Before I downloaded The Perfect Date from NetGalley, I headed over to Goodreads to read the reviews. They weren’t good; they were bad. The worse that I’ve every read. I took a chance. I figured The Perfect Date hadn’t hit its target audience, reviewers familiar with Evelyn Lozada. Therefore, they went into the book with expectations different from people familiar with the reality star and her on-screen persona would have.

They were right. I was wrong.

One of the most common criticisms on Goodreads is that the heroine and hero are unlikeable. I didn’t find Angel and Duke unlikeable; I found their personalities and life circumstances at odds with the cover illustrate cover and the generic synopsis. Based on the cover and synopsis prepare readers for a light contemporary read. While The Perfect Date is a contemporary, it’s not light. Angel and Duke are going through some things. They are two people raised in New York by poor families that are struggling to not become a statistic or stereotype. Their reality reflects in their personalities, which aren’t the personalities that people expect for two main characters in a light contemporary romance. Instead, The Perfect Date should have been marketed as a gritty sports romance. I think readers searching for a sports romance would have been more forgiving of Angel and Duke’s attitude and accepting of a heroine and a hero who both are rough around the edges.

The Perfect Date features two my favorite tropes, fake dating and hate to love. Duke needs Angel to help him make sure that public and the bigwigs of his major league baseball team believe that he is on the straight and narrow. He needs to keep his image clean to not jeopardize his position as the starting pitcher after a slew of recent scandal. Angel agrees, worried about consequences their association will have on her and her son’s future. The perfectly normal fake dating trope premise. Lozada and Loricnz tainted this trope with way too much drama, instead Angel and Duke learning they have a lot in common and enjoying their fake dates, engaging in “fake” flirtations that eventually leads to real romance there was nothing but drama. Almost all their encounters were Drama City, kind of like everyone favorite “Real Housewives of (insert city/region name here)” reality show which Lozada is an alum. It was almost like they were unable to have normal human interactions with each other without some amount of drama. The drama was over the top and unnecessary.

That leaves the hate to love trope to save this romance.

The Perfect Date failed to deliver on this trope as well. The transition from hate to love was not believable. While there’s a clear sexual attraction between Angel and Duke. There was no romantic chemistry. Especially, the romantic chemistry needed to make a hate to love relationship romance work. There was no sexual tension between the two of them. There were too few causal conversations between them to help them transition from hating each other (or rather Angel hating Duke) to loving each other. Again, The Perfect Date failed to execute the necessary transitional interactions need to make a hate to love trope work. When I finished the last page, I felt that Angel and Duke still didn’t know each other enough to make their romance believable. I never bought into the notion of Angel and Duke falling in love or at the end of them being in love. Angel and Duke ended up being two people attracted to each other but lacking romantic spark.

My rating of The Perfect Date could’ve been higher if the writing hadn’t been bad. Normally, I can excuse symptoms of a first novel (this is Lozada’s second). But this romance didn’t suffer from those symptoms. The writing was just not good. It was almost as if the writers weren’t familiar with the expectations of romance readers so the novel lack a lot of character and plot development that readers are looking forward too. I have high expectation for the writing in romance novels because the level of skill required to keep readers interested in a story where they already know the outcome is high. They have to not only write well developed plots and characters, but the writing has to be good enough that readers are invested in the seeing the main characters achieve their HEA. The writing in The Perfect Date was just meh, so meh that I almost DNF’d it a couple of times because my interest kept weaning.

While The Perfect Date has an interesting premise and pretty cover, I can’t recommend it. The over the top constant drama, lackluster romance, and mediocre writing failed to deliver. Which is unfortunate because it had tropes that I enjoy and characters that deserved an HEA.

I love baseball and was excited about this book. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t that good. Very disappointing.

*Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!*

Woof, y'all. Based on the blurb, I expected a contemporary romance - something fun and light, but also realistic with some real life issues since they made it clear it was a multicultural story. It was not that, lol. I skimmed through probably 2/3 of the story and I'm glad I did, the end.

This book was a bit too far fetched for my liking. I also felt that the relationships between the dad, could have been better explored. The romance also did not really grab me. However this author shows lots of promise.

Evelyn Lozada always creates the perfect mix of characters and ones who the reader fully feels invested in during the story. The Perfect Date is no different.

Single mother. Hard worker. The chance to make things a little easier. A little better. I am a sucker for a single, unwed young mother getting her chance, making something of herself and improving the life of herself and her son. I was even more happy to see that it was a piece that showed more than one kind of love. This was cultural love. This was more. Or at least, that was what I thought it would be. I am sad to say that I was not overjoyed at the story as a whole. There were too many aspect of it that I did not like. There were several that I was happy to be part of. I was just wanting more from what I was reading and just didn't get it.

Not a fail, not a home-run, but somewhere in the middle.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-Arc of The Perfect Date for an honest Review.

This book was just not for me. The cover is perfect and it's summer so a cute baseball rom com was just what I was wanting. Unfortunately, that is not what I got. This book was just a huge let down.

