A review by aribookishly
Love Unwritten by Lauren Asher

emotional hopeful relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Lauren Asher has quickly become my favorite romance author because of this universe. I don't find myself skimming because it's boring, needlessly explicit, cringy, or unrealistically written; it takes me about 2x as long to read her books not just because of their size (I love a good giant romance book) but because I reread paragraphs constantly. She has a way with her words that's borderline poetic without sounding pretentious. She treats her characters as people with thoughts, ideas, and feelings that can be affected and affect other people, I find many romance authors shove characters in for the plot like Disney villains with no regard to fleshing out their motives beyond "disliking" the MC. In Love Unwritten the "bad guys" are appropriately dealt with (as one can with a billionaire for a boyfriend) *(SPOILERS AHEAD)**like Rafael's ex-wife not just going away when she becomes a problem she is still in the story and I appreciate that because sometimes there isn't an easy way to deal with that even if you have a billion dollars. And Ava-Ellie's ex-best friend-does get dealt with in the most realistic way (and again her boyfriend is a billionaire with connections and this is fiction) but obviously it is still a fictional romance book so of course these problems are going to be dealt with somehow and with the resources at her disposal her winning the court case made perfect sense. I see in a lot of books centered around romance authors forget to add a plot either not centered around romance or a plot relevant to the character's romance, and a lot of times authors even forget to resolve the other plotlines until the next book that's not centered around the main couple. this leads to random inconsistencies at the end of the book and an unsatisfying ending (this does not go for multiple book series surrounding the same couple).

Needless to say, Lauren asher has made great progress in her Dirty Air series, and I'm glad to see it, i had problems with the views of the author herself represented in the book and the characters but she has developed since then and im glad I gave these books a try. Her women are better represented, the men are more than broody and sexist, and the fact that she changed from the end of that series to the first of this series is encouraging, and can only hope she continues writing for this series and others in this similar style. 

5/5 with many hearts for Love Unwritten (i will be rereading soon with new viewpoints)
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