I loved it I loved it I loved it! I can't say enough good, amazing, wonderful things about Jasmine Guillory and this novel! It started with a bang and the laughs didn't stop until the very end. I love a character who can laugh at herself and not be too serious all the time and that was definitely Nikole! The romance, the comedic relief, and the family and friendship vibes in this novel just blew me away. I think I read it in about two days because I just couldn't put it down.

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I absolutely loved this novel, but if its not clear - I LOVED THE PROPOSAL! Go out right now and grab this book, you won't regret it! If you're a fan of chic-lit/rom-coms, then you definitely want to check out this novel. Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for sending this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 5/5

I read and liked The Wedding Date and loved Carlos.

He’s swoony in this book and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t unputdownable.
I did love the diversity in this story (Nik is black and Carlos is Hispanic), but the dialogue was partly cliched and sometimes they laughed at each other too much.
That sounds critical, but it takes away from the flow of the dialogue for me.

The story starts out as a page-turner - Nik is at a Dodgers game with her boyfriend of five months when he proposes to her on the Jumbotron, but it's all bad.
He spells her name wrong.
She says, “No”.
Everyone at the stadium and at home watching is mad at her.
Enter Dr. Carlos Ibarra and his sister Angela.
They pretend to know her and get her out of the stadium seamlessly.
Nik and Carlos start out as just friends and it began to grow into a sweet romance.
It’s an easy read, but not a page-turner.

This author gets better with each book. I am really enjoying this series and all the characters. This was a cute romantic comedy and I loved every minute of it.

Nikole and Carlos meet at a baseball game where Carlos saved the day, the rest was history. They had great chemistry and banter that kept your attention. I really liked both characters.

If you have not read a book by this author you need to. Jasmine Guillory has a great series and writes page-turners. I am looking forward to more work from this author.

Wow. After thoroughly enjoying THE WEDDING DATE, I could hardly wait to get my hands on THE PROPOSAL. I loved Carlos in the first book and felt sure his story would delight. But this is such a boring book. There was so much more going on with Alexa and Drew and I felt their connection so strongly. Nik's character, in particular, felt shallowly developed, and there was no real conflict. The whole book just seemed to lack the sparkle and bated breath of The Wedding Date. I finished it distinctly underwhelmed.

Another great read from Jasmine Guillory! Fun and heartfelt, sexy and vulnerable, you fall in love with Nik and Carlos as they fall in love with each other.

Three stars: A fun romance, but it lacks originality, it was far too predictable.

Nik stabs at her phone, wondering how much longer she has to endure being at this ballgame with Fisher, her boyfriend. Nik is in for the shock of her life when a few minutes later, she is up on the Jumbotron with Fisher proposing to her in front of thousands of people. She has only been dating him causally for five months and they haven’t even exchanged I love yous, let alone discussed marriage. Nik desperately tries to let him down without making a spectacle, but it’s too late. Thankfully when the camera crew heads her way, a Good Samaritan quickly intervenes and saves her from more humiliation. Carlos while watching the scene unfold in front of him at the baseball game, and decides to help poor hapless Nik. Soon the two are friends with benefits, but neither one of them wants an involved relationship, or do they?
What I Liked:
*The Proposal was a book I desperately wanted to read after reading this author’s debut: The Wedding Date. While this one may not have quite lived up to its predecessor, I found it to be fun and flirty, and I was thrilled to get more Carlos.
*I loved the opening of the book. I can’t imagine a more humiliating thing than a public proposal in front of thousands of people that you have to turn down. It was hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole scene.
*The romance itself was fun. I liked that it started out under strange circumstances and that it turned into a friendship. I felt like that couple took some time to establish a friendship and to get to know one another before moving to the next level. I especially liked that they laughed and enjoyed the time they spent together.
*Big props to the author for continuing to bring racial diversity in her books. I liked that Nik is an African American woman, while Carlos is Latino. It is nice to see diverse racial couples.
Carlos was one of the main reasons I wanted to read this book. If you have read The Wedding Date, you will know Carlos as Drew’s supportive friend. I liked getting to know Carlos better in this one. I appreciated that he was dealing with personal tragedy and that he was always a stand up guy. He was the backbone of his family. He is kind, compassionate and a genuine good guy.
*I enjoyed the strong focus on female friendships. Nik has two besties, who always have her back. I loved this part of the novel.
*I liked that there was a tiny portion of the novel that focused on domestic abuse.
*I enjoyed catching up with Drew and Alexa from Wedding Date. It was fun to see them again.
The book ends in a good spot. I was happy and satisfied.
And The Not So Much:
*I think the biggest draw back for me with this one was that it was so predictable. It was easy to see how things were going to progress with the relationship, and even with the whole situation with Carlos’ cousin. There was really nothing in this on that was surprising.
*I was disappointed that we didn’t get more from Natalie and Dana. There was so much going on there that was left unexplored.
*I struggled with the realism of the story. There were so many things that seemed a little too convenient or over the top, especially the final scene between Nik and Fisher. It was funny but so unrealistic.

