Sloppiness abounds in this 6th entry in the series.
I was SO looking forward to Ziggy’s story but this is boring and just plain weird - for crying out loud, a sippy cup for a 22-year-old at a family dinner?! The plot seems forced rather than a natural progression (even if it is a “fake friends” trope plot). The writing is lazy, a sad departure from the first 2 books in the series. Plot points that seem to be foundational are just word vomit because they fizzle away without any further exposure. The MMC’s internal dialogue is overly dramatic- his “instareform” from bad boy to repentant knight is not credible. Ziggy is all over the place- her autistic persona in prior novels worked but here it feels like a token label. Very disappointed in this book.
Also- the Kindle is very poorly formatted, making it difficult to figure out who is saying what at times. And finally, the audiobook narration makes it impossible to understand which dialogue is meant to be internal. ( )

Normally I’m a bit wary of starting a series midway, worried that I’m either missing out on a lot or will eat up with spoilers of all the previous books. I can say that I don’t think it matters with Chloe Liese’s Bergman Brothers series. Sure, the other family members and their partners are mentioned, but it’s a summary that lets the reader know where they fit in the story without giving everything way. (Fun fact – when I was looking for this series in a bookshop and had forgotten the author’s name, my description of ‘a romance series about seven brothers who play sports’ came up with the answer, ‘do you mean Bridgerton?’ I can say confidently that they are very different…)

If Only You is about Bergman sister Ziggy. Like many of Chloe Liese’s characters, Ziggy is neurodivergent, having autism. She’s also the baby of the family and everyone treats her like a little kid. But Ziggy’s an adult, she lives alone and plays both on the national soccer team and in the local league. After an embarrassing moment where Ziggy is caught removing her knickers at a wedding (they gave her a wedgie) by Sebastian, big brother Ren’s best friend, Ziggy has an idea. Seb is a hockey player in the bad books everywhere for too much drinking, too many women and now crashing his car. Ziggy has a proposition – pretend to be fake friends to dirty her reputation a little and clean Seb’s up. It starts out as you expect, with grumpy vs sunshine, but Seb and Ziggy start to bond over burgers and angry yoga. Seb knows that Ziggy is untouchable as Ren’s little sister and hides his romantic feelings but in the end, everyone is on board to make them a couple.

This is quite a sweet story, with a very, very slow burn. The enemies part is fun, with some snappy dialogue but the friendship part was overlong in my opinion and I found myself speed reading some sections. It was nice to see Seb and Ziggy supporting each other’s careers as well as hanging out, but I felt that it could have been condensed. The romance part seemed very short in comparison, with a big jump in time before Seb and Ziggy make their feelings know to each other. As the focus in the novel is firmly on their relationship, the timing felt a bit off to me. I would have liked to read more about Ziggy and Seb’s careers as professional sports people. Some parts, such as Seb’s diagnosis of a chronic disease seemed dealt with very quickly – he feels sick, gets a diagnosis and feels great again. (If only it worked that way in the real world). Also, Ziggy notes she is bisexual and Seb pansexual, but these aren’t really explored in any further depth in this novel. The strongest parts were the interactions with the other members of the Bergman family – all very unique characters who demonstrate their love for each other.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by recently reading another fake relationship story between little sisters and big brother’s best friend in the sports world (Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey) but the pacing of this book was just too slow at times to keep the flame alight between Seb and Ziggy.

Thank you to Penguin for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Ziggy Bergman, the youngest of seven siblings, wants to be seen and treated like an adult by her family, her teammates (she plays professional soccer), and the media. She decides the optimal way to do that is to fake a friendship with Sebastian Gauthier, her brother's hockey teammate, and bad boy desperately in need of a PR image rehab - his image gets cleaned up, hers gets a little roughened around the edges. But, of course, they both catch feelings (or had maybe caught them even before they made their agreement), and things proceed from there.

Chloe Liese is one of my favorite new authors I've found since starting my romance-reading binge two years ago. If you would have asked me from the beginning if I wanted to read pro-athlete romance, I would've passed, but I'm so glad I didn't let that stop me. All of her books just make me feel... warm. And safe. And seen. They all have this running thread of people being worthy of love, regardless of all of the things that they don't love about themselves. All of her books are funny and sexy, with good banter and flirting, and this book in particular is the smolder-iest of slow burns. The Bergmans are fantastic as a family - just warm and caring and loving and accepting and funny and man alive do I want to be invited to family dinner at the A-frame. I am a sucker for "found family" in my romance novels, and the Bergmans manage to be that for so many of the characters -- Sebastian most definitely included. (I almost cried at how subtly awesome Mama and Papa Bergman were in some scenes.) Liese's books are also great for neurodivergence / disability / chronic illness representation, without letting those things define / dominate her characters. (Liese herself is autistic, as is Ziggy.)

The only things I didn't love about this book were a few threads and or character details that were dropped/undeveloped, and sometimes scenes that I thought had more to offer were just cut away from. For example, the meet-cute at the wedding was begging for more of a resolution than it got (Chekov's underwear failed to go off in the the third act, if you will). I also felt like the inclusion that Ziggy is bi and Sebastian is pan, which was brought up exactly once and then dropped, was strange. Not that it has to be a big part of the story, but it doesn't come up again even in passing. But really, those are tiny, tiny little things in this big warm hug of a book. And there are so many fantastic scenes jam-packed in the rest of the book. The bookstore scene! Much Ado! The WINGS!

The extended Bergman family plays so much of a role in this book that I don't think it would stand alone very well, but if you don't want to read the whole series, I think starting with ALWAYS ONLY YOU would work well, since Ren & Frankie play a fairly large role in IF ONLY YOU as well. (And then don't be surprised if you do go on to read the whole series!)

And on that note, while I love Chloe Liese's books, ugh, do I hate her titles. So generic and bland and non-descript for such lovely, wonderful books! ( )