Book Review: The Right Swipe (Modern Love #1) by Alisha Rai

RightSwipe
3.5stars

Title: The Right Swipe
Series: Modern Love #1
Author: Alisha Rai
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Edition/Pages: Paperback, 387 pages
Goodreads page

Summary

Rhiannon is the creator of Crush, a pink and feminist dating app. And she is out to buy her oldest competitor Matchmaker. The last person she was expecting to see, was the man who recently stood her up. Especially not as the new face and spokesperson of Matchmaker..

Samson had good reason for not showing up for their date and he doesn’t plan to blow this second chance with Rhi. But first he must convince her to give him one.

Overview

➸ POV: 3rd Person, Rhiannon & Samson’s POVs

➸ Rhiannon Hunter: Creator of Crush, Wants to purchase Matchmaker, Previously stood up by Samson

➸ Samson Lima: Former pro football player, New Matchmaker spokesperson, “Lima curse”

➸ Content Warnings: Sexism, Sexual harassment, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Death of a loved one, CTE & other degenerative brain disorders.

My Thoughts

Okay lets start with what I liked!

The scenes where Rhiannon and Samson were together had a lot chemistry! I thought their dynamic was really well written and I could feel their struggle with wanting to be together but being too afraid. The tension between them was perfectly executed and I believed the connection between them.

I really appreciate that author was trying to tackle work place harassment, sexual harassment, victim blaming, bullying, sexism, CTE & degenerative brain disorders….. But wow was it a lot. I felt a little like I was being lectured while reading.

And I had quite a few other issues….

Rhi is wholly and completely obnoxious. I could not stand her. She definitely softens slightly throughout the book but boy was it a struggle to get that far. She is supposed to this amazing tech & business woman but she is essentially a caricature of what people outside the industry think that looks like. As an engineer and software developer, I can tell you with confidence, we don’t all live in hoodies, hate men, and assume the world is out to get us. I keep reading these app/women in stem books hoping one (just one) of them will have something outside this stigma. Sadly I’ve yet to see it…

Rhiannon is so standoffish and rude. She assumes the worst in everyone and is constantly reminding the reader of how “strong” and independent she is. On the flip side, Samson is almost too perfect. Other than his accidental standup, I can’t think of a single character flaw that introduced for Samson.

The side characters were intriguing enough, but they were given so little page time, I don’t have any strong feelings about any of them. Which makes it difficult to get excited about followup books. I do plan to read the sequel to see if that works better for me – since it’s not about a field I have such a personal connection to.

Overall this was just fine. There were parts I enjoyed – like the romantic tension and relationships/friendships – and parts I didn’t like at all. The audiobook is also really well narrated and made for a fast, enjoyable read.


♥♥♥♥

3 thoughts on “Book Review: The Right Swipe (Modern Love #1) by Alisha Rai

  1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I loved this book (I think I gave it 4-5 stars), but I also had a hard time liking Rhiannon. But over time, I softened up toward her after understanding her more.

    Jasmine | singprettyreadbooks.com

    Liked by 1 person

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