Title : The Opposite of You (Opposites Attract #1)
Author : Rachel Higginson
Genre : Contemporary Romance
Published : March 30th, 2017
SYNOPSIS
I’ve sworn off men.
All men.
Famous last words, right? You’re expecting some epic tale of reluctant love and my dramatic change of heart? Well, you’re not going to get it.
I’m stubborn. And headstrong. And I’ve just survived the worst three years of my life. After escaping an abusive boyfriend to live in hostels and cheap hotels while I worked my way across Europe, I’ve come to two conclusions.
The first? Now that I’m back home, I’m going to squander my expensive culinary degree on a food truck that caters to the late night drunk crowd.
The second? I’m going to prove to the bastard across the plaza that my street food is better than his fussy five course monstrosities.
Killian Quinn might be Food and Wine’s Chef to Watch Out For. He might have a Michelin Star. He might have every food critic in the city wrapped around his too-large fingers. But he’s also pretentious and unbearably arrogant and the very opposite of me.
So he can keep his unsolicited advice and his late night visits and his cocky smiles. I want none of it. Or him.
I want the opposite.
Any book that starts with the main character swearing off man always end up a good read – or at least those that I’ve read. So when I read the synopsis of the book, I was like, I HAVE TO GET THIS ONE and it wasn’t disappointing at all!
The story follows the story of Vera, a chef who escaped from her past and starting a new life. Once a promising young student in one of the best culinary school in America, Vera found herself back in her hometown of North Carolina, trying to figure out what her next step should be. Vera is admirable. You can’t help but to just root for her. With her fire and determination, you just know that she’s going to succeed in life. Although there were moments where she let the ugly voices in her head win for a little while, she also learned how to beat them and gain her confidence back.
Killian, oh Killian. He’s hot, he’s successful, and he knows it. I don’t think I ever like any arrogant character as much as I like him. Maybe because I feel that his arrogance comes from the fact that he spent so much time in the kitchen with limited normal human interactions.
There was nothing sweet about their first meeting, in fact, these two really hated each other. There were so many, SO MANY, arguments between them. It got tiring at times but at the same time, their argument is intriguing. It’s not pure hate arguments; it’s almost like as if these two care about each other but just when they try to convey their thoughts on certain things, they used wrong words or wrong lines and it just turned into a big argument.
In terms of romance, again, it developed slowly because they really focus on their food and their creation before decided to start anything. It was a bit difficult because Vera’s past resulted in insecurities and her not trusting successful chefs like Killian to be a good life partner. I have to say that what made me really like Killian was when he was being honest about his feelings. He’s brutally blunt in telling Vera that he wanted to be with her. It was not a game for him.
The story is fast-paced but didn’t leave any details behind. The supporting characters are wonderful additions to the story and they really enhanced it. I was quite surprised that Vera’s past relationship was not discussed in details as I thought that would be a very big part of the story. While we did see the effects on Vera that comes after that relationship, it was just like this big shadow lurking behind the story. To me, this book really focuses on moving on. Both Vera and Killian really chose to be the bigger people in the narrative and really focusing on leaving the past behind.
To the romance book lovers out there, The Opposite of You should definitely be on your tbr pile! And if you’ve read the book, what do you think? Did you enjoy it as much as I did?
xo,
Naths
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