Book Review #144: On The Same Page by Haley Cass

 

Riley and Gianna are best friends who have formed a deep connection over 10 years of friendship. But when a misunderstanding leads to Riley questioning everything she knew about the friendship, she begins to realise just how much Gianna means to her.

I picked this one up after hearing amazing things about it, both from BookTubers and through GoodReads reviews. Romance isn't my favourite genre but when they're good, I really enjoy them, so I always make sure I have a few to try throughout the year and I was really looking forward to this one.

I liked this one, but unfortunately I didn't love it.

One thing I did love was the way the story went back and forth between the past and present, showing the way that Riley and Gianna's relationship develops and changes over the years. It was a great way of letting the reader get to know them.

This was a very original way to start a love story. The misunderstanding was fun and created a lot of exciting tension between the characters.

The author does a great job of fleshing out both characters equally. I felt like I really got to know them and got a good sense of their friendship/relationship.

This is one of the only will they/won't they books I've read where I really didn't know if they will or won't, which made the story really compelling!

I also really liked the culmination of events leading up to the final reveal. It was unexpected, fun and really made you root for these two to be together.

But then as mentioned, there were things I didn't like.

For a start, I found a lot of grammar errors and weird turns of phrase that took me out of the story completely. In particular, the phrase 'she rolled her lips' felt really odd, and was used way too many times!

I wasn't really feeling the chemistry between the characters as much as I needed to. It made sense to have one character's perspective in the past, and the other in the present, but I found myself wanting to see both perspectives in the present storyline to really show how much they liked each other.

And as much as I liked the flashbacks, it would have been interesting to see them scaled back a bit as the story got closer to the end, just so we could stay in the present with the characters.

I also felt like these elongated the story in a way that wasn't needed. There was no reason for the book to be as long as it was.

So overall, while there were some things I didn't love about the story, ultimately I really enjoyed it and fell in love with these characters, so I'd definitely recommend it!

3.5/5