LAYLA

 

SYNOPSIS

When Leeds meets Layla, he’s convinced he’ll spend the rest of his life with her—until an unexpected attack leaves Layla fighting for her life. After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. And that’s just one of many inexplicable occurrences.

Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.

Title: Layla

Author: Colleen Hoover

Publisher: Montlake

Publication date: December 8, 2020

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐

I have never read a Colleen Hoover book, but I've been seeing Layla all over Bookstagram for the past month so, as my bookish friends were doing a buddy read I decided to jump in blind without even reading the synopsis (I read it halfway through and found it a bit misleading, truth be told). Based on what I had heard about the author I thought this would be a romantic suspense, but NO, it was romantic? paranormal. I don't like paranormal. I don't read paranormal. I only like supernatural when there's a realistic explanation behind so, although I liked the beginning of the book and found it quite intriguing, once the weird things started happening it all went downhill for me.

There're basically just two reasons why this book didn't work for me, but they're two HUGE reasons:

 - I found the plot to be quite silly, so I never got invested in whatever was happening.

 - Leeds was the biggest piece of sh*t I've read in a really long time. He was selfish, manipulative, self-absorbed... His constant gaslighting made my blood boil, so the fact that the story is only told from his perspective made it quite infuriating. Although I must confess (that my loneliness is killing me now) that once some facts came to light I didn't find it so annoying (oops!).

 My opinion on Leeds' behavior before and after the twist 

There was a twist towards the end that didn't come as a surprise because the theory the characters were working with previously to the twist being revealed didn't make any sense, but I won't go into it because of spoilers. Not only I did not find it surprising, but I thought it was quite cheesy. In fact, I gave the biggest eye roll in the history of eye rolls.

The ending, although silly too, had a bit of tension at least, so it was redeemed a little bit.

Although I didn't like this one as much as I would have liked, I'm still looking forward to reading Verity, as it sounds my kind of story so much more.