[I received a digital arc for an honest review]
Homecoming King is the first in Penny Reid’s Three Kings romantic comedy series. The fake relationship trope between a small town bartender and a pro football player who happens to be her childhood crush.
Rex McMurtry was Abigail’s elementary, middle school and high school crush. When he shows up at her bar one night and ends up more than a little wasted, she’s shocked. But she makes sure he’s safe and takes care of him, even after he pukes all over himself and her car. She assumes she’s never going to see him after, and is apprehensive when he shows up again and wants her to pretend to be his wife. She needs the money to pay off debts left to her from her no good ex-husband and he needs a wife to make the social aspect of his career easier. When lines between fake and real are crossed, will Abigail trust their feelings and see them as too good to be true.
We were kissing.
For real.
I mean, for fake-real.
A real fake kiss that made my head spin and my lungs ache.
Abigail is a solid character, realistic and relatable. She’s a bit quirk, down to earth and honest. I enjoyed her relationship with her best friend and loved her relationship with her boss Walker, they had a found family going on that I was there for. Her reasons for being stand-offish when it came to men were completely understandable, but her back and forth inner dialogue when it came to Rex was a little tedious. Rex, what we saw of him, I liked very much. He was gruff, lonely, caring, and passionate, just the perfect combination of those traits.
“Falling for you was like gravity.”
Goodness, this was so close to being perfect but fell flat on crucial aspect. Single POV !!! WHY 😦 When Rex comes out and says how he feels and how can she not know, umm maybe because even the reader doesn’t, so we are just as blindsided as her. He was constantly avoiding and ignoring her which I can assume is because he felt too much for her, but we don’t know that since we don’t get his POV. Therefore, that whole confessing our feelings scene didn’t work for me because we don’t know how he feels AT ALL. It’s hard to root for two people to be a couple when you only know one of them . He says I love you to her, and you’re questioning it just as much as she is. I just think if we had been given Rex’s POV I would have fallen head over heels for him.
All in all, Homecoming King was a light romantic comedy with the slowest burn ever, minor steam, low drama, high school crushes, fake relationships, and fantasies come true.
OnceUpon_A_BookDream 