The Proposal was a cute read, but I found myself bored because everything was too predictable. I knew everything that was going to happen pretty much before it occurs. Yes, there are some fun, flirty moments, but nothing in this one that is original. I expected much more after reading this author’s debut The Wedding Date. This was by no means a bad book, but I expected more. Still, I plan on reading the third book in this series when it releases.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.

I really don’t know if I’ve ever done this before, but I read the second book in a companion series before/instead of the first. I heard extremely mixed reviews on THE WEDDING DATE and decided to skip it. When I requested THE PROPOSAL from Netgalley (wanting to give the author a try anyways), I didn’t realize it was a companion sequel to the aforementioned book. I still wasn’t compelled to read it, so I just skipped over it in favor of the one that sounded better to me… and had less mixed reviews. It looks like there will be a third companion in this series so hopefully this one works enough for me that I’ll read that too. I DIGRESS. I randomly started this one in early December because I was holding off on starting a holiday book until a read-a-thon started a few days later.

Overall, this book was adorable and the characters were wonderful. I can’t emphasize that enough. Carlos and Nik had such a fun relationship with each other and were honest about what they wanted from each other throughout most of the story. I loved both of their AHA! realization moments about how they felt (so funny), even if one of them felt a littttle late in the book. (The ending was moderately abrupt IMO but not a big deal.)

Their dialogue was a little too witty and contrived sometimes for me, which made it slightly cheesy? This wasn’t a huge issue because I’d rather have fun conversations than dry and boring ones. Some of them just didn’t 100% feel like real conversations or comebacks that people would actually have IRL.

The side characters in Nik’s friend group and Carlos’s family were great too – please provide me with spin-offs or companion books about any number of them (especially Courtney, Dana, or Angie). I’m genuinely excited to read the next story in the series so I MIGHT go back to read the first book at some point. I’m on the fence. Highly recommend this fun romance!

DNF @50%

I just could not take any more of this story without hurting my eyes/ears and having the possibility of having my eyes stuck in an annoyed position. I cannot believe the same author wrote The Wedding Date which I really enjoyed. This story...just NO! Nikole was not a strong character and she annoyed the piss out of me. And Carlos...who I LOVED in The Wedding Date just came off as an overprotective savior type that was just as annoying. Maybe I am reading this at the wrong time but I cannot push through the last 50% when it is the end of the year and I have other books to read. A huge disappointment for me.

This specific video review will be included in the December 2018 wrap-up.

For other video book reviews check out my YouTube Channel: Steph's Romance Book Talk.

Jasmine Guillory's second book is funny and heartwarming and a very good read! Nik and Carlos meet after an awkward proposal and find they enjoy each other's company, but the road to true love takes a few turns along the way. I liked the secondary characters of friends and family and actually laughed out loud at parts. Highly recommended.

Five months into dating her man-bunned, actor-bro boyfriend, the last thing Nikole expects is a big screen proposal at a baseball game (he can’t even spell her name right!) With her refusal comes a massive blow-up, not just from the disappointed fans in the stadium, but also from Nik’s social media once the video goes viral. Carlos was at that game, even helped Nik flee from the camera crews, but Nik knows this handsome LA doctor can’t possibly be looking for anything serious.

