Book Review: Love Not Qualified by Maeve Hazel
Want to know if Love Not Qualified by Maeve Hazel is worth the read? Here’s my full review to help you decide
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the author and/or publisher in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
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Love Not Qualified Info
Author: Maeve Hazel
Rating: 2.5/5
Where to buy Love Not Qualified
Love Not Qualified Summary
When two broken hearts collide, their chemistry challenges every boundary they’ve built.
Resilient and guarded.
Haelyn Ross is barely keeping it together.
With her family shattered and financial struggles mounting, she’s hesitant when a promising match on a dating app encourages her to apply for a job at Graves Automotive.
By some twist of fate, Haelyn lands the job as assistant to the CEO, Tristan Graves. His cold, brooding demeanor should keep her at a distance, but there’s a white-hot spark between them that she can’t seem to smother.
Caught between her growing connection with the man from the app and her undeniable attraction to her new boss, Haelyn must figure out what her heart truly desires.
Restless and yearning.
Tristan Graves is a man adrift, reeling from his father’s death and finding an escape from his responsibilities in the bottom of a rum bottle.
When he meets Haelyn through a dating app under a false identity, he’s captivated by her resilience. Hiring her as his assistant was a calculated risk, but he might be in over his head.
He finds himself desperate to earn her trust, but breaking through her defenses in person proves to be the real challenge.
No woman before Haelyn has been worth changing for. But can he figure out how to be the man she needs before she discovers that he was the man from the app all along?
As their worlds intertwine, Haelyn and Tristan must confront their deepest fears and desires. Can they overcome their pasts and find love, or will their secrets keep them apart?
Love Not Qualified Review
This review is up so late because there was a recommendation that if the review was going to be less than 3 it should be up a few weeks after release and honest to God I just forgot about it.
I mean considering I was battling stomach flu then a sprained ankle from badminton and the common cold, it’s a miracle I survived let alone still be able to remember what were the thoughts I had when reading this book.
I was excited to read this book because I genuinely loved the cover and thought the premise to be cute but the book was disappointing for me and had a lot of issues that went against my principles.
Also, disclaimer I will not be using the CAWPILE rating method for this review because I as usual didn’t write notes and can’t remember the finer details of Love Not Qualified. I just remember the broad strokes as they say.
Before I yap any further let’s get to the review.
To start off the review, I have to be quite frank I had to check back the email that contained this eARC because there were aspects of this book that were very dark romance adjacent that I honestly thought I misread the email.
My perception of this book was a cute romance story and didn’t think that it would have any problematic topics.
The things I found very problematic was how controlling Tristan was and I didn’t like how it’s just accepted and expected coming from him because what he did isn’t cute.
He only gave Haelyn the illusion of an option; she never had an option where it concerns him. He didn’t give her an option when he made her stay over at his place, or when he lied to her saying he needed her for an important meeting only to find out it’s all a ruse to bring her to a weekend getaway so she can take her mind off the serious decision she had to make in terms whether to take her mother off of life support.
There are other things that he did in the book that just made me feel ugh. Now, if this was a dark romance and tagged as such I would not have any issues because dark romance is expected to have such problematic tropes.
Aside from Tristan being a controlling douchebag, I didn’t like how the author made Haelyn’s mom being hospitalized such a central issue in her life and then not really include it in the plot nor in Haelyn’s day to day whatsoever except where it’s convenient to push the plot forward.
Like, why include that in at all then? Especially when the emotional pay off isn’t there because things just conveniently have a happy ending.
It confounds me.
Another aspect I didn’t enjoy was Tristan’s alcohol addiction. For me it was not handled well. I say this because from what I read, he made it out to be that Haelyn cured him, she is all that he needs to reform and literally be a new man in what seems to be overnight.
No signs of going to see a therapist regarding his deep seated issues regarding the death of his father and his mothers abandonment of their family. None of that, which for me is a red flag because what if shit hits the fan? Does he have the proper tools to handle such stresses? Is he going to put the burden of being sober solely on Haelyn who has her own shit to deal with?
He is a billionaire so I’d imagine he can hire a few therapists and/or psychologists and even a dash of psychiatrists there.
Don’t get me wrong, this book is still a fun and quick read. It’s just the execution of some of the aspects of the plot wasn’t my thing.
More books by Maeve Hazel
If you enjoyed my review of Love Not Qualified by Maeve Hazel then you might enjoy my other reviews
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