CBR17 Book 52: "Problematic Summer Romance" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A book set on vacation

Official plot summary (because it's better than anything I could come up with):

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.

Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

Maya and Conor were both secondary, supporting characters in Not in Love, one of my favourite Hazelwood books to date. So when I realised that not only was Hazelwood in 2025 generously blessing her readers with Deep End, and later this year, the sequel to her paranormal romance, Bride, but a third romance, and an unexpected follow-up to a book I love, I was beside myself with joy. Itty bitty spoiler - there is, in fact, a cameo of Scarlett and Lucas from Deep End in this book, because Ali Hazelwood loves her readers and knows we eat that sh*t up. 

This book came out at the end of May, and as far as I can tell, Hazelwood did very little promo for it, compared to some of her other releases. Nevertheless, it ended up becoming a bestseller because her readers are now legion, and who can resist an age gap romance with a title like this one? Nature even helped out a little bit, with a volcanic eruption on Mount Etna about a week after the book's release (if you have read the book, you know why this is relevant). 

An age gap romance can be a tricky proposition, but as soon as I worked out that the actual age gap was only 15 years, and Maya was fully adult the first time she really considered Conor in any romantic way whatsoever, I frankly couldn't see what all the fuss was about. One of my favourite romance novels of all time, What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long, has a bigger age gap between the protagonists. It's not like the age difference between Maya and Conor is anything like that between so many ageing male celebrities and their child brides who are young enough to be their granddaughters. And it's not like the potentially squicky issue isn't addressed right there in the title of the novel.

This book alternates between the present day, with Rue and Eli's rapidly approaching nuptials in Cicily (although there is a string of complications long enough for anyone to wonder if their wedding is cursed), where things are awkward and tense between Maya and Conor. Interspersed among these chapters are ones set a few years in the past, when the seeds of their romance were sown, so to speak, while Maya was a student in Edinburgh and Conor showed up unexpectedly to help her.

Was this one of Hazelwood's best novels? No, but neither was it one of her worst (I don't actually think she has any bad ones, just great and slightly less great ones). Getting to see Rue and Eli again was a happy bonus, and while you don't need to have read their romance to fully get this book, it is probably an even more satisfying read if you have. It also made me really want to visit the south of Italy and/or Sicily. The setting and the food described seemed amazing. 

Judging a book by its cover: So many of Hazelwood's covers feature the main characters in some sort of embrace. Much as I think many of them are very cute, I love this one so much more. It perfectly captures both the holiday vibe in the book, as well as gives you an impression of both protagonists, even though you can only see their legs. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR9 Books 84-87: "The Neapolitan Novels" by Elena Ferrante

Total page count: 1700 pages
Rating: 4 stars

I'm going to begin by including a brief summary of each of the individual books in the series, before reviewing all books as a whole, as I don't think it's possible for me to talk about my reading experience and impression of these books individually.

My Brilliant Friend

We are introduced to the two protagonists of the series, in our narrator Elena Greco (also sometimes called Lenuccia or Lenu) and her best friend Raffaela (called Lena by most people, but Lila by Elena). As with the great Russian novels, I'm honestly not sure why the nicknames are so different from people's normal names. There's a huge cast of characters in each book, many with a whole host of different monikers. Thankfully there is a handy list at the start of each book so you can keep track.

Anyways, Elena and Lila are young girls growing up in a rough part of post-World War II Naples, a place of poverty and squalor, large families, not to mention organised crime and violence. Elena is the more quiet and nervous of the two, with Lila in some ways her complete opposite, confident and fierce. They start school together and while Elena loves books and learning and strives to apply herself so she'll be allowed to continue in school, Lila is the fiercely brilliant one, having taught herself to read before any of the other children and constantly impressing the strict teacher, even as she clearly makes no efforts to become well-liked. The girls' friendship is defined by their academic rivalry, and while Lila is initially clearly 'the brilliant friend' of the title, things change when her parents won't let her continue her education to secondary school because they need her help at home, while Elena is allowed to continue, as long as she excels.

Nevertheless, while she feels lucky and triumphant at this, Elena can't help but constantly comparing herself to Lila and now does what she can to pass on her knowledge to her friend, even as their paths seem to diverge more and more, changing their friendship as their spheres become ever more different. As they grow older and hit puberty, Elena once more feels overshadowed by Lila, who while a late bloomer becomes one of the neighbourhood beauties, while Elena feels gawky and unattractive. While she keeps struggling to stay in school, Lila is being courted by the most popular young men in the area and looks to be maturing away from Elena for good.

The Story of a New Name

Lila has gotten married to one of the richest young men in the neighbourhood and as a result changed the fortunes of her entire family, but Elena is deeply worried about her, and with good reason it seems. Married life is not at all what Lila expected and while she's able to live a life of leisure and glamour, she is clearly not very happy either. She uses the admiration of the powerful (and possibly Mob connected) Solara brothers to further her family's ambitions, even though neither her father nor her brother seems to have much in the way of actual drive or business acumen.

Elena, meanwhile, continues her education and starts considering a career as a writer, and pines in her infatuation of the older, intellectual Nino Sarratore. At times, she has barely any contact with Lila, but even as they stay competitive and occasionally jealous of each other, they share a bond that refuses to be broken, and whenever Lila really needs her, Elena can't help but return to aid her.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

This book is set in the 1970s and both our protagonists are now grown women. Lila has left her abusive husband and taken her son with her, living in a very rough area and working herself to the bone in a sausage factory. She's living platonically with one of her childhood friends, Enzo, who tries to support them as best he can as a labourer, while taking evening classes on computer science on the side. Elena, meanwhile, has finished college and published a novel to fair acclaim. She meets and marries a promising young university professor from an esteemed family, moving away from her family in Naples to settle in Florence, growing more separated from her volatile best friend. Even living in very different circumstances, in different parts of the country, their lives still connect and their bond remains, if fraught and threatened at times.

The Story of the Lost Child

The final book in the series sees Elena and Lila into middle age, with great changes having taken place in their lives. Having divorced her husband and left Florence,  Elena moves back to Naples to be with her lover, Nino Sarratore, despite his reluctance to actually leave his wife and commit fully to her. Lila, on the other hand, having taken night classes with her partner Enzo has surpassed even his skill with computers and programming and is now a wealthy and successful employer and entrepreneur in their old neighbourhood, now supporting not only her family, but her ex-husband Stefano, whose family fortunes are lost and seemingly having even the dangerous Solara brothers under her control.

Lila and Elena rekindle their sometimes very antagonistic, competitive and conflicted friendship as they experience pregnancy together and eventually, live as neighbours in the same building. When tragedy strikes for Lila, and her little daughter disappears, Lila and Elena's fortunes yet again seem to reverse, taking their relationship in new and unexpected directions.

My discussion of these books will contain some spoilers, because there was a major through line in the books that drove me absolutely mad, and I won't be able to give my honest opinion without discussing it. I will try to mark the relevant section carefully though, so it can be avoided by those who dislike such things.

These books have been translated into a number of languages and are lauded and praised by critics world-wide. While these books have a huge cast of characters and span decades, at the heart it chronicles the intimate lives of two women and I think it's

Judging the books by their covers: I don't really have a lot more to say than that I really like the covers for these books and their slightly nostalgic feel.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.