Review: The Perfect Date

The Perfect Date by Evelyn Lozada
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unfortunately, I really did not care for Evelyn Lozada's "The Perfect Date." Another reviewer described this book as a "hot mess" and, based on my observations after reading it, that seems like an accurate description to me. First of all, the back cover description is completely misleading and doesn't match what happens in the story at all. Second, the book is marketed as a rom-com, which it definitely is not. It is a rather dark and dramatic story (often overly so), and I can't remember a single funny scene in the entire book.

Beyond that, the writing in this book was not very good IMO. I'm not sure if the many grammatical mistakes in the text were a stylistic choice used to imitate a certain style of speech, or if they were merely typos because I read an ARC, but either way, it was bad enough that I couldn't follow what was happening in a number of places. Overall, the writing was very choppy with a lot of verbs missing and many random, confusing POV changes.

Further, I didn't find any of the characters in the book to be likeable. They were all so angry all the time, and in a lot of cases they were downright mean and nasty for no apparent reason. The world the author has created in this book is not a world of which I would ever want to be a part, and these characters are not people with whom I would ever want to be friends.

Finally, the central romantic relationship between Angel and Duke did not seem believable to me. The physical attraction on Duke's side was evident (he certainly thought about Angel's "bangin' body" enough), but Angel seemed like she actively disliked Duke a lot of the time. At most, she seemed to pity him because of his injury and the fact that his family and friends weren't very supportive of him. Angel didn't seem to like herself very much either. In any event, given both of their issues with anger management and self-esteem, the two of them being in a relationship seemed like a recipe for disaster to me, not long-term love and happiness.

Bottom line: It's safe to trust the negative reviews for this book and skip it. There's no reason to waste your time when there are so many more enjoyable books out there.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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