Hot on the heels of her massively popular The Wedding Date, Guillory is back with The Proposal. Right from the start I was hooked, from the cringe-worthy proposal and the amazingly diverse cast to the female friendships, this book seriously had it all. I was a little late to the party with The Wedding Date, but now that I’ve discovered how fantastic Guillory is, you better believe my grabby hands will be all over The Wedding Party in July!

New-to-me-author Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal certainly starts off with a bang. I was quite taken by the premise. Heroine Nik (Nikole) Paterson meets hero Dr. Carlos Ibarra at an LA Dodgers game when he rescues her from the Jumbotron-drama of having her man-bunned boyfriend proposing to her before thousands of people … not counting the ones watching on TV. This is a “proposal”, hence the title, that Nik neither wants nor anticipates. Her boyfriend Fisher, an actor with more ego than talent, is a sleep-with boyfriend and no more than that. As Carlos, at the game with his sister Angela, watches Nik’s horror-stricken face on the Jumbotron, he and Angela, only a few seats away, ward off the cameras coming at Nik when she refuses Fisher. Angela, Carlos, and Nik join Nik’s besties, Dana and Courtney, for drinks after the game and Nik and Carlos strike a friendship with some incipient attraction. They text, call, and meet for drinks, go to dinner, enjoy each other’s company, cook together, watch baseball games, and generally have a great ole time. Not soon after a few get-togethers, they become lovers.

Guillory’s Proposal may possibly be one of the most boring romances I’ve ever read. I enjoyed the premise, even though the declarative prose turned me off. This didn’t get any better as I got further into the novel either. I thought, at first, it had great potential for drama. I thought Fisher would make media-mincemeat out of Nik, in the vein of Robin York’s GREAT Deeper. But no, Fisher disappeared into Nik and Carlos’s dates and fun times. (He does reappear near the end of the novel, but only to what feels like Guillory’s trying to tie things up.) I would say that a good 85% of The Proposal is made up of Carlos and Nik enjoying each other, in and out of bed. Their time together is punctuated by Nik’s relationship with her friends and Carlos’s relationship with his family: his mother, Aunt Tia, sister, pregnant cousin Jessie and her husband Jon.

Guillory does give Nik and Carlos some mild internal conflicts. Nik had an emotionally manipulative boyfriend and she bears the scars of distrust and emotional aloofness. Carlos has an overdevelopped sense of responsibility towards his family and carries the scars of his father’s death. Because he feels he needs to take care of his family, Carlos is convinced a serious relationship is not for him. As Nik feels the same, their friends-with-benefits arrangement seems perfect. And frankly, I thought it was. I would’ve loved to have seen them part ways. Guillory offers some mildly amusing scenes between them, including a pretty droll enchilada-making one. Carlos is utterly nice and supportive of Nik; Nik is affectionate, a tad prickly, and funny. This goes on for a VERY LONG TIME.

When the dark moment arrives and arrive it does, the entire “break-up/separation” between Nik and Carlos gave me reader whiplash. Carlos has a real Jekyll-and-Hyde moment and Nik’s response is, though ho-hum, understandable. I can’t say that I enjoyed The Proposal, though I didn’t dislike it enough to DNF. I read it like one eats a boring muffin, munching away, regretting every moment of what you thought would be a great experience. I felt Guillory’s declarative prose tedious and her relentlessly didactic themes somewhat simplistic. In the end, The Proposal, to quote Miss Austen (who never sketched a scene without incisive wit, or drew a character without penetrating understanding of human nature) “had a high claim to forbearance,” Emma.

Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal is published by Jove (Berkley). It was released on October 30th and may be found at your preferred vendor. I received an e-galley from Jove, via Netgalley.

What a fun romantic book. I loved reading this title and flew through it. loved the scene at the Dodgers game, what a dope Fisher is. Enter Carlos, the perfect guy. Couldn't wait to see what would happen to Nikole and Carlos. I was pretty confident the story would be wrapped up in a neat bow but enjoyed how it played out.

I enjoyed Guillory's newest romance, which asks the question, what happens when you turn down a jumbo-tron proposal? This was a great story with well-developed characters facing real-life problems and discovering that they want to face them together. There was plenty of fun and heat in the mix as well.

