I received Can't Resist Her by Kianna Alexander for free by Montlake in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for my advanced copy!

Can’t Resist Her is a really sweet read with a cute concept! I love the idea of childhood crushes reconnecting later in life and figuring out whether it lives up to their heightened expectations.

I really liked our main characters Summer & Aiko and it was so nice to read a sapphic story with two Black leads (with Aiko being part Japanese too) and I loved how the story highlighted the community around them. Summer is a school teacher fighting against the gentrification of the town and Aiko is part of the architecture firm that is about to tear down their old school - it was a really interesting dynamic between the two of them as they tried to balance their intense feelings for each other with their core beliefs. I thought that there could have been a bit more chemistry between the two of them shown in the story as it mostly relies on the attraction that they had to each other when they were younger - it would have been nice to see them reconnect in a new way but it was still cute.

The writing flows really well especially when it came to the descriptions of the town however I did find the dialogue a little bit awkward in places. It is a really enjoyable read and I finished it in a day!

Can’t Resist her is a lovely sapphic romance that is perfect for summer!

I had a lot of conflicting feelings reading this, and ended with a 4 star because ultimately, I really enjoyed Summer and Aiko. The story sparkles the most when these Summer and Aiko are together. There two deserve their second chance romance HEA and I enjoyed all of their interactions and sexy times (on the page). Where I had some trouble was in the narrative of moving from place to place, scene to scene. Sometimes the writing was just too literal and step by step in describing actions. But when it moved to dialogue and interactions between characters, the story shined, and I couldn't put it down. We also had lots of family and friends, which is the type of world building I enjoy in a small town story. The conflict of Summer and Aiko being on opposite sides of a development project, is a trope that I'm always a little uncomfortable with. I fully empathized with Aiko who was just doing her job, and I appreciated that there was no attempt for Aiko to twist and turn and fake her actions in order to placate Summer. It was fully Summer who needed to figure out that her town had changed and she needed to learn about it now and maybe do the work herself instead of just guilting Aiko for something she couldn't change. And Summer does make that growth and everything is better for it. Their relationship is better, the project is better. So it all worked out for me. There is a plot line of Summer's mother not accepting her as a queer person. It hovers in the background and then there is a scene for her mother to finally apologize and try to heal their relationship. It was handled fine, from my perspective, but may be triggering for some people.
All in all this was an enjoyable read.

I don't think its any surprise that I loved this. A diverse queer romance with plus sized main character? Yes please! This book was just fantastic and I am absolutely so excited that it exists out in the world!

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc.

Aiko and Summer shared a kiss at a school dance and have been thinking about one other ever since. After fifteen years, Summer has returned to Austin, Texas, but she is unimpressed by how the city has changed. Aiko, who is in charge of this project, is passionate about transforming Austin for the benefit of society. Conflicting perspectives, attitudes, and future visions are the main source of tension between the two, which sadly makes it impossible to resolve because both parties are too steadfast in their choices.

Can’t Resist Her swiftly delves into a second-chance romance with wonderful sensual scenes, great character development possibilities, and a reasonably engaging plot.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Having enjoyed Kianna Alexander’s work in the past, I was incredibly hyped to hear she was releasing a Black sapphic contemporary. And while it’s not her best work, I did enjoy it for what it had to offer.
I really like how Alexander revolves the story around the characters and their families and community. Summer and Aiko are both Black (Aiko is biracial; part Black, part Japanese), and I love seeing expressions of Blackness so unapologetically, written with Black readers (especially Black queer readers, who aren’t represented often) in mind, focusing on something other than racism.
However, while the intent is there, and there’s a great premise, I can’t help but feel like something was lost in the execution. The dialogue felt awkward, and while the prose style made for a fast read, it also lacked substance. I also feel that beyond the fact that Aiko and Summer have this history together, they do feel rather one-dimensional. The chemistry between them is reasonably well-established and they do have some nice moments, so I didn’t hate reading about them together, but I wish they had a bit more to them.
While this is not Kianna Alexander’s best offering, it’s a fun, relatively light read to pass the time, especially if you like Black/multicultural sapphic romance.

Can't Resist Her is not a bad book, per se. It’s just an unpolished one.

It reads very much like a first draft, and a rough one at that. The characters don’t so much have personalities, as a one single characteristic afforded them by the author, which guides all their actions. They don’t talk like real life people - instead it feels like they read from some coaching textbook on how not to hurt someone else’s feelings.

There’s no meat behind any of it, there are only the bones, the bare structure. The author had an idea for this book, they outlined it with a lot of details, but they forgot to put some life into it.

This of course means that reading Can't Resist Her is a bit like a chore. The book is boring, because there is no one to connect with and no one to root for. There are only ideas.

I do appreciate the basically all-Black cast, the conversations about legacy and gentrification, and love for one’s community. I just wish all of that had some real meaning, that it weren’t just empty words.

This was such a good sapphic story. I loved being able to see a little bit of myself in it. I related to it a lot and loooved all the characters.

