[Review] The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren

PUBLISHER'S SYNOPSIS:
 On February 14, an accidental email to a stranger opens the door to an unexpected relationship in a captivating short story by the New York Times bestselling authors of The Unhoneymooners.
One typo, and a boy and girl connect by chance. Wishing each other a happy Valentine’s Day isn’t the end. In fact, it becomes a friendly annual tradition—with rules: no pics, no real names, nothing too personal. As years pass, the rules for their email “dates” are breaking, and they’re sharing more than they imagined—including the urge to ask…what if we actually met?
  

MY THOUGHTS: I love a good epistolary romance, and this short story by Christina Lauren - full of emails between strangers who slowly become more - was a cute and fun introduction to the Improbable Meet-Cute collection. 

At just over one hundred pages, The Exception to the Rule was a totally bingeable way to fall in love with love, and Cal and Terra were the perfect couple to prove that the improbable is definitely possible. Spanning years and crossing state lines, this romance had just the right amount of build-up to Terra and Cal finally meeting. Thanks to the email format of the first part of the book, all the years leading up to their first meeting were quick to get through even while establishing so much about both characters. Christina Lauren were able to develop both characters with minimum description or dialogue, but both characters still managed to come across as fleshed out and dynamic. Given the format of the first part of the story, this novella was definitely more character-driven with not much action in the plot itself. However, I don't think the format took anything away from Cal and Terra; in fact, I feel like I understood them better because there wasn't much to distract from their character development. 

Improbable as it may be, this meet cute was short and sweet and hard to put down. 

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Release date: 1/23/24
Format: ebook
Ebook obtained via: Kindle Unlimited

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