2.5 stars.... This one totally missed the mark for me. I read The Wedding Date and thought it was a contemporary meet-cute romance read. I took it for what it was... an easy read. I was excited to see the author was coming out with another book, but sadly I was severely disappointed.

The writing felt incredibly juvenile, the storyline far-fetched and cheesy, riddled with cliches and all of the characters lacked depth of any kind. It all felt so "twee" while reading it. The one saving grace of this book was the diverse characters: a representation of a black woman, a latino love interest & non-cliche friends.

When Nik finds herself in the middle of an unwanted proposal on the Jumbotron at a baseball game, she is rescued by the handsome Dr. Carlos Ibarra. Friendship blossoms into love in this swoony romance. Fans of Guillory will be happy to check back in with old friends from The Wedding Date and to fall in love with new characters along the way.

*Complementary arc provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

*very deep sigh*

Y'all....

I tried, I really did, but this was a HUGE disappointment to read.

I read The Wedding Date not too long ago and it didn't quite live up to my expectations, so going into this one I was hoping that it would be a lot better, but also super nervous that it would turn out to be a dud as well. And as you can see it fell into the latter.

I don't even know where to begin with this one because I feel like it was just bad all around, and a lot of the dislikes I had for The Wedding Date were in here and I think it made me 10x more annoyed this time. And in the end the thing that I wanted the most, and expected the most was some kind of growth. Growth in the writing, growth in the story line, growth in the characters and the development of them. But unfortunately nothing grew.

I don't even want to rehash and summarize the story like I usually do, because I was so bored while reading that I've forgotten most of everything but here's a little bit of what I can remember. Our heroine Nik gets proposed to at a baseball game by her boyfriend who's some douche aspiring actor that couldn't even spell her name right and decided to pop the question after they had only been dating for a few months. The proposal gets thrown on the on the big screen for all the world to see, which sucks because everyone sees her turn him down. Carlos our hero, and friend from The Wedding Date happens to be at the game with his sister and they see the travesty going down and jump in to save Nik from the hate of the entire stadium. From there they somewhat keep in touch and things go from there.

So number one thing that I have to discuss is the writing. It still felt as cheesy, cliche, and basic as The Wedding Date was to me. I just wanted so much more, I felt no engagement at all and I had to drag myself to continue reading so many times. I wish that the writing had been developed a whole lot more so that it could be easier to connect to. There were so many exclamation points after!! everything!! and it felt so!! weird to me.

My other big gripe was the characters. Whew!! They were so bland and boring and that in turn made me lowkey annoyed by them. I could stand Carlos in The Wedding Date, but in here? Nope, that went out the window, to think that I even felt sorry for him before lmao. He seemed to always be whining and complaining about so much. And he was honestly so abrasive to his family whenever they expressed concern for him. Instead of listening to them he would brush them off and was just so rude. With Nik I just could not connect to her in the slightest bit, and I felt like I should have considering she was black and so am I. But sadly I didn't, she was so bland and had I not went into this already knowing she was black, and knowing she was because of the cover I would've never known. Now, I'm not saying that all black people have to be a certain way to come of authentically or whatever, but man she just didn't feel it to me. Nothing about her made me feel like she was a black women, and again I'm not saying she should've been screaming it from the mountain tops but I needed that whole aspect to be done a lot more and a lot better. And looking back I think I had the same issues with The Wedding Date. the race issues were a big love for other readers but it's so basic to me.

Another thing I've noticed now having read this is that we barely get anything about the females leads in Guillory's books. In The Wedding Date we know all about our main guy and how he ended in the situation he's in. We heard about how he lost his girl and she ended up with his friend or whatever, we got to see his family in the book and all that, But we barely got anything about our main girl. Sure we knew why she went into her career field and got to see her sis for a bit but compared to most of the book dealing with his issues it seemed pale in comparison. I feel like that's the same with The Proposal, but on a whole other level. We know all about Carlos and his family dynamics, about his dad, we see his sister on multiple occasions throughout the book, hell we even get his mom AND his cousin along with her husband. What do we get with Nik? Her friends and that's it. We don't know much of anything about her family and their dynamics, we don't even get to see them at all in the book, and they're not mentioned. But then again I was SO bored reading this and dragging myself through that maybe they were and I missed something but I'm telling y'all we know nothing. It kinda irks me that we knew so damn much about Carlos and half of his family but Nik got none of that. She was just a stagnant character with nothing going for her.

