Review: Only When It’s Us
Thank you to Chloe Liese for the gifted ARC of Only When It’s Us! Out now and available on Kindle Unlimited
Rating: Five stars! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Steam rating: 🔥🔥🔥/5
I had put off reading Only When It’s Us earlier this spring due to not being able to handle any contemporary romances (thanks COVID). I’ve adored Chloe’s previous books and I was worried if I read it while the world was falling apart I wouldn’t be able to give it the attention it deserved. I’m sooo glad I waited to read it. I finally picked it up two days ago and devoured it! This was exactly the engrossing, heartwarming, emotional read I needed.
Willa Sutter is a rising college level soccer star, in order to keep her necessary course load she needs lecture notes and her meddling professor pairs her with grumpy, lumberjack look alike Ryder Bergman. This is the slow burn, frienemies to lovers, forced proximity of my dreams. This one is a New Adult, but a lot of the time the characters felt older to me, and I loved that. The banter and tension between Willa and Ryder is immediate and I was sucked in from page one. Both characters have their own unique backstories that give the characters such depth and emotion.
Like previous books from Chloe Liese, I loved the families and side characters. She is a master at creating complex, beautiful interpersonal relationships. Some really heavy situations happen during this story, but the way Chloe tells them she makes them gut wrenching and heartwarming at the same time. I won’t spoil what happens during the book (although I found it fairly obvious from the beginning of the story), but both of the characters go through some form of grief and both of their experiences felt so true to life.
One of the things I love most about Chloe’s books is how she creates characters that realistically deal with some type of hardship. Whether it is illness or disability, she puts so much thought and care into their backstories. As someone living with a chronic illness, I can tell she does a lot of research and takes time to carefully create accurate characters.
A character in this story deals with a challenge you don’t see a lot in romance, I’ve only read a handful of stories with this type of disability. But I can say, hands down, Only When It’s Us handled it the best and felt the most true to life. I didn’t see this coming in the storyline and was so pleasantly surprised and happy with how it played out.
I absolutely adored watching Willa and Ryder go from enemies-friends-lovers. Their relationship was fantastic, I loved all the little “pranks” in the beginning and the banter between the two. But do know going in that this is a slow-burn! Chloe can write some super steamy scenes, but in this story she really makes sure the reader is completely obsessed with Willa and Ryder before we see that side of their relationship. The pacing was so perfect for their characters!
Only When It’s Us deserves alllll the stars! I love love loved this story so much! Thankfully it’s the first in her Bergman Brothers series and I cannot wait to see more glimpses of Willa and Ryder in future books! Do yourself a favor and download this one ASAP, you won’t regret it!