Book Review: “Problematic Summer Romance” by Ali Hazelwood

What can I say about this book? Ali Hazelwood, you’ve done it again. I haven’t read ALL of her books, but I think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of her books. More than a fan, probably.

This one followed up Not In Love which came out last summer, which ironically, was the first book I read in my new apartment — and this one, Problematic Summer Romance, was the first book I read in my new apartment (I just moved). Well, first book I started and finished in the new apartment.

I loved Not In Love, a little more than the rest of bookstagram and booktok. Not only was it a lot of spice (literary spice!), I loved the characters, Rue and Eli. When Ali sprinkled in the supporting characters, Maya and Hark, in that one, I just knew there was a story there. And that’s where we’re at when we start Problematic Summer Romance.

Synopsis:

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.

My Review:

First things first, I really liked the setting. The story takes place in Sicily, during the wedding week of Rue and Eli (from Not in Love). Maya is flying in with their lovable dog, Tiny, and joining the small crowd of loved ones for the wedding. In the crowd is Conor Harkness (the Irish spelling of his name), Eli’s best friend and Maya’s longtime crush. And the man she has been in a long distance phone call relationship with for the past three years (up until the last 10 months).

Okay. So. Ali Hazelwood writes beautiful prose — with each book, the world-building and prose improves tremendously. I felt immersed in the story via the beautiful setting that she described. It made me want to book a trip to Sicily, stat.

I loved revisiting old characters like Rue, Eli, Mirami, Sul, and of course, Maya and Hark. While reading Not In Love, there were hints of something going on between them, or something had happened, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. I haven’t read a lot of age gap romances — Hark is 36 years old and Maya is 23 years old when we meet them in chapter one, although their story takes place three years earlier when Hark is 33 and Maya is 20 — but the only other age gap romance in my recent memory is A False Start by Elsie Silver. I adore both authors. (Elsie Silver also wrote another large age gap romance in the Chestnut Springs series called Hopeless, but I didn’t like that one as much.) Although there is a 15-year age gap, I thought Ali Hazelwood wrote it seamlessly. We, the readers, knew the age gap was there — it was one of the conflicts of the book, of Maya and Hark’s inability to get together, but Ali Hazelwood “handled” it by treating these characters as consenting adults who have great banter together. She didn’t ignore the age gap relationship, nor push it aside, but rather she brought the conversation to the front, to the table, and had the two characters talk about it. It was “problematic,” as both characters frequently referred to their chemistry and unexplainable relationship as. But it still wasn’t the main topic of conversation, if you get it.

But oh my my, Hark. Maya and Hark. They have my heart. Every chapter, every page, every word that came out of each of their mouths had me swooning. Their chemistry was so magnetic that I was gripping the pages and silently yelling “just kiss already!” When it finally came time for the spicy scenes, which were written so well as expected by this author, the wait was oh so worth it. I’m not going to lie, Hark was a tortured character. It didn’t help matters (well, it did for the plot) that two of his ex-girlfriends (one that he proposed to years earlier) were there. One of his exes, Mirami, who he works with now, was there with her husband and daughter, whom he shares a friendship with. Maya received some insight into who Hark was, although it’s everything she already knew as Maya was the one person that Hark could open up to — much surprise to his ex-girlfriends, who he hardly opened up to in the past. It only proved that Maya and Hark were always meant to be, were always endgame.

Hark was tortured, and for the most of the book, that was the central conflict. Maya knew her feelings, which was ironic because Hark kept questioning whether Maya’s feelings were genuine because of her age. But her feelings never wavered and it was Hark who was the wishy-washy one. But not whether he has feelings. No, that man had always been pining for Maya, ever since she was 20, in Edinburgh on the heels of a breakup with her ex-boyfriend, the moment Maya and Hark grew close. He hadn’t been pining before that, because you know, that age gap, but since that moment, Hark only had eyes for Maya — and it was torturing him. Again, that age gap was written so seamless and not at all icky — one of the reasons why I like Ali Hazelwood.

Overall, there is probably so much more I can go into with this book. I will most likely be reading this again, probably listening on audio. I ate up every single crumb this book dropped in my lap and I will be going back for seconds. If you are looking for a beach read this summer, go ahead and pick this one up.

Rating: 5/5

Buy on Amazon, Bookshop.org.