Falling Off The Cliff

Falling Off The Cliffis a debut romance novel by Kanitha P. centered around Formula 1 driver Thiago and cafe owner Kamari.
This book was all over my feed for a few weeks before its release. From Instagram to Twitter(X), every romance bookish creator was sharing posts about it and promoting it, so I was very intrigued considering that it had most of the tropes I like.
💗 formula 1 romance
💗 fake dating
💗 reverse grumpy/sunshine
💗 slow burn
💗 one bed

Sadly though, this book just didn't work for me. I read up to 22% of this book before deciding to put it down. One of my goals for this year is to DNF books that I'm feeling no intrigue to keep reading since it's probably gonna end up as a 3-star anyway even if the ending managed to pull it out in the end.

So let's talk about what didn't work for me. I needed more background on FMC and her friend group. I think more details about her ex and how she got to Monaco with her friends before meeting Thiago were needed for me to be more connected to FMC. Her ex-boyfriend was mentioned only once before his appearance a couple of chapters in, but I felt nothing in that scene because it wasn't like the author showed any signs of that breakup making a lasting impact to feel anything in that scene when he begs her back.

I love the fake dating trope, even though it's not the most realistic since it's hard to make the situation work for both sides of the relationship. In this book, I felt like Kamari had absolutely no reason to fake this relationship. And that was probably the biggest gripe with this book and why I DNFed. I just couldn't find a logical explanation as to why she would put herself through this public relationship when she gains nothing from it.
She was incredibly rude to him and acted like he was forcing her to fake date him even though she was the one who agreed to it willingly. It just kept rubbing me the wrong way and kind of started to get on my nerves, despite knowing that she was supposed to be the grump. It just felt like she was particularly acting grumpy to him rather than acting like that all the time.

I also found the dialogue repetitive in some parts. There were certain phrases or patterns repeated in their conversations that kept pulling me out of the story. But that is all to be expected in a debut book and nothing that isn't fixable with more editing. It just kept bothering me since I was already frustrated with the character's actions that didn't make sense to me.

I would still recommend this book if you like the tropes listed above and don't usually notice the writing style and its quirks.