Book Review: The Melody of You and Me

Summary: After dropping out of university and breaking up with her girlfriend of three years, Chris Morrison’s life is now a mind-numbing mess. She doubts that working at the small neighborhood bookstore is going to change that. The rest of her time is spent mostly playing guitar and ignoring the many messages her mother keeps sending her about going back to college.But one day, an adorable and charming new bookseller waltzes her way into Chris’s life. Josie Navarro is sweet, flirty, and she always has a new book in her hands. The two girls start a fast friendship that, for Chris, holds the promise of something more. But is she reading too much into this or is it possible that Josie feels the same way?

Review: When I first decided to read this book, it was because I was hearing amazing things about it. This didn't cause me to go in with high expectations like it usually does but it did make me excited to read it. I can't say that I was disappointed despite the fact that it wasn't a good book at all.

I loved the setting of this book. This was most likely because they worked in a bookstore which is where my favorite parts took place and usually contemporary novels have less world building than other genres. I also loved the sex positivity in this book. It took me completely by surprise that there was a couple of sex scenes and masturbation was talked about in terms of females. Like that was just great! It was also great that there was so  much diversity. It's a love story between two females. One is  Filipino and a lesbian while the other is pansexual. Those were the only things I liked about the book.

The first problem I had with this book was the fact that Chris instantly fell in love with the love interest, Josie. It was love at first sight and to make it worse, the love interest, Josie, could do no wrong. She was literally perfect. Too perfect and I always say perfect characters are boring just like perfect people are boring. A lot of these characters were quite boring in my opinion. Chris was really the only person that seemed real and this is probably because it was in her point of view.. Everyone else was so cardboard.

Now the real reason this book is bad is because of the fact that this book is written really bad. It's not the worst book I've seen written but it's still pretty bad. I think this was partly because it was a short book but I don't think that's an excuse. The plot deeply lacked because of this. Since it was supposed to be a love story, there should have been more showing than telling of how they felt about each other and even then, more scenes building the romance between them.

Now I think this book definitely could have been done well if the author took the time to read other contemporary books and just books on writing to improve her writing. But even though it was a bad book, I have to say that I liked it but I'm pretty sure it was only because of the things I mentioned before. So do I recommend this book? Only if you want a love story between two females and you don't mind horrible writing. If that doesn't apply to you, then just skip it.

What do you really pay attention to when it comes to reading a book? Does one thing make up for the lack of something else?

Plot: .5 ⭐
Setting: 1 ⭐
Characters: .25 ⭐
Diversity: 1 ⭐
Enjoyment: .5 ⭐

Overall: 3.25 ⭐