this book… Sometimes star ratings are so inadequate. I’m going to go with a 3.5 rounded up to 4. Let’s chat about why this was so tough.

So we’ve got Eve and Ophelia. They knew each other since they were 11 years old and went to school together along with several other side characters in the book. It doesn’t seem like they really ever spent any time together but somehow had seriously crushes on each other – unbeknownst to them – that tainted every other relationship they’ve had over the past 20 years. They’re thrown back together for some old school friends’ wedding. Within days, they’re head-over-heels in love.

While all of that felt completely unbelievable, the actual healing and relationship development was lovely. If I pretend that the two weeks the story followed was actually two months, maybe it would have felt better. But the constant “I love you”s just felt unbelievable after such a short amount of time when they didn’t really have any relationship during the childhood that they sort of shared.

The very best part of the book was how Ophelia dealt with trauma related to a couple of things. That story line was emotional and meaningful and I felt so much for Ophelia. I loved Eve, too, as a character. If they had been placed in a different story, I would have loved it so much.

I got this as an ARC from Booksprout so I’m not sure how much more work was going to be done so the typos and such might be gone. I’m hopeful the numerous italicized words were pared down. Because there were so many and they were everywhere.

After all that I want to round down but while I was reading, I felt so much for Fia and Eve that I won’t. Just know what you’re getting into and you might love it.



View all my reviews