Family drama, new and old loves, and promises owed
Plot:
Fixie believes in two things in life:
1) Family first always
2) It's up to her alone to fix everyone's problems
After saving a strangers laptop from a disaster in a coffee shop, she is given an IOU along with his phone number to collect on anything she needs. When Fixie's childhood crush comes back into her life, she uses the IOU to help him get a job, hoping this will set her love life on the right course. While trying to juggle her family business, her unruly family, and her love life things get out of hand for Fixie and soon, her and this stranger are in a war of IOU's. When everything in her life is spinning, will Fixie stand by her two solidified beliefs or take a stand and finally go after what she really wants?
Review:
This was so close to being a DNF for me, but alas I pushed through. There was barely one character I liked through this entire book and as someone who turns red flags green for a living, that’s saying something.
The first bit was cute enough with the heroine, Fixie (terribly cliche nickname), having a meet-cute at a coffee shop with the only tolerable character in the book, Seb. Fixie saves Seb’s laptop from getting destroyed in an accident and Seb, insisting that he owes her, writes his number on a coffee sleeve. Needing to know how she would cash in on that is what pushed me to continue reading and the importance of that coffee sleeve was my favorite part of the book.
But after that, everything else went downhill. Fixie herself was incredibly annoying. She turned being a pushover and a “fixer” into a personality trait when she really only ever fixed things that benefited her. Her lack of backbone wasn’t even relatable, it was just frustrating especially when her asshole family members and her long-time love interest, Ryan, were introduced. Ryan was insufferable and he stuck around far too long for me to even be able to make an excuse for Fixie - there was not one redeemable quality to him. This book also took “family first” to the next level and for too long let that be the a-okay for her family practically being emotionally abusive and manipulative to her.
Fixie at times was no better than her family, like when she took advantage of Seb’s offer to help which made her just as unlikable as her siblings. Seb and Fixie’s relationship had potential at the start of the book, but ultimately fell flat. There was no tension or build up and they went in and out of each others lives so quick with little to no emotion that I got whiplash.
The ending was cute and wrapped the storyline up with a nice little bow, but personally, I don’t think there was nearly enough character development in any of the characters.
Favorite Quotes:
"I learned that failing doesn't mean you are a failure; it just means you're a human being."
&
"I think you need to start thinking less about what you owe other people and more about what you owe yourself."
Rating:
2/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️