Okay, so I am still very late in getting my reviews up. Get Lost With You by Sophie Sullivan came out before Valentine’s Day, and I’m only getting to it now, around Easter weekend, but we have a new member of our family, and he’s been waking me up every two hours to eat, so…hopefully I’m forgiven. I still have a few reviews to catch up on before my summer reading list, but I have a three-week-old master who rules my life, so I’m not making any promises. Bear with me!

Jillian Keller took the long route to her best life, but is now happily settled in her hometown of Smile, raising her little girl alone while helping her brother run Get Lost Lodge. A lover of structure and routine, she doesn’t need anything, or anyone, disrupting her carefully curated life.

After chasing and achieving his culinary dreams, Levi Bright realizes he’s still missing something. Something he can’t find in a big city. Returning home to Smile, he intends to build a different future for himself that includes mending fences with his dad, reconnecting with friends, and creating elevated comfort food for a town he loves.

When Levi and Jilly run into each other one day in Smile, once requited feelings that never had a chance to bloom as teens flare between them immediately. Jaded from her past, Jilly is cautious and convinced that she can handle being just friends, as the two have to work closely together to prepare for Get Lost’s official summer opening, spending time together, camping, laughing, kayaking, and reminiscing. But when her brother hires sweet, funny, ridiculously hot Levi as the new chef at the lodge, and she and Ollie are getting more attached, things are moving more quickly than she anticipated–and Jilly has been hurt before. If she wants to be head over heels in love, she’ll have to learn that the past doesn’t always repeat itself. Sometimes, it just leads you where you’re meant to be.

This is my second book by Sophie Sullivan, and similar to A Guide To Being Just Friends, I didn’t read the first book(s) in the series before picking up the standalone in the same environment. I didn’t realize I was doing it again (whoops), but I just remember loving how Sullivan wrote her characters and wanting to dive into something well-written and not frustrating. Overall, the love story here was very well written and I really loved the world we were dropped into!

What didn’t work for me

The “standalone” in a series: Just like last time, I really wish I had realized this was the second book in a series before I requested it as an ARC. Although Sullivan does a really great job at filling in the blanks you missed if you didn’t read the first one, it felt like I was walking into a room halfway through the story when it came to anything about the Keller family. Though I loved their dynamic (more on that later), everything felt pretty established, and I still felt like I was missing…something. It didn’t affect the actual romance or the plot for the main characters, but it was more just a feeling.

Jillian’s ex: I don’t want to venture into spoiler territory, but I don’t think we needed the extra tension with Jillian’s husband. It made her character a little more frustrating, to be honest. I wish he were just an absent father who wasn’t really mentioned or acknowledged.

What I liked

The male main character: It’s so refreshing when the male main character knows what he wants and is all in with the female main character before she is. He wasn’t trying to play with her mind and wasn’t on the fence. He was all in—and it was so sexy. Plus, he’s a chef, which is just a bonus in general.

Family dynamics: I literally kept this from my last review because this is another situation where I loved the family dynamics. The Keller clan are just so supportive of each other without being fake—and you pretty much want to be adopted as a reader. Even Levi’s family dynamics were a bit complicated, but it seemed realistic for small-town living. Plus, there’s Jilly’s little girl, Ollie, who adds some humour and lightness to the story in the best way.

4 STARS

“Until this moment, until Jillian, he hadn’t known he had all of this need, all of this love, inside him to give.” —Sophie Sullivan, Get Lost With You

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced book copy in exchange for my honest review.