As I was reading specific scenes all I could imagine was this gif, albeit a simple drive-a truly heartwarming experience where bonds are built.

Like Penny, I was enchanted and intrigued by the mysterious guy who had moved upstairs where as the pages become read he becomes a character that I have become quite fond off. Most of the characters were likeable and there were some gaps in the storyline towards the ends of the novel that could have been elaborated for greater depth and understanding over that period.

Overall, an enjoyable read where there will be heartwarming moments stemmed from letting go of ones prejudices and assumptions.

I received a free copy of Trying Not to Love you in exchange for an honest review. Overall, this was a good read. I always like novels that are a "little rough around the edges," and this didn't disappoint. Marcus had a very difficult background, and probably wouldn't be someone you brought home to meet the parents, but he ended up being a stand up guy to Penny. Penny probably could have done better, but circumstances led her to Marcus, and in the end they were the perfect compliment to each other.

I found myself drawn to each of these characters once I started the book. Penny who lives with her grandmother and looks after her. I found myself liking the calm she was looking for. When she sees a new tenant to their apartment complex, she finds herself drawn to him though others are fearful of him she is not. She hires him as her bodyguard.
Marcus Drake has just been paroled and is waiting for his girlfriend Francesca to be paroled. Staying at an apartment he found he is hoping he can just make do until she is released. Seeing Penny has changed something in him and when his parole officer shows up, she announces that they are dating this is where the story really begins and you are taken on a ride of emotions highs and lows. You never know where the story is going that is what the beauty of this book was really about. The author captured everything from a woman taking care of her grandmother, to two people dealing with having been in foster care and not the good part. To a husband and wife grieving still for their child that they buried way too soon. Those were the real stories of the emotions tied to this book. When you finally get to the end I was hoping for more pages or at least an epilogue, that was just me. Overall a very good book with good characters.

Had a feeling I would like this book but didn't expect to absolutely LOVE it all!!!
Penny and Marcus are both a hot mess separately but their broken lives are forever changed when they bump into each other. Their start as awkward neighbours turns after a weird proposition is made that eventually leads to an unexpected "benefits with a time limit" that ruins them both. Not your typical love story, because that's the one thing they will avoid at any cost.
Heartbreaking and frustrating emotions lead you through their story while your rational side fights the idea of them ever ending up together. Obstacles are everywhere but you can't help but want these two to wake up before it's too late.
A must read if you want to give all your senses a serious workout.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley for my honest review.

Trying Not to Love you is a standalone novel by Amabile Giusti, and translated by Hilary Locke. It was published on July 28, 2020, by Montlake. I was able to read this novel by receiving an ARC on NetGalley after requesting it.

The novel centers around two individuals, Penny and Marcus, who could not be more different. Penny is shy and stays out of trouble while keeping her nose down and helping to take care of her grandmother. Marcus has just been released from prison and is counting down the days that his girlfriend will be released as well, and they can leave this boring town.

However, they realize they both need each other in their time of need, so they come to an arrangement that forces the pair to spend a lot of time together. This causes unwelcome feelings to arise in both, that could affect a lot of people around them, not just their hearts.

I enjoyed this novel. I came to care about the characters and was anxious to see how to story would play out. I ended up speeding through the end to ensure the ending was a positive one.

The only issue I had was the translation. There were a few errors in the novel where words were not correctly used, or the grammar was off. It would throw me off a bit, but not too much to deter me from finishing the book.

I rate this book as 4/5 stars. I recommend it for romance fans, but not for fans of other genres, since there is not much else within the pages.

My feelings for this book are a little confusing and I found that writing the review about the book was a lot harder than it should have been.

To summarise what’s going on Penny Miller is a quiet, unsuspecting young woman who lives with her grandmother in a building that isn’t quite anybody’s first choice. She works at the library and then at a bar at night. Penny has a stalker, of sorts, who threatens and scares her and while she can handle him, he still scares her. Then she meets Marcus Drake. He’s tall, muscular and fresh out of prison. Marcus is a bit of a conundrum - both to Penny and the reader - because he’s got all these secrets and he’s rough and rude. But he’s also the kind of man that your eyes and your body lean towards because of his imposing size and his lack of interest in pretty much everything around him. Everything about Marcus screams ‘bad boy’ and like any unsuspecting woman, Penny is drawn to him.

Right off the bat, Marcus is horrible to Penny. He says nasty things and he keeps breaking her spirit, but Penny is pretty resilient. She’s not going to let this ex-convict try to destroy her. She takes control of the situation, she makes the most of having Marcus living in the same building as her. He becomes her bodyguard, a security blanket of sorts and despite his interest in her, Marcus accepts the job. There are pages and pages of them just fighting with each other and while it gets tiresome after a point, what really stood out to me was just how strong and powerful Penny is. Marcus can’t break her as much as he’d like to, because nothing can break Penny, not after everything she’s gone through.

I didn’t like Marcus, for so many reasons, but I absolutely loved Penny. Yes, she’s easily infatuated by him, but as a young woman who hasn’t had a lot of interactions with men like him, you can’t really blame her. Marcus comes into her life at a time when she’s just giving up on everything and quite honestly, you don’t hold it against her for not being more careful. Marcus takes advantage of everything Penny gives him and eventually, he hurts her, as you’d imagine. I’m not a big fan of love at first sight, but given that you see all of this happen through Penny, it’s not as annoying as I thought it would be. Penny feels so much for Marcus that she’s willing to do whatever it takes to soften him up a little. And it works, to an extent.

