“Don’t, I wanted to cry. Please don’t leave me with alone with your hot shirtless nephew.”
– Meg Cabot
Release Date: September 24, 2019
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishing for granting my wish and giving me an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!
Synopsis
The storm of the century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida—and it’s sending waves crashing through Sabrina “Bree” Beckham’s love life…
When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake.
But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.
But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.
Review
Sometimes you just need a cute and fast contemporary novel to pull you out of your reading slump or to follow up a hard-hitter novel and that’s what No Judgements was for me. I’m so glad my wish was granted and that I was offered access to an advanced copy of this book even though the publisher was no longer taking requests. It was everything I needed in an adult book by Meg Cabot to be and more. And I just found out there will be a Little Bridge series so I’m pretty excited!
When we first meet Bree she’s just recently started over in the town of Little Bridge and is running away from quite a few things it sounds like. She’s working at the local Mermaid Cafe and secretly painting in her free time. It seems like she has transitioned well and made a ton of friends for someone only being in town for a short three months. Because her life is a bit of a mess due to starting over she decides she needs to figure some things out on her own and go on a boy-fast. Fair enough we’ve all been there. Enter the hottie nephew of her boss who is the talk of he town due to him leaving his truck parked all over town at a different house every night. While nice to eye at the cafe sometimes she doesn’t need another playboy, especially one that gets under her skin. To bad he seems to be popping up everywhere and doing little things that make Bree’s heart sputter. Top all this off with an incoming hurricane and she stubbornly refuses to evacuate for due to her cat Gary being in poor health and Bree might have bite off a bit more than she bargained for with Little Bridge.
So I want to start by saying that the storm itself wasn’t that big of a deal. There were some things Bree said at the ends of chapters that foreshadowed this huge disaster and the aftermath of the storm, but I wouldn’t say this was a true storm book. If you’re concerned about hurt animals or people dying there isn’t any of that. It was pretty mild, more just used as a circumstance to get Bree and Drew thrown together a bit.
Bree was a fun character to be inside the head of. She was SOOO stubborn, but like same so I couldn’t fault her. Plus if she had packed up and left like most people had the sense to do we wouldn’t have had the story we did. Her love of animals was apparent, especially with sweet baby Gary. While she is toting a ton of baggage from her past, it never seemed to get her down and she was always looking on the brighter side of things. Her commentary on things happening during the storm was hilarious, especially when she and Drew played off each other. Her interactions with the animals she saved/took care of was so sweet and genuine. None of that felt forced but true to her character.
Drew and Bree together were hilarious. They played so well off of each other and while it may not have been insta-love things seemed to go pretty fast. One day Drew goes from the hottie nephew of her boss that ignores her presence but tips well to all of a sudden caring about where she’s taking shelter for the storm. He was a bit mysterious and while a couple mysteries about him were explained, I was left wanting to know a little bit more about him. Maybe we’ll get to see more of him and Bree in the next book.
The end was super weird and where it lost a start for me. There was a scene at the end that felt like it was written for a different book that had Bree acting super weird. I didn’t like it and while it didn’t ruin the book for me I could see how it might for others. After that scene everything felt a tad rushed compared to the pacing of the rest of the book. The epilogue is where things got back to normal though and I thought it wrapped things up perfectly.
Overall this was a pretty good novel by Meg Cabot. Her novels can be a tad hit or miss with me, but this was definitely a hit. I hope the rest of this series goes just as well and I can’t wait to see who else’s stories we’ll be getting.
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