Definitely will recommend

A cute and beautiful book about heritage, family and community
.
Both protagonists of this story are hooked after sharing a kiss at their prom, so years later when they meet again it is difficult to deny the chemistry and attraction between the two even when they are on opposite sides of the dispute over the renewal of their ancient soul matter
.
Summer tries to stop the work that is going to tear down her old school and her grandmother's legacy while Aiko is the supervisor of the project.
.
there's a lot of dialogue about community, gentrification and culture. Summer asks at each business or tells the story of each business she goes to on a day to day basis and is very informative.
.
I liked Aiko more, I'm not going to lie about this, I liked her personality more, the clarity in her ideas and how she behaved all the time with Summer. I would have liked to have more of her point of view and her orchids, the relationship with her parents and her friends I feel that I would have enjoyed it more
.
This is a beautiful romance between two women and their community, how two extremes points can reach a common one and grow
.
.
Thanks to Kianna Alexander and Montlake for give me this beautiful book in exchange for my honest opinion

Thank you NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

As I started reading I initially thought the chemistry between the main characters would surely start to form the more I kept reading, but I didn't feel any type of way about their relationship.

I didn't find myself rooting for them to be together or vise versa. I think the problem for me was the dialogue, it was very bland and it did not flow like it should.

I really love the cover and I do believe the story line has potential but in the end the book fell flat for me.

2.5 ⭐️. I really wanted to like this, but the writing was too weak for me to get past it and be able to enjoy the story. The characters experienced some development by the end of the story, but overall CAN’T RESIST HER was a let-down for me. Extra half star added for decent sex scenes.

Stopped reading at 10%.

Whatever merits Can't Resist Her may have, they'll be difficult to appreciate considering how poorly written this book is. The action, dialogue, and characterization is inauthentic and heavy-handed. Alexander delivers information to readers in a manner that prioritizes expediency over art. For instance, she introduces the topic of a school closing down by having two characters exhaustively detail everything they've done to keep it open—information that both speakers would already be aware of and wouldn't need to rehash. Similarly, one character meets someone new and says "tell yourself about me," and said stranger proceeds to info-dump their entire backstory into the conversation. People do not talk like that!

The narrative style is also very awkward. Every action a character takes is minutely describe in a dull, monotonous fashion. First Summer takes a shower, then she dresses in a white t-shirt and pants, then she gets in her car and drives down a specific street, then she passes by this restaurant, etc. None of this provides any value to the narrative, and is really demonstrative of the author's lack of professional polish.

I can't say much about the romance itself. I stopped reading the second Alexander geared up for a clumsy, middle-schooler-writing-fanfic style flashback of the time the two leads first met. You can have the best love story ever, but if you have no talent for storytelling, it won't matter.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this review copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a sapphic romance. I really liked the two main characters. They had vibrant and bold personalities. Their attraction to one another was believable. I love second chance romances, and this one was a good one. I really liked how the story concluded.
About halfway through the story I was not enjoying it because the two love interests have the same fight over and over again. It felt repetitive and I just didn’t like it. But as I said above, I really like how things were wrapped up and resolved.

This book is overwritten from Page 1, and every page thereafter is a slog to get through. Kianna Alexander describes every character, setting, and action in excruciating detail, and having to picture each and every scene exactly as Alexander described it (every single piece of clothing, every single smell, every single dish on the table, etc.) made my head want to explode. There’s too much explanation and repetition to be able to find the plot of the story and connect to it. The dialogue is wooden — if I ever talked to my sister or a friend like this, they’d think I’d been abducted by an alien who was trying to approximate the English language — and fosters no chemistry between the two main characters. This could have been an interesting 50-page story, because there’s an interesting premise buried within, but, as this book is written, it’s just bloated writing and characters I didn’t care about. The characters in this book may not be able to resist each other, but I think you should resist this book.

I received an e-ARC of this Montlake book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

DNF at 43%. The beginning of this was promising. It's a loose Cinderella retelling and I'm the biggest Disney fan. Plus it's sapphic! But it was also slow-burn and closed-door, which I don't like. Some of the writing was also cringy. Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I was very excited about this book and I am sad to say it did not meet my expectations. The dialogue was poorly written and included awkward phrasing as well as spoken information that the reader wouldn’t know. It was hard to buy into the romance between the characters due to this and I felt the focus was on the last crush versus focusing on development of the present day relationship. Unfortunately this one missed the mark for me.

I couldn't get through this book at all. The lack of chemistry, and while the story was compelling this is a romance so the chemistry is everything!!! It was just unconvincing, The dialogue was so starchy and I just didn't like it. I think it's an important story, especially s it focuses on gentrification but I think it just simply could have been better

A second chance LGBT love story centering women of color~ Count me in. Although it dragged in parts, Alexander paints a vibrant and really grounded story about two women who are simply meant to be together.Perfect read for pride month

I struggled to write this review because I'm still upset about this book.
I honestly felt so excited when I saw it on netgalley and happy when I received the ARC... Racial representation, sapphic romance, adults MCs (and the cover? so cute!). But it wasn't... good.
The plot was great and the discussions about gentrification as well. My biggests issues were the romance and the dialogue.
The dialogue was too formal and robotic, it didn't sound natural at all. And the romance lacked chemistry between the MCs. Maybe if it was a slow burn it would be better, it felt too rushed and i don't know, they didn't felt compatible.

After trying to read this book multiple times, I've decided that I will not be finishing it. I'm glad I had an opportunity to read an arc and saddened that this book just isn't the right fit for me. I know it has potential and will find readers who love it.

I have such a hit or miss with ff books lately. I wanted to understand more and like this story from more reasons but I found the characters annoying and I got so frustrated by them that I couldn’t carry on reading unfortunately.


Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy