Review: No Love Allowed by Kate Evangelista

Hey all, Dani here.

All right, I am trying to get back in the swing of regular book reviews here. We’ll see what happens. Right now I’m doing all right. Today I’m back with another review of a contemporary read that I finished up last month, but wanted to give a proper review, since I’m probably going to want to read and review the rest of the books too. For those of you who stop by here for more of my fantasy reads, I promise that some of those are coming soon. I’m reading and reviewing some of my current reads as I complete them.

Summary

It’s all fun and parties until someone falls in love in this modern fairy tale from author Kate Evangelista.

Caleb desperately needs a fake girlfriend. Either he attends a series of parties for his father’s law firm with a pretty girl on his arm, or he gets shipped off to Yale to start a future he’s not ready for and isn’t sure he wants. And sadly, the last unattached girl in his social circle has just made the grievous mistake of falling in love with him. Fortunately, Didi, recently fired waitress and aspiring painter, is open to new experiences. As the summer ticks by in a whirl of lavish parties, there’s only one rule: They must not fall in love!

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

Welcome to Dodge Cove, which basically is a split between the wealthy fashionable upper class and then the working poor lower class. When the story starts we are at a country club and Caleb is breaking up with his current girlfriend because she has gotten too attached, and his one rule is basically “no love allowed.” He prefers his relationships to be no strings attached.

Unfortunately for Caleb, his now ex-girlfriend is the daughter of his dad’s biggest legal client, which his dad sees as a problem. So if Caleb wants to keep his plan of having a gap year between high school and college, as well as having a nice trip across Europe, he has to intern at the law firm and attend all of the events held by the firm. Of course doing this solo would mean being thrown to the wolves, otherwise known as the mothers and grandmothers looking for a wealthy heir to set up with their own children/grandchildren.

This is where Didi, a former waitress from that same country club comes in. She is one of the last remaining young ladies in the area who Caleb hasn’t dated, and she jumps at the change to attend all these parties with Caleb…for a small price. She wants Caleb to pose for her so she can draw him. She’s even totally cool with the whole pretending to be his girlfriend thing.

Obviously, we already know that the two of them will actually fall for each other. My favorite characters in this book were actually Caleb’s cousins, Nathan and Natasha. Thankfully Nathan gets the second book in the trilogy and Natasha’s story is the final book.

The only problem I had with this book is that I felt like the plot of Didi’s mental health issues wasn’t as detailed and in depth as I felt it deserved. Yes it was explained that Didi had medications to take to deal with some of her issues, and later her mother said that Didi had bipolar disorder, but it was such a small part of the story that I personally felt as if it was basically glossed over.

I still really enjoyed the story though. Nathan giving Didi a wardrobe makeover was nice, and Didi finding a friendship with Natasha was really nice. It was a cute sweet summery contemporary romance that is perfect if you are looking for something that doesn’t get too serious or dark or anything like that. I am greatly looking forward to reading the sequel, No Holding Back. Also, the final book in the trilogy is out today so you can jump in and read the whole trilogy now. That’s pretty awesome. I’ll try and have reviews up for the rest of the trilogy as soon as I read them.

Where to Buy

You can pick up a copy of No Love Allowed from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, or your local independent bookstore.