Both of the MC were just awful and had no character development through out any of the book. Angel is the main female character who is a single mom working to get her nursing certification. Duke is the male main character who is an injured baseball star. Neither of them ever actually learn from their mistakes. I don't know how they even end up together since there really don't have any sparks between them.

The Perfect Date has been released.
And unfortunately, I just did not like it. I really wish that I could but I just could not I tried my best but I could not. I felt that the whole story could have done so much better. But instead, they treated the main character, Angel, so terrible. Like how can you treat her that way? She is the best but these famous character were so trash especially Caleb. I could not deal with him at all. He was the worst and had no remose at all.
1 Star

*whispers* This was not good. The entire story was one hot mess, which is disappointing especially when the cover and blurb seem so great!!

This was a book I was really excited about. I love the idea of a single mom working to earn her degree, and then winning the heart of a professional baseball player, who is fighting his way back from an injury and fighting off the younger players vying for his spot on the roster, but sadly, it didn't work for me.

I just was not a fan of either the hero or the heroine. They both were too angsty and abrasive. Maybe this changed, and maybe, the book improved, but I sadly DNFed at about 30%, because I found I did not care about the fate of these characters.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Angel Gomez became a single mother at 16, and she works hard to put herself through nursing school while taking care of her son. Love is the last thing on her mind. Caleb “the Duke” Lewis is New York's star pitcher, though he also makes plenty of headlines for his off-the-field exploits. He is intrigued by Angel from the moment he meets her, and he convinces her to pretend to be his girlfriend to clean up his image in the press. Each of them come with piles of baggage, though. Can they work their way through the baggage to be with each other?

Well, this book was … something. We are apparently supposed to root for the main characters because they are not 100% evil like almost every other character in the book? Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book.

From the description I thought this book was going to be a super cute, easy-to-read, romance novel. I was pretty disappointed. This book had so much drama packed into such a short book that it wasn't believable at all and made me roll my eyes instead. The writing really bothered me. Some parts were right on the edge of being offensive. I think what bothered me the most about the writing is characters would speak perfect English with proper grammar and everything but two lines down that same character's speech would be full of slang. It almost felt like the authors couldn't decide which way they wanted to portray the characters. Angel was a strong independent woman who didn't need a man and Duke was a famous baseball player who thought he was being witty and flirtatious when he was really just being a jerk and sometimes creepy. They both had moments where they bashed men and women and I think it was a failed attempt at setting the characters apart. Kind of like the saying about tearing people down to bring yourself up. I think this story had great potential but ultimately the writing and extra drama took away from it. I'm hopeful that some things were fixed before it was published.

Going into this, especially by the cover, I think it's going to be a sweet contemporary romance book. Fun, sweet, and perfect summer read. But no, not at all. This was just a mess. The book was filled unnecessary drama and toxic relationships. The characters were so surface level, lacking any real heart or depth. DNF

Angel Gomez is a single mother, doing the best she can to raise and support her son. Finishing up her nursing degree and working as a bartender has Angel always busy. When she meets Duke, a Yankees pitcher, she doesn't even know who he is, but he needs her help. His team can't know he's not ready to take the mound, so Duke needs Angel to pretend they are dating so he has an excuse for why he's visiting the clinic where she works. But Angel has enough drama in her life with her boss's trying to hit on her all the time, to be worried about Duke's drama as well. Will she go along with the fake dating or will she pass?

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I have been watching Basketball Wives from the very first season. Then Evelyn Lozada had a shoe store in Miami. Now she's living in L.A. as a single mom to 2 children and is still on Basketball Wives. I can hear her in this book. Her voice rings through Angel's character.

Now this book was no literary piece of art, but it held my attention throughout. I didn't like the repetitiveness of the book and there were a couple of things in there that seemed so unreal. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I got it because of watching the show and I wanted to see what it was all about.

I was unfortunately not a fan of this one. I expected a cute romance, but was found with unbearable characters and drama meant for a soap opera. I forced myself to continue to the point where reading, which is something i love to do, was something I was dreading. There was a lack of something in this book, and I can't point out exactly what it was... maybe a lack of depth? character development? Regardless, I was just expecting more, and found myself very disappointed.

***ARC received in exchange of an honest opinion***

I was hoping I would like The Perfect Date more than I did, in fact, I almost didn't like it. For me it was too much of a cliche and it was very hard to connect with the characters and the story. They weren't relatable enough for me to connect.

While The Perfect Date was a fun light-hearted read, it felt too cheesy and predictable for me to truly enjoy.

I had read mixed reviews about this book but decided to give it a chance to see what I though.

Unfortunately I really disliked the main characters & found myself bored enough that I was unable to finish the book.

Sorry not for me 🙁

Rate this with a Huge R for Raunchy!
This could have been a great piece of Women's Fiction. Romance, Political Commentary, Serious Social Hype, Sexism in the Workplace, and being a POC and poor. That part of the story was great. I did not need to have eroticism, foul language, and drugs in every chapter. I would not have requested this book had I known how raunchy it was. I found it neither 'heartwarming' nor 'fun'. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

Didn't love this one. I felt the characters fell flat and I just truly didn't care about their relationship, unfortunately.