The Jerk Next Door

A quick side-read from my multiple downloaded kindle books and growing TBR piles with Mia Monroe's "The Jerk Next Door."

["He might look like a daydream, but he’s anything but.

My life is perfect. No, really. Dream career, great social life, a fantastic condo, and I’m easy on the eyes. It’s just that I’m a little bored with it all.

Until my new neighbor moves in. He’s unfriendly, uptight, and unwilling to compromise. Looks like annoying him just became my new hobby.

Poor guy has no idea who he’s up against. The Jerk Next Door just met his match."]

I loved the concept of this book. It's a classic, classic trope. Obviously, it was an immediately download when I was reading through Mia's book blurbs the other day. The story was really good (more on that in a moment), but I felt as if some of the writing itself, mainly the character dialogue and internal dialogue, was a little immature. 

Second Negative Thought: And the romance was just like there. One day, they hated each other. The next day, the weird hate-attraction was puppy love/romance. The enemies part of enemies-to-lovers lasted maybe 20% of the novella. Granted, the low angst was a nice anxiety relief for me with these romance books lately, which I appreciated.

Moving onto the positives... The puppy love/romance --> it-was-meant-to-be, true love middle/ending was super cute. They just clicked and you could tell. The cheese factor was definitely there (had been there for a while, to be honest), but once I got a feel for the dramatic enemies-to-lovers shift, I was more than okay with it.

The dialogue was quick and snappy and sassy and quite funny actually. There were several parts where I went back and reread because they just made me smile (lots of highlights/underlined parts in this one for me).

And from like 50% on, the book was fire. It was amazing. There was still a few lines/moments that were a little much, but overall, it got sooooo muuuuuuch better after the two of them started their romance. It just clicked. (Personally, I get it. I hate writing the pre-romance/build-up stuff. I prefer--and therefore probably better at--writing the lovey scenes and the steamy stuff.).

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