The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

One of Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of 2022! They were cowriting literary darlings until they hit a plot hole that turned their lives upside down. Three years ago, Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen were the brightest literary stars on the horizon, their cowritten book topping bestseller lists. But on the heels of their greatest success, they ended their partnership on bad terms, for reasons neither would divulge to the public. They haven't spoken since, and never planned to, except they have one final book due on contract. Facing crossroads in their personal and professional lives, they're forced to reunite. The last thing they ever thought they'd do again is hole up in the tiny Florida town where they wrote their previous book, trying to finish a new manuscript quickly and painlessly. Working through the reasons they've hated each other for the past three years isn't easy, especially not while writing a romantic novel. While passion and prose push them closer together in the Florida heat, Katrina and Nathan will learn that relationships, like writing, sometimes take a few rough drafts before they get it right.

this had soooo much potential and i enjoyed the writing but the characters were so unsufferable it was taking me out of the story.

This was so frustrating and unnecessary. If the author wanted a comment on miscommunication and how our past shape how we perceived things, this was definitely not the way to do it. It was dragged A LOT. Easily half of the book could have been cut and it would have not affected it.

I'm genuinely conflicted about this book - on one hand, I think it's a very interesting read, and the other I think it doesn't always work.

It is very interesting in the sense that it is written by a married couple, and the plot is about the dissolution of a partnership, and them coming back together only to realise they were in love with each other. Given that we are reading a romance novel, it doesn't really come as a surprise. But I feel like the authors wanted us to see it as such, which is the “doesn't' always work” part.

I think life imitating art is a fun concept to play around with, and this book does good job of that. But what it doesn't do a good job of is convincing me these two should really be together. Just because the two of you work well together, doesn't mean the two of you should be together. We don't really see them interacting much with each other outside the confines of their writing partnership, and if more of such scenes were included I feel like this book would've had a stronger impact.

So I'm not sure if I should rate this as a 2.5 or a 3 star book, because at the end of the day I did enjoy this book at some level.

I think this book also felt a bit like a fan fiction of the authors' lives and romance. Which is something that put me off it.