[Elizabeth’s Review]: Like Lovers Do (Girls Trip #2) by Tracey Livesay

Tracey Livesay continues her fun-filled Girls Trip series with this romance that will tug at your heartstrings.

Sometimes faking it can lead to the real thing…

Driven and focused, Dr. Nicole Allen is an accomplished surgeon. With a tough past, Nic’s gone above and beyond everyone’s expectations. But when she disciplines an intern—a powerful donor’s son—a prestigious fellowship she’s awaiting is placed in jeopardy.

Coming from a successful family who runs a medical business empire, Benjamin Reed Van Mont is the black sheep, having chosen to start his own business instead. Though he’s not ready to settle down, he knows when the time comes it definitely won’t be with a workaholic doctor like his friend Nic—even if she’s had him re-examining his edict…more than once.

When Ben’s status-climbing ex-girlfriend finds her way back into his orbit, Nic proposes a swap of services. She’ll spend the week with Ben on Martha’s Vineyard, pretending to be his girlfriend—but only if he’ll have his family intervene on her behalf so she won’t lose her fellowship. How hard can the charade be?

But as they’re about to discover, they’ve sorely underestimated their true feelings for each other…

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I had so much fun reading this book! From the book description, I knew I was going to fall in love with the friends to lovers trope. In meeting Nic and Ben and getting a feel of their chemistry and dynamic, I also knew that I was going to enjoy reading this book and was excited to see how it would end.

This is the second book in the Girls Trip series, and it can be read as a standalone! From the very beginning, I really liked how we were drawn into Nic’s story and got to see who she was as a character. I got to see Nic without Ben which I really liked, it helped establish what drove Nic as a person and gave an idea as to how that would affect her romantic life. Nic was such a strong protagonist and I loved her perspective, I especially enjoyed seeing how much she cared for her job and her work ethic. It was admirable! Her flaws as a character also felt extremely realistic and I could understand her perception through the mistakes she made, I really liked her complexity and how she seemed to jump off the pages. And when Ben came into the picture I could see how much he complimented Nic’s character and it made their chemistry apparent from their first scene together.

I also really liked the fact that we got to read Ben’s perspective, and I loved the balance of the dual narrations and how they worked together. We see how much Ben admires and cares for Nic as a friend, but also how adamantly he feels about never dating her because of her occupation as a Doctor and how that changes throughout the story. Ben easily found his way into my heart, mainly because I loved the softness of his character and how it worked with Nic’s fierceness. With having dual perspectives, I enjoyed being able to see the transition of friends to lovers and the fears and hesitations that went along with it. This made the romance feel believable and the attraction between Ben and Nic was realistic instead of feeling out of the blue. It also helped the pacing of the book feel natural, I didn’t feel as if at any point the book was going too slow or that the romance was progressing too fast.

While I did enjoy Nic and Ben as characters along with their romance and overall story, I did have a harder time with the minor characters. One of the biggest plot points was Ben’s ex-girlfriend and the issues that arose with her entire character; however, I felt that her character was written out to be very flat and that she really had no motive for wanting Ben back beside the need for a gold-digging mean girl to move the plot along. I guess I wanted more substance for her character to be an actual threat and to be a more complex villain because all I could do was roll my eyes whenever she was in the scene and felt nothing else. Besides her character, Ben’s parents, who were also important to the plot, felt very weak in terms of their storyline and how they affected Ben as a character. I felt as if there were various storylines mentioned within the characters of the horrible ex, Ben’s parents, and his friends but we never really got to go in-depth into them; therefore, I ended up not caring much for them which did suck because I felt that we could have gotten so much from their characters.

With all of that said, I do have to go back to Nic and Ben’s chemistry and how much I loved them as individual characters and as a couple. While I did have issues with the side characters and the flat storylines that orbited around Nic and Ben, their romance was definitely where Tracey Livesay excelled in my opinion. I cared for these two and truly felt their romance develop in a realistic and satisfying manner and it is what made me finish the book feeling fulfilled and happy!

Elizabeth

Hi, I’m Elizabeth!! I am 22 with a bachelor degree in English Literary Studies. I love to read and talk about books 24/7, and when I’m not reading I am usually rewatching my comfort movies and shows for the hundredth time—specifically, anything Jane Austen!