I could hardly believe how much this book drew me in. Normally it takes me a while to get into a book or even enjoy it at all but I was very quickly hooked into Brief Encounters.
Synopsis:
“Eleanor Ivy follows two rules in life: know how to lie and never let anyone in. With the painful life she left behind and the unorthodox job she currently has, lying is a must. But when Eleanor meets Jess Parker, Breslin University’s hockey player both on and off the ice, everything she has worked for threatens to come crumbling down.
Jess Parker is the epitome of everything Eleanor wants to avoid. He’s popular, cocky, and has more girls’ numbers than a phonebook. Yet, when they are paired together for a school project, their connection is undeniable. As their friendship develops, Jess’s ability to truly see Eleanor shakes the very foundation she’s built her new life on. When Eleanor begins to question the two rules she has always followed, she finds herself wondering if honesty might actually be the best policy. But, when all is said and done, will the truth be too much for Jess to handle?”
The first thing in this story to reallyyy throw me off was that the entire book is narrated as if the main character is talking to the reader. The way it was written felt more like a long story time video than a book I’m pretty used to. At the beginning of this book I had a rough time adapting to this but after a few chapters in it felt more normal after the information dumps were done.
SPEAKING OF Information dumps the first part of the book is loaded with them. It’s understandable as to why since all the information is needed before the story really gets going BUT it was just piled on quickly which made catching up a little dizzying. I wish it had been spread out more but it did give me a lot of insight on the main characters so I felt like I knew them by the time things started happening.
All the information dumps pretty much includes the entire backstory of Eleanor and her roommate which was shockingly deep and sad. I really wasn’t expecting that much depth behind her backstory but there was a lot.
After all the backstory is done we get to meet the love interest Jess pretty quickly, but I did have a slight problem with it (but not like a hugeee problem). Basically Jess and Eleanor are partners in class and Eleanor HATES him. It’s very obvious and pretty much stated that she dislikes him. Then within the next chapter or so she considers him a friend and a little after that they’re very good friends. I wish this aspect of their relationship had been fleshed out more since it seems like the time jumps ahead. I have no real issue with this since the real story begins after they become friends but I wish more details had been provided in this area.
After becoming pals with Jess a huge “squad” dynamic begins to take shape. Eleanor, Jess, Will, Vivian and quite a few other college students all form a sort of friend group and I LOVED the dynamic! The large group felt pretty realistic as Eleanor had different relationships with each person and knew varying amounts of information about each.
But aside from the group of friends the romance in this story is a huge aspect, as you’d expect. Jess & Eleanor have a relationship that can basically be summed up like this:
- quickly became friends
- lots of casual flirting
- “we’re just friends!!”
- sudden moment of romanticism
- Eleanor freaks out
- more romance
- and more stuff… that I won’t spoil for you (trust me when I say it’s great)
Jess and Eleanor were pretty cute together and had great chemistry both as friends and more than friends. They compliment each other well and overall worked well as a couple.
I wouldn’t say there was a ton of character development in this book, nothing major, but there was enough little things that were noticeable. None of the characters suddenly changed but the way they developed was so natural and well written that it felt very real. Jess had a great arc from being a womanizer to really only caring for one girl and changing his ways. Then Eleanor had a great arc of working on getting over her past and doing different things to heal old wounds. Although the companion novel in this trilogy doesn’t follow these two I can imagine that they’ll continue to better each other as time goes on.
One of my last notes on this book is that it was a little predictable in the best way. I don’t know if that’s just my opinion because I always figure out what’s going to happen in a book but I felt like I predicted the plot twist in this book pretty early on. But this didn’t ruin the story for me at all because it was still full of drama, mystery and tons of plot lines for me to fall into!
Overall I loved reading this book! It was so quick, full of good humor and was pretty emotionally gripping. It was a good balance between a feel good fluffy book and something more hard hitting.
Big thank you to the author for providing me with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes. Opinions are all my own.
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