(This is a review from December 2019)
As you might know from my previous blog post, i’ve been really in to rom-com’s and contemporary novels at the moment. Light and easy reads that make your heart happy. I decided amongst that thought to pick up the newly released 10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston. A festive read full of promising contemporary cute moments.
The book itself is based on Sophie, who ends up spending Christmas with her grandparents and huge family. Just before that, her boyfriend of a year ends their relationship. And what would make her feel better? 10 dates in 10 days of course. All organised by her family with people she doesn’t know.
I was really down for this festive rom-com of funny dates over Christmas time, with cute moments with cute characters. I ended up finding none of it particularly cute. The entire plot seemed a little far-fetched when it was written down. Sophie’s family seemed to be a little too invested in her going on dates every day, organised by them. They chose the activity and the boy, and all gathered around to see Sophie off on every date. Everything just seemed a little eye-roll. Sophie didn’t seem to mind this overbearing family, which also confused me considering you’d definitely mind if your uncles were betting on the date while he was stood right in front of them.
Some of the dates were definitely amusing. Such as Sophie being sent to a nativity with someone a couple of years younger than her. But as she’s seventeen i found it quite an uncomfortable twenty pages to read. It just seemed a little creepy.
Much of the plot is based around the reason that Sophie is with her grandparents over Christmas. Whereas it’s not something that is cheery or something to make a joke out of, it seemed a little too low risk for it to be an entertaining subplot. Everything was a problem one page and fixed the next. There didn’t seem to be much plot about it for me.
I enjoyed some of the lines and some of the amusing scenes in this book greatly. I had a few laugh out loud moments, and the writing was okay if not a little static. All the lines and situations were a little too generic for me, and i was looking for something a little different.
Most of the characters fell a little flat for me too. Classic teenage characters with teenage attitudes with not much to set them apart from each other. This is probably one of the reasons i couldn’t connect with this book as much as i wanted to because i just couldn’t get behind any of the characters. Everyone was a little dramatised for my liking.
I did like the idea of this cute contemporary, and i wanted to love it. But i just didn’t. This book has so many good ratings and i’ve not heard a single bad thing about it, so i honestly do think this is just me.
The Little Contemporary Corner 