Love The One You're With

Love The One You're With
by Lauren Layne
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
I've been anxious to read Grace's story since I finished After The Kiss. If anyone deserved a Happily Ever After, it was Grace. I felt that since she believed in the magic so much more than her friends, her story should be even better. I wasn't disappointed.

We pick up Grace's story just a few months after she's broken up with her boyfriend of nine years. She's the long term girl, has always and only wanted to be a wife and take care of someone. She's known as Stiletto’s resident relationship expert, but she's questioning everything about herself since her boyfriend was cheating and she didn't know. She thought she could “read” guys really well, but now she's not so sure. However, in order for her to keep her mojo at work, she agrees to a date-off with a journalist from the competing men's magazine to prove who knows the opposite sex better.

This was a sweet, sexy romance with lots of happy tingles for these two. They worked really well together, they could give and take without getting offended and they kept each other on their toes. It was fun to read and I felt really pulled into the characters. I was glad that even as their relationship got more serious, they were able to separate out work and personal and yet still have some integrity and understanding towards each other.

I did feel a little bad for Grace. The point of the dating was supposed to be showing readers how well you know the opposite sex. Jake and Grace had some good banter back and forth, but most of the time I felt like Jake got to be the reader/aggressor and Grace was passive and swoonish. It's fine in the sense that I felt it fit Grace's personality. She was the nurturer and only let her inner aggressor come out occasionally. But I felt like she mostly just let Jake drive the “reading” bus and she'd take whatever she could get. It felt like Grace's version of “reading” was mostly being caring and nurturing. She was good at it, but she was also pretty good at being the aggressor when she felt like it.

I think for Grace, she was finally able to let go of who she should be and who she wanted to be, so she could just be whoever she actually was. She was a doormat for her ex and I was happy to see her grow some backbone with Jake but still be the nurturing, caring individual she was. I think it took a lot for her to accept that being one thing doesn't exclude you from being something else too. She found that it's ok to be your own individual with or without a guy next to you. And also, that you are not nothing apart from your relationship. With Jake, she starts out trying to be so different than she was with her ex. And she's pretty good at it, even if she has to pep-talk herself into it sometimes. But it was so interesting to see her find a place on the tightrope between the two extremes.

Jake was pretty iffy on the whole love thing. Grace started out reading him so well – a charming, sexy, bachelor who's used to getting whatever girl he wants. He's short term all the way, mostly because he doesn't like feeling stagnant. It's pretty funny to see these two together when they're so opposite on this. Grace is perfectly happy staying exactly where she is. She likes that settled feeling. Jake's got the settled gene inside him somewhere. You can totally see it when he's visiting his family. But he seems a little emotionally young to start out – wanting to keep moving so he feels like people approve of him and all of the action/accolades it will get him to say he's “going somewhere”. He takes a while to wake up, but it did feel nice and organic how he gradually figured out where he belonged.

I found it very amusing when Grace is wearing a pair of Jake's sweat pants and the waist is about five sizes too big. I see this one a lot and I just don't get it. Grace is a curvy girl who knows how to eat and Jake is pretty lean. In real pants, I just don't see how most women in these novels put their boyfriend's pants on at all. The butt differences just don't fit from what I've seen. Speaking from experience, guy butts are smaller than most curvy girl butts. But (haha)...that just could be me.

I was very satisfied with Grace's story and now I have Riley's story (and maybe a new girl, Emma's) to look forward to. I will definitely keep reading because I love the voice behind these stories.

I received a complementary ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.