in paradise right now. This seemed like a fitting review:
Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck, while Liam is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.
Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam can’t claim the money until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the homestretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents — his unpolished, not-so-ex wife.
But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and supportive wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing truelove that sprouted form a lie.
(Summary from book flap – Image from simonandschuster.com)
Mindy’s Review: The Paradise Problem has a cover that just oozes tropical vacation vibes, which is why I picked it up. I desperately needed to disassociate from the dumpster fire of a month that I was having and it seemed a likely way to escape. Even though I had the physical copy, I started it on audiobook so that I could get a few things done around town, and eventually transitioned to the print version when I had time to sit down and read.
Honestly, I don’t know why I bothered. Well, technically that isn’t true. I know exactly why I bothered. I am ever hopeful that I’ll find the perfect PG-13 romance—one that is funny and swoony and sweet all at once. I always start with high hopes and usually end up disappointed, but I persist.
You’d think I would know better by now, but here we are. Again.
The Paradise Problem has a cute premise (a couple who married for convenience must pretend to be married for real to secure a massive inheritance), some of my favorite tropes (see trope spoiler below), and touches on the dangers of classism and rampant consumerism, but that’s where my ‘pros’ list ends. About halfway through, I hit my threshold for spice and salt (sexual content and language, respectively) and started to skip and skim my way to the end. I finished the book, but it didn’t feel like a particularly fulfilling read.
Although this book didn’t work for me, I’m probably going to keep living in denial-land, trying to find the perfect (for me) escapist romance, because the alternative is watching the news, and exactly no one wants that right now.
For the Sensitive Reader: If you are sensitive to salty language or spicy sexual content, this book is not for you.
