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The No-Show by Beth O’Leary
Publish date: April 12, 2022
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 2-stars
Thoughts
Why? Why are you doing me dirty Beth O’Leary? The Flatshare was amazing, The Switch was adorable with interesting family dynamics… but then The Road Trip was frustrating and forgettable and now? Now The No-Show is probably going to be my last read from her.
I wish this wasn’t the case as I know so many readers enjoyed her last 2 books and I won’t beat a dead horse but there are a few things I want to note for why I had issues with this one.
First, to get it out of the way, the ‘love interest’ (can’t be bothered to remember or look up his name) had no personality and there was nothing to set him apart from any other generic nerdy-looking but attractive guy. I have no idea what it was about him that made 3 women fall in love with him. Sure he has his own stuff to deal with but it was handled poorly (along with other things which I will touch on later).
Second, you really could not differentiate between the 3 leading ladies. I’m grateful to have listened to the audiobook because at least each woman had a different voice actor. Without the 1-liner of each of their personalities that was written in the synopsis, I never would have known their personalities based on what happened on page.
The 3 POVs was also a detriment to the story as well because you really couldn’t get a fully fleshed out story and connect with these women so it was all surface-level. This was also frustrating because O’Leary brought in some real heavy and sensitive conflicts within their stories but it felt like a disservice to the content with how it was handled.
The plot twist that wasn’t really a plot twist was fine and I liked that the story could kind of keep you guessing but, when you aren’t connected to anyone in the story, it just didn’t matter.
Ok, I went on longer than I had anticipated but this one was obviously a miss for me and, now that I have had 2 books in a row from her that I did not enjoy, I won’t pick up another.