Maybe This Time | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Title: Maybe This Time

Author: Kasie West

Format: eBook (borrowed)

Pages: 368

Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

One year. Nine events. Nine chances to . . . fall in love?

Weddings. Funerals. Barbecues. New Year’s Eve parties. Name the occasion, and Sophie Evans will be there. Well, she has to be there. Sophie works for the local florist, so she can be found at every big event in her small hometown, arranging bouquets and managing family dramas.

Enter Andrew Hart. The son of the fancy new chef in town, Andrew is suddenly required to attend all the same events as Sophie. Entitled, arrogant, preppy Andrew. Sophie just wants to get her job done and finish up her sketches so she can apply to design school. But every time she turns around, there is Andrew, getting in her way and making her life more complicated. Until one day she wonders if maybe complicated isn’t so bad after all . . .

Told over the course of one year and following Sophie from event to event, this delightful novel from master of romantic comedy Kasie West shows how love can blossom in unexpected places. 

• It’s so refreshing to read a contemporary ya book after reading so much fantasy ones. I enjoyed all the elements in this book: enemies to lovers, small town girl wants to go to the big city, complicated family, and a tight best friend relationship.
• Sophie and Andrew’s moments together span over a year. They are basically together in scenes when they work a big even in town. Sophie works as an assistant events planner and Andrew helps his chef dad with his website. They don’t get a long at first and I liked the bickering between them.
• Sophie and her best friend Micah have a fun relationship! Thank goodness for Micah to help Sophie lighten up, especially when it comes to Andrew. They have their struggles but I love that their bond is hard to break.
• Sophie’s broken family is due to her dad leaving their family. But Sophie wants to eventually leave too, but she doesn’t know how those plans will pan out. She questions herself: she doesn’t know if she’s skilled or talented enough to make it in design school.

• I’m not sure that anything really resolves between Andrew’s dad and Sophie, but I guess it doesn’t matter, because Andrew finally stands up to him. Still, I just didn’t understand what his problem was with her.
• The story is spaced out over the year – for example there was a wedding event, and then a fall festival and in between these events Andrew and Sophie never hung out. So there would be a month they haven’t seen each other and I thought that was interesting.

This was a super quick and enjoyable read. It was refreshing to read a YA contemporary romance since it’s been awhile for me! It was nice to see Sophie grow as a person and I loved her hate to love relationship with Andrew. I look forward to reading more from this author.

💘 ~ Yolanda