The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest
pages: 414
released: Feb 2023
publisher: Berkley (Penguin)
cover love: ♥♥♥♥
Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming an editor of children’s books but has been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over e-mail turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won’t let herself entertain–until he ghosts her. Months later, still crushed but determined to take charge of her life, Lily seeks a date to her sister’s wedding. And the perfect person to help her is Nick Brown, her charming, attractive new neighbor, whom she feels drawn to for unexplainable reasons. Little does she know that Nick is an author–her favorite fantasy author. Nick, who has his reasons for using a pen name and for pushing people away, soon realizes that the beautiful, quiet woman from down the hall is the same Lily he fell in love with over e-mail months ago. Unwilling to complicate things even more between them, he agrees to set her up with someone else, though this simple favor between two neighbors is anything but–not when he can’t get her off his mind. (from Goodreads)
Review:
While reading the Brown Sisters trilogy, I came across The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest. Forest usually writes specifically for young adults but this is her first stab at adult fiction. As for tropes, Forest went with “Secret Identity“. The shy main character, Lily, is emailing with the author of her favorite book and some sparks start to fly (over Wi-Fi) between them. She suggests they meet face-to-face (well, you know, FaceTime). He initially agrees and then ghosts her. Meanwhile, the author, R.K. Strickland is really Nick, a travel writer from North Carolina (but pretending to be British) who wants to keep his identity a secret for personal reasons. When his book publishing bestie, Marcus, is able to get Nick a republication deal of his book, Nick moves to New York and coincidently resides in the same building as Lily’s sister (who’s couch Lily is staying on). Nick and Lily have made side-long glances at each other and niceties when they see each other around the building, but have never really spoken beyond that. Until the day, Lily gets up the nerve to start a real conversation with him. However, she has a motive behind her newfound courage. Tired of her sisters fixing her up with friends and colleagues and already conspiring to hook up another disastrous date for her sister’s wedding, Lily puts her foot down and says she will find one on her own. She decides she will flirt with Nick and get him to take her to the wedding. Simple right? But after a few quick chats with Lily and a visit to her apartment, he quickly puts two and two together and realizes Lily is the LILY, that he was emailing with for almost a year! He decides to keep tight-lipped about his identity and instead tries to help Lily find *someone else* to take to the wedding instead of him. But the more they hang out, he realizes that he is no help to her at all, because he wants her all to himself.
So there is a whole chapter of just emails between Nick/Strickland and Lily and let me tell you, I was hooked! Their emails had chemistry cooking! I couldn’t wait to see what happened next between them. But honestly, that is where the connection lived and died. At least it did for me. I will give credit where credit is due, Nick is a hot guy who loves to read! And writes Sci-Fi!!! Points galore for this man! This book also had one the best settings (I’m being 100% biased because I’m a New Yorker) but extra credit because we do get to travel a bit with Nick as he describes all the places he visits for work via email with Lily. It also takes us to very familiar (and some very real) stores and restaurants in NYC (shoutout to Peaches). The email chapters and the setting were the strongest component the book had. Beyond that, the book just fizzles out. The story is just… too….lukewarm. And personally, I really felt that Lily and Nick had wayyy more of a connection online than IRL. The writing was a bit dull and was definitely missing a kind of style to it. Little to no prose, no humor, no sarcasm….no personality! Most of the characters also fit this description of dullness. The plot felt rigidly on beat, as if checking boxes It was hard for me to invest in Lily’s struggle (to find a date) as I believe the stakes were not high enough to care about her end goal. I just kept wanting some meat on the bones of this love story. Again, I’m not an avid reader of these type of lightweight romances, so it could just be me. The spiciness was pretty non-existent as well, so if you’re looking for any, you will not find it here.
Unfortunately, The Neighbor Favor wasn’t the best rom-com and that sucks because it had a lot of potential.
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