Book Review & GIveaway: One Song Away by Molli Moran
Media Type: Ebook (ARC)
Author: Molli Moran
Genre: Romance/New Adult
She needs a fill-in boyfriend. He needs a favor. It’s the perfect, no-strings arrangement until they both realize it’s too real…
Sophie-Claire Wright’s life is like a bad country song on repeat. She keeps running into her cheating ex, her songwriting career isn’t taking off, and her roommate just kicked her out of their apartment. With nothing to lose, she decides to do the one thing she said she’d never do: she moves back home. She left her small Southern town with big dreams, but now she’s going home with empty pockets.
Life moves at a slower pace in Sophie’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown, but her well-meaning, matchmaking mama doesn’t have a slow gear. Sophie invents a boyfriend to hold off her mother’s efforts, but she’s out of luck when her mom wants to meet him. Sophie panics until she runs into Jake Cooper. Her high school crush is back in town, too, and when he asks her for a favor, she agrees—on one condition. He says he’ll be her fill-in boyfriend, so it should be simple: introduce him to her family and then “break up” with him after a few weeks.
Sophie is sure she’ll be able to resist Jake this time and that their fake relationship will keep them both away from wagging tongues. Sure, she was in love with him years ago, but that was then. This is now, no matter how great he looks, or how she feels around him. But she didn’t bargain for moments that feel all too genuine. Dates that don’t seem fake. Kisses that leave her shaken and wanting more. And she didn’t count on old feelings resurfacing and complicating their arrangement—which is starting to feel less like acting and more like the real deal.
Soon, Sophie can’t tell which kisses are real or fake, but she knows she’s in deep…and she thinks Jake is, too. When she gets a chance to go back to Nashville and chase her dreams again, she has a choice to make: stay or go? Continue hoping that the life she wants is one song away, or write her own?
Let’s start with what I enjoyed about this book. The supporting cast is definitely a high point in this story for me. The don’t-take-shit-from-anyone attitude of Sloane was a breath of fresh air against the under confident Sophie-Claire. Even when Sophie-Claire didn’t want to be pushed, Sloane knew how to take care of her friend by taking her phone away when she was wallowing over texts and making her go out and let loose instead of sitting at home. This is what a best friend should be.
Coop was down to earth and seemed like a pretty typical guy. His revelations towards the end of the book aren’t surprising but the whole scenario seems far fetched to me. There is so much history between Sophie-Claire and Coop that I found it impossible that neither knew how the other felt. As a reader, everything that is done and said by Coop confirmed his attraction to Sophie-Claire and the fact that she remained clueless frustrated me immensely. Based on the story line, these characters were best friends for several years, reconnected and talked every night but somehow their feelings never came up? I’m not buying it.
I really want to connect with Sophie-Claire as a character, but I couldn’t relate to her incessant insecurities. I’ve had my fair share of low self-esteem moments (haven’t we all?), and definitely could relate to the presumably unrequited love moments, but I feel like Sophie-Claire’s character is a bit over dramatic. She is written as willfully ignorant of the situation around her, but claims to spend lots of time analyzing it. Those two things, in my head, don’t add up.
All in all this book was just okay for me. The settings and supporting cast made this a 3 star read for me since I couldn’t connect with the main characters.
FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.
