If Not You by Ellen O'Clover - An ARC Spoiler Free Review

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Blurb (From Amazon)
Five years of history. Four weeks on the road. Two rival copywriters learning love is the hardest sell of all.
Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town.
Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just…there, with his golden-boy smirk and the familiar gaze that never fails to taunt her across a crowded room.
Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him—and earn the promotion she covets.
During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious truth: the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.

The Review  (You can also check out a couple of my thoughts that I shared on live on Sunday 6th on TikTok HERE)

Standalone or series?
Standalone

How did I get this book?
Promotional ARC Sent By Penguin Random House

Why did I choose to read this book:  
The premise sounded interesting and the promo material described it as a "Steamy and deliciously angsty romance featuring beautifully well-drawn characters".

Genre:
Contemporary Romance

Who would enjoy this book:  
I'm really not sure - I don't have anything that I can really compare it to. They describe it as a juxtaposition of the cut throat advertising world like a modern Mad Men meets the charming down to earth vibes of a Nora Ephrom Rom Com - I don't know about a juxtaposition but it certainly read like 2 different editors had had a say in it. (More about that in the general review).   

And Now To The Actual Review Part!

First Impressions:
There's nothing that stands out either good or bad. It started and it was easy enough to turn the pages (which can actually be a problem for me - I will drop books literally 3 pages in).
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General Review
I don't give story spoilers but I think with a contemporary romance there is a little more freedom because if the couple didn't end up together, well it wouldn't really count as a romance. One of the biggest things that left me confused as to who would like this book was the fact that there was no swearing in the first half, and then once one of the characters swore (with a note that this was out of character), from that point on it seemed that suddenly it was swear on! None of the characters then seemed to have any issues dropping f bombs. Now for me personally, language is not an issue - I can literally take it or leave it on either extreme, but this felt like a weird change for no actual reason. Having the one off curse word slip, to me, would have made more sense. The other part that makes it difficult to know who to recommend it to is that it was described as "steamy and deliciously angsty", but it really wasn't. The second half of the book featured too much spice for those that prefer things more off page, but a very tame version for those looking for anything actually steamy. For me the side characters and plots at times seemed lost and there was one scene that was in my opinion written simply to enable something to move forward, but it felt completely out of character for everyone involved and just didn't work for me.

Final Thoughts
Overall the book for me was sadly exceptionally mediocre. It's not that I can say it's bad (although there were definitely some questionable editing choices in my opinion), but there was nothing to make it stand out. I didn't really like the ending, but I always say that authors get to tell the story THEY want to tell, and as there was nothing actually wrong (for example there is no way that could have happened), that does not impact my review or my rating.

Rating:
3 Stars - because it was just okay. 

As always let me know what you think in the comments!