My other big peeve with this book was how redundant it was!! I noticed it with the previous book and it's still in this one. It's just such predictable writing and it bores to read. They meet, start talking and decided to keep in touch then it just becomes the same over and over again. Meet up, go eat, fade to black sex scene, go back home, obsess over if the other is thinking of them and whether or not this thing is serious, should they bring up the situation of how serious and if/when they should decide, back out, meet up again, go eat, fade to black sex, leave, not communicate, rinse and repeat. Like, this is literally the whole entire book and it's plot and it bored me to tears. Coupled along with the basic corny writing and it's a wonder I didn't DNF.

I just, I wanted this to be good SO bad but it just a major disappointment. It sometimes sucks that we can't love everything we read, but that's just how reading goes lol.

I remember back in the day when I was just finishing The Wedding Date and the only thing I could think about was "I need a Carlos book. How do I convince Guillory to write one?" As it turns out, I did NOT have to convince her at all. This one was already in the works!
Nik's day started out as going well. But then out of nowhere in the middle of a baseball game her boyfriend decides to PURPOSE. On a JUMBOTRON. Nik does everything short of dying from embarrassment, but out of nowhere, two people are there to save the day: Carlos and his little sister, Angie. They help Nik battle the news cameras and get her out of there before she can even blink. You would think it's over now, but for the two of them, it's only the beginning.....
From the very beginning Carlos has been my favorite character in this series. But in this one he seemed a bit different than he was in The Wedding Date. He seemed a bit more arrogant and a little more of a jerk. I didn't care for the change. I wanted the same Carlos that got Drew to realize he fell in love with Alexa. As for Nik, I really liked her. She reminded me of me. Which I find hilarious because I would have tried to date Carlos too lol She was just like me in so many ways that I wasn't expecting, which made her so much more realistic.
With their romance, I loved seeing them together. It was definitely an instance where everyone else knows EXCEPT those people. But their journey to get there was so much better that way. I loved the way they interacted with each other and the way they tried to make themselves think they didn't matter to the other. All the signs of real love.
The only thing I didn't care for about this one was the ending. I HATED the way he decided to let her know what he wanted to tell her. It just seemed like too much and the way he said it felt even to me that he was just saying something and he wasn't sure if he meant it. And then at the very end, I felt like Guillory stopped it in the middle of a scene. She could have stopped it before ending it like that.
The Wedding Date is still my favorite, but this one is a close second. Jasmine Guillory is for sure one romance author to watch. I can't wait to see what else she has in store!

This novel was accidentally 'gifted' to me and I'm so glad it was--I love getting to know new authors and while this book wasn't my favorite, I know I'll return to her novels and try her out again. For me the characters just go so hung up on caught up in what the relationship could or couldn't be...should or shouldn't be that it took them a while to just freaking settle. The inner monologues and pep talks were initially funny but then wore thin, unfortunately.

I loved the premise. I love that some of the secondary characters were more than what they initially seemed to be. And I really enjoyed that these characters were genuinely good people...they just were a smidge boring.

I love that contemporary romance publishers, who have been woefully slow, are finally getting with the program and buying up manuscripts from writers of diverse backgrounds and that readers are gaining more stories of people of color and many other underrepresented folks.

Carlos was the star for me in the first of the books that I have read from this author. I was looking for him to have a staring role soon. He gets his chance to come to the rescue of a woman embarrassed in front of hundreds of fans. He never thought that he would hit it off with her to the point that the would hang out on days off and end up making dinner together. These two become meshed in to each others lives but there are still things left unsaid.

I was left hanging by the end. Things seem to wrap up but not really wrap up. There were lose thread lying about. I had higher expectations for this read. There were some good parts but I may have just wanted too much. There were details that felt missing and doors opened that did not get closed or opened further.

Jasmine Guillory's done it again with The Proposal. Just as The Wedding Date was funny, sexy and a great read, The Proposal offers the same rhythm. I finished this book in no time.