Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review!

This book starts off with Riley moving out of her apartment after her fiancé passes away a couple years prior. As she's leaving, she finds the new tenant, Jae, moving in. He's handsome and charming and she freaks out and leaves. The story progresses from there, as she ends up accidentally applying to paint a mural for a restaurant he's opening. She then stumbles through grief and moving forward with her first romantic situation since her fiancé passed away 3 years ago.

All in all, it's a cute story and probably does a really good job of covering what it's like to love after the loss of a romantic partner. Their dynamic, in general, was really sweet, and felt very comfortable and sweet. Jae is perfect leading man material for sure. It's very cool to see a story like this because I haven't seen this concept for a romance before, and I'm sure it would be really relatable to a lot of people.

Unfortunately, I found some things to be a bit misaligned when it came to Riley's grief and some of the things she was saying to Jae. Like I just think some things were either not explained well enough, or just felt a little forced into the story. It's also a bit on the insta-love side of things where they both fall very hard very fast, and he cares way more about her than he should in literally 10 seconds of meeting her. I think the book could genuinely bump up a whole rating for me with like one more round of edits/trims because there were areas I definitely felt it dragging a bit or felt a bit added in because "that's what romance books have in it," even if it didn't 100% fit with what the characters might have actually done or said? generally though, I had a good time reading the book and found both characters to be fun and loveable!

If I went into this thinking it was YA, I would have loved it. It was written a little clunky, but I really love books of love after loss. If I didn’t love that trope, this book wouldn’t have been for me.

2.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 3

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Take all the time you need is about finding love after loss. One of my favourite tropes, if done right.

Everyone deals with grief in their own way, and you can clearly see Riley struggling to find her way back to life after her loss.

Jae, our MMC also has his own struggles with familial expectations and the story brings both of them together to do what exactly - I’m not sure.

Yes, to find love since it’s a love story at the end and all but I struggle to see this. The premise of the story is great but the execution was lacking.

Perhaps that’s to do with the fact that this book is less than 200 pages, but the pacing was a little wild. The characters could have used a little more development to add more colour to their personality. For example, as the story progresses, you are told Riley is finding other aspects of her personality apart from grief but is it clear in the way she acts? Not so much.

There were quite a few inconsistencies and the dialogue was choppy. It felt a little too high school in the way both the characters were acting and this is not YA! The intimate scenes felt like they didn’t really belong and were there just for the sake of it.

I really hate writing negative reviews but eeek. It was easy and quick read but does it do what it promises to? I’m not so sure. A little more editing and it has the potential to be so much better than it is.

I was hoping this would be a really deep read but it felt a bit surface level to me. I didn't connect with the characters at all. I'm not sure if it was the book or just me so I'm giving it 3 stars

This was an ARC from NetGalley, thank you!

I really liked the bones of this story but I felt it came up short. I never fully connected to the main characters...mainly because I felt like the dialogue would change too much, or it just got too choppy. I really liked parts of the book and give it 3 stars. I just feel like some things felt rushed, there were several typos which really throw me off, and it just kinda fell off for me. I also know that grief is shown in the book to come up quickly, often out of nowhere etc, but maybe it just wasn't written or explained well at times, but I felt that to be frustrating and confusing at times. I really kept picking my kindle up to read this book, the want to LOVE it was there, I just felt a bit shortchanged in many facets of the book.

Thank you for the ARC.

I'm not sure how to explain how I feel about this book. I was enjoying it up until Riley and Jae started getting physical in their relationship. The sex scenes are very immature and almost unbelievable, especially the dialogue happening between the main characters as they're going at it.
 
I enjoyed reading about Riley's journey of moving forward instead of on and learning to accept that she deserves to be happy, although I will say the girl has a lot of anxiety, which is partially understandable, but I was slightly annoyed with how much she worried about Jae up and leaving or dying on her. The romance itself was also very quick-paced and, in my opinion, very much instant love at first sight. Jae himself, while I loved him for being sweet and patient with Riley and her grief, he's very pushy and seems a tad obsessive over her, especially early on in their friendship turned relationship.

In the end, I was left with mixed feelings, and while I enjoyed their romance, I don't think this book worked that well for me, and that's okay; I wish the author nothing but the best in their writing career.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘦-𝘈𝘙𝘊 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺.

Thanks to Netgalley and Cate Summers for the opportunity to review this book.
Tropes: 1st person single narrative, love after loss, forced proximity, neighbors, annoyance to friends to lovers. I think the plot had potential, but I wished for more character development. It was a little difficult to read past the typos and the unnatural dialogue, but overall it was a good story.

I'm not sure where to start with this one. I feel like it had potential to be a great story but the writing was juvenile and really stiff. There were sentences that sounded completely unlike how people actually speak. Hardly any contractions.

Riley had no friends. Literally none. That was weird.

Her super was in her business and pushy.

Jae was okay but seemed flat. He went from an alleged player who dates all the time to wanting a relationship and getting mad at Riley going on a date that he set up.

Take All the Time You Need by Cate Summers ARC Review

After losing her fiance to brain cancer and grieving for 3 years, it's finally time for Riley to move on with her life. The first step is moving out of the apartment they shared. As she's leaving, crying, she meets the man who is moving into the apartment. Embarrassment and grief make her lash out at him, but he still offers to be her friend. Jae is a chef, and he's opening a restaurant nearby. Riley is an artist, but hasn't painted in far too long. Jae commissions a mural for the restaurant from Riley, and they start to spend each day together as she paints and he cooks.
Riley has decided she deserves love again and wants to start dating and Jae offers to help her practice.

