The Opposite of You by Rachel Higginson

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Continuing with my full on mood reading, I decided to pick up The Opposite of You by Rachel Higginson. This is the first book in her Opposites Attract series. I first heard about this book thanks to the Smart Women Read Romance podcast! They did an episode on it pretty early on and it's been on my tbr since. Since I knew I needed a foodie romance for Love Has Sprung, so I decided to finally pick it up. I was also able to use this for my March Yahtzee roll which ended up being a large straight. The prompt for that was a book with over 5,000 reviews.

Vera is back to her hometown of Durham after getting out of an abusive relationship and travelling throughout Europe for a year. Now that she's back (thanks to a health scare with her father), she is looking to getting her chef career back on track. Not sure if she'd be able to get a job in a restaurant, she decides to start a food truck called Foodie. When she parks across the street from high end restaurant Lilou and renowned check Killian, sparks start to fly between the two. When Killian starts helping Vera with her recipes and giving his reviews, she gets annoyed but is also happy for the input. As they grow closer, the sparks start to flame.

Oh my gosh, first off it's weird that I ended up picking two books in a row with a hero named Killian. I guess that works though since it's March? Anyways, this was such a fun book and I really enjoyed Vera's story. I feel like I should mention, this is single POV and all from Vera. I do wish that we saw a little of Killian's POV, even as an epilogue or something. I understood that it helped keep the mystique of Killian, but I wanted inside his head. I do think that Rachel did a great job giving nuances so that as a reader we could tell what was going on with Killian before Vera realized.

The beginning was just so perfect and I loved him sending his sous chef over to get her food and then send him back with his notes on the dish. Sometimes I felt so bad for Vera, but I also liked that even though at times it was annoying or a little over the top, it helped her think of her dishes more critically. Oh, I should also mention that there is triggers for abuse and manipulation. We don't see too much of it present day, but Vera is still struggling with her guilt over "letting" it happen to her and how she allowed him to cut out her friends and family. I feel like it is enough for a warning because we spend the entire book in Vera's head and she is still coming to terms. She is near the end of her journey to moving on and past her experiences, but it is talked about quite a bit. 

I really enjoyed this book and am so happy I finally picked it up. You'll see over the next couple reviews, but reading this prompted me to binge the complete series! I just couldn't put them down and had to see what would happen with the next couple. I am definitely going to be looking into Rachel Higginson's backlist and see what else she has written. Another win from Juliette and Jessen!

Have you read The Opposite of You?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: The Opposite of You, Rachel Higginson, 5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 302 pages, published in 2017, indie published