[Review] No Judgments - Meg Cabot

Summary: When Bree Beckham needs to start over, she leaves Manhattan for the one place that has always felt safe—Little Bridge. The tiny island in the Florida Keys was her family’s favorite vacation spot. With its glassy water and colorful houses, it seems too beautiful to be hit by disaster—until a Category Five hurricane bears down, and residents are urged to evacuate.

But Bree has no intention of leaving. She’s got access to a landline and plenty of supplies, and she’s certainly not accepting her traitorous ex’s offer to fly her to safety in his private plane. When the storm proves devastating, Bree starts to worry—not for herself, but for the many beloved pets left behind by panicked owners. She has a plan to save as many of the creatures as she can: All residents have to do is call her landline to let her know about their stranded pets, and she’ll see to it that they’re rescued—no questions, no judgments.

It’s a daunting task, but help arrives in the form of her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the island’s resident heartbreaker. And when her ex shows up just as Bree is falling hard for Drew, she has to ask herself if their steamy connection is just a passing storm—or a bond that’s built to last…? (Pub Date: Sep 24, 2019)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

This was better than Cabot's previous book but it's still not her best work. It's entertaining at least.

Bree decided to restart her life in a little island but now things seem to have settled for her a scary hurricane is on its way to turn this new life of hers upside down. But it may not be all that bad.

We get a lot of what we'd expect from a Cabot book. Strange characters, strange situations, good jokes and love for animals. All of this topped with our main character getting further and further into some big mess.

At the same time, this was weird in some parts. I still don't get it why Bree wouldn't simply run from that big storm, really these characters do basically the opposite anyone should be doing and they get lucky! The lesson I got is I should stay to fight a big storm because lots of animals will need my help and everything will be all right with me, plus I land the island's most wanted bachelor. I'm glad anyone reading this should be of age to know it's all fiction.

While Drew, as known as book boyfriend, really did seem like a catch, the romance wasn't all that exciting. It feels like I've swooned more for what Cabot writes before... But this time it just didn't do it.

Summing up, this was really average. The world is well-built but the way the characters conduct themselves is too out of the reality and most of the times also too shallow to engage us. After half of the book the story also loses focus to animal rescue, which is an important reminder of what people tend to do (or neglect to do) in these cases, but not a welcome distraction. You might like this book but we won't be finding many people who'll love it.

Rating: 3 out of 5.