These two have a sweet little friendship with mutual admiration. Riley breaks down over and over due to her grief, and Jae is there to comfort her. He's perpetually patient, understanding, and encouraging. He's also a smoke show! I definitely have a crush on this man. (And I'm not the only one.)

The story takes us on a journey of loss, grief, guilt, self discovery, friendship, and love. It shows the intricacies of life after loss. The ups and downs, the one-step-forward two--steps-back of it all.

Overall, I liked this book. However, there were many places in the book that had confusing imagery/flowery writing that I felt didn't make a lot of sense. I had a few problems with possible inconsistencies and errors, but this was an advanced copy, so they may have been fixed for the final copy, so I won't hold that against the author.

Tropes: 1st person single narrative, love after loss, forced proximity, neighbors, annoyance to friends to lovers.

4⭐️ 2🌶

I read an advanced copy of the book, and these are my honest opinions. Thank you to NetGalley and the author.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

What a good book! I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. This is a first by this author but will not be my last! I read this in one sitting because I just couldn’t put it down.

Take All the Time You Need is the latest book by Cate Summers. It was a solid read that I enjoyed reading.

There was a lot of inconsistency throughout the plot and the characters weren’t fully developed. Good & interested in seeing more from the author. Not my favorite storyline.

Thank you for allowing me to review your novel! This was a fast read. There was some plot holes in the novel and some things were kinda repetitive. The first half of the book was engaging. Not the biggest fan of the Jae character. I did appreciate that the author went with the love after loss trope I just don’t see it enough.

I idea for this book was great, but I did feel like it didn't reach its potential.

She was grieving for her lost fiancée for years. Then, as she moves out of her apartment, she sees a guy. It was almost insta love. She seemed to move on quickly after starting to talk to him.

She had mood swings. I get she was grieving, but they didn't feel like moments of grief. The moments felt forced for the character.

I also feel like if I'm grieving for a lost loved one, I would move on slower. For the first date, she said yes after like 2 sentences with the random online guy. Then she tried to beg him when she accidentally spilled her drink.

I was given this ARC for my honest review from NetGalley.

Reading this felt like going through the fan fiction of a mature teenager imagining grown up emotions - especially after grief. I saw another reviewer note this as "wattpad-style" which is also quite accurate. While the writing flows well enough, the set up and structure of the story mean that you never learn enough about your characters to empathize with them, and certain side characters (e.g. the male lead's mom) appear and disappear throughout the course as their use in the plot becomes less obvious. I can make peace with a predictable plot, but in this case there is no character study or insight to keep you interested. Even the grief seems like a plug to sell the rest of the uninspiring romance.

Three years after the agonizing death of her fiancé, artist Riley is forced by economics to move out of their beloved apartment and into a much smaller unit on a lower floor. Having a last look around while cradling the last of her boxes, she hears the distinct rattle of keys in the lock and the gorgeous but unwelcome new tenant Jae enters. Though he briefly apologizes for popping in, he spreads his himbo-like positivity and majesty unwanted suggestions about Riley despite having never met her before. Angry and overcome by grief, she loses it and storms off to her new depressing digs.

Assessing the situation after a good cry, Riley realizes that she's been stuck in complete inertia since her beloved Grant died, barely living, but for her routine of walking and feeding her dog and she resolves to take steps to change things up.
In the ensuing days and weeks, Jae coaxes Riley into painting a mural in his soon to be open restaurant in exchange for dating tips.

After some disastrous moments, Riley finds she's hopelessly drawn to Jae.

Can they move forward together? Or is their connection doomed to fail as an experiment?

What I appreciated most about this fairly short read was the messiness of it all: there are no slick, well rehearsed lines, in fact some of the dialogue is a bit of a head scratch, and the phone sex scene was inadvertently funny, but it all seems perfectly in keeping with someone who's not in a great headspace. There's also some glaring continuity issues with remodeling timelines and some other inconsistencies, but overall I really enjoyed it.

I was furnished an advance reader copy from NetGalley, and I'm sharing my honest thoughts.

It took me a little while to get into the story, but at about 25% I was much more intrigued. Overall, I found this to be a cute romance. There wasn't anything that struck out to me that would make this a 5 star book, but it was good. I had a fun time reading it.

There were a few inconsistencies throughout the book, which usually I don't pay much attention to, but I did notice them (as well as the grammatical errors). In the beginning, I felt like Jae was supposed to be the sarcastic boy that gets around (it gave me 'I wish I were Garrett Graham' vibes), but as time went out, that vibe completely vanished. Not because of character development, but because of the inconsistency. I base my ratings on vibes and overall it wasn't a HUGE deal to me, but I wish the inconsistencies were fixed.

I didn't go into this expecting a whole lot and I think the book lived up to my expectations. It was cute!

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review. Even though I just finished a book where the heroine was trying to find romance after the death of her spouse, this one just felt so maudlin to me. Thank you for the opportunity and consideration.

The characters were so amazing and brilliantly written that they kept me hooked to the book from the very first page to the last one. I absolutely loved it. I had a great time reading the stories of our protagonists and the plotline was well paced and written beautifully.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC!

This wasn’t a hit for me unfortunately - I felt it dragged, the writing was a bit juvenile and the dialogues were neither witty or deep, something I would have expected from this book. There were also inconsistencies in the story that marred the book a bit too.