What did annoy me was the changing POV with each chapter. Penny’s chapters are all in third person, while Marcus gets first person. Plus, after seeing everything happen through Penny’s eyes, you get to see the same thing unravel through Marcus’ and that was a little confusing at first.

The plot and the book had the potential to be so much more and maybe that got lost in translation, but it was interesting.

This book is very different and in some spots the writing is awkward ... but that could be in the translation of the book to English. I really felt sorry for Penny having to work 2 jobs and look after her Grandmother. I just couldn’t see what she saw in Marcus because he kept telling her that Francisco was his true love and he treated Penny like crap! It took me a really long time not to hate him and he never did win me all the way over. I found myself skimming the book at times because it moved slow, but the last part of the book had my full attention.

I received an early copy courtesy of Amazon Publishing UK through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

This was a bit so-so with me, it was okay, but it definitely wasn't great. I quickly got bored of Penny allowing Marcus to treat her like crap. Generally a bit of a frustrating read to be honest.

Ok I love enemies to lovers story, and I tend to like jerks who eventually redeemed themselves, however this was not it. First Penny was weak, let him treat her like crap, knew about his manhorish ways. Marcus was a jerk and stayed that way, I personally hated him, and disliked Penny because she should know she could do better. And to top it all off I felt like sybil with multiple personalities since that it how I read it, there were too many peoples thoughts. So all in all I hated it. Read something else unless you want to read nothing but a whole lot of sex and no redeeming qualities.

This was an enjoyable quick read but fairly formulaic. Penny's relationship with her grandmother is lovely and adds depth to the story, but Marcus's propensity for casual sex and plan to wait for his "true love" Francisca to get out of jail seem absurd at times. If either one of them had actually said what they really thought it would be a different story.

Complementary copy given for honest review and opinion. I was not really impressed with this book. The translation lost some of its grammar. I did not like the author throwing in politics into the book.

Overall it was a good book and I enjoyed a lot of it, but I have some big problems:
1) The writing style. I don't know if maybe I wasn't paying too much attention to what was happening, but the story was confusing and hard to understand some times. It was also a little repetitive.
2) the romance pace. Our heroine falls in love quite quickly, which make it kinda unbelievable. Perhaps this also has to do with the fact that it is classified as "romance" but I would say that it is more like an erotic novel.
3) our hero. Not that I didn't like him as a character, but some of the things he said... yikes. This is directly related to the fact that it is an erotic novel and that is not my forte and it made me a bit uncomfortable, but it is totally in me.
4) an epilogue is necessary.

I had a great time reading this book but unfortunately I had some issues.
Both POV's were written really different.Penny's story was in third person and Marcus in first. I didn't understood the reason behind this.

Marcus was a not a good person at all! 3/4 of the book he refers to penny in such a despicable way. Every time was to say something disrespectful.
Penny wasn't my cup of the either. She was in love so quickly with this horrible man that only spoke horrible things to her. As I read I was just thinking first love yourself before this scumbag. She didn't believe in herself and that really bothered me.

Taking that aside, I liked the story and the different characters where lovely (except of course Grant and Francisca)

First and foremost thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

While I enjoyed it, it was a fairly easy read, I feel there could of been more story development from Marcus' POV. The story almost seemed to develop entirely through Penny alongside pretty much the same 'I am an arsehole' narrative from Marcus.

I don't have too much more to say! It was a nice story line, the translation slightly off in places but hopefully this will be reviewed by the time of publishing. All round I think this book would give way to a second book that has good potential.

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: ⁣
Gonna keep this short and sweet! I rated this ⭐️⭐️.5/5 stars!⁣
I started reading this and actually wasn’t a huge fan... It was cheesy, childish, and seemed to have a lot of pointless drama. It almost seemed like the beginning half of the book had been written by a teenager and then the last half was written by someone more mature. I think the last 40% of the book redeemed it for me and I ended up liking the way it ended! It wasn’t a perfect love story by any means but I tend to enjoy that more than the unrealistic fairy tale ones anyways. ⁣
Overall, not the best romance I’ve ever read but certainly not the worst! I also want to note that this was originally written in Italian and some of the charm of the book could’ve potentially been lost in the translation. ⁣
⁣
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰. 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐰𝐧! ⁣
⁣

This book was an okay read for me. I feel like there may have been some of the story lost in translation. I did not like the characters all that much, especially Marcus, but I was able to finish the book. It could definitely use an epilogue. Overall, I don't know that I would read it again, but it was an somewhat enjoyable book. It had the potential to be more, but it fell a little short for me.

Thanks so NetGalley and Montlake for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am sorry to say this book just wasn’t for me. I am not sure why, but I just could not get into the characters and so it just wasn’t that enjoyable for me.

Thank you Net, Montlake and Amabile Giusti for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book although I had a few issues with it like how fast the girl was in love with the guy at the beginning AND I really think this book needs an epilogue but overall I still had a good time reading this.
Thank you netgalley for give me a digital copy.

Trying Not to Love You by Amabile Giusti is a romance book that was translated into English.
I honestly had a hard time getting into this book. I think maybe details were lost in the translation. It is a story about a girl named Penny, she works in a bar but also takes care of her Gran who suffers from dementia.

I think the idea of the story had potential but it was missing something.

ARC provided from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

I was pretty excited to read this on because I thought I'd really connect and like the main character. Instead this turned out to be more erotica than romance. That's not an issue except when you're in the mood for a romance and end up with a lot of nakedness.