⋆⋆⋆½
Margot Cooper is the only single person in her friend group. After a catastrophic incident in her youth, she doesn't really "do" relationships, particularly serious ones. When she's tagging along with her engaged friends as they search for a wedding venue, Margot gets the surprise of her life: the wedding planner they've chosen is none other than Olivia Grant. Olivia, Margot's former high-school best friend, her first love, and the girl who shattered her heart. Freshly divorced, Olivia is feeling a bit lost, and when she meets Margot again, all her old feelings come roaring back to life. But with a wedding to be planned -- and both of them thinking the other was the one who ended their "sort of" relationship -- can Margot and Olivia realize that this is the second chance they've both been looking for?
Let me preface this review by making something clear: I'm not exactly what you might call an avid reader of romcoms. I have nothing against them for the reasons that many people list (as so many seem to consider romance books somehow "lesser" or "below" the standard of good literature), but instead it comes down purely to taste. For me, they can be a bit boring or one-dimensional. Since these pet peeves have more to do with the genre than a single book in particular, I did find myself struggling a bit with those same issues in Count Your Lucky Stars, but I must say I ended up being pleasantly surprised nonetheless!
The plot revolves primarily around Olivia and Margot's quasi-relationship in their adolescence and now, eleven years later, the awkwardness between them as the try to figure out what exactly the other one is thinking and feeling. One thing that aggravated me was that the main motivator of the storyline is the fact that Margot and Olivia never communicated with one another before or after their "breakup," and that's the sole reason why they're unable to be free with each other now in their adulthood. As someone who hates the easily solved miscommunication trope, it didn't exactly endear me to the proceedings. However, I must say that this issue is actually addressed in-text, and it made me like the whole thing a little more.
I loved Margot. That's it, plain and simple: she was the highlight of this book for me. She's funny, a little caustic, full of feelings that she tries to hide beneath a façade of cool kindness. She has rough edges, which instantly made her likable, relatable, and makes you root for her happy ending. It was certainly a nice touch that everything in this book wasn't sunshine and rainbows; Margot has to deal with some of her own personal problems, and with the fact that sometimes, change can be scary, but it doesn't have to be bad. On the other hand, Olivia also has her own problems, but I didn't find them as compelling. Throughout the book, we're told continuously how Olivia is this wonderful person, her main fault being that she gives too much and is basically too nice. While this does happen in the real world, obviously, (and I myself have struggled with this issue, as I believe many women do), I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little. All of us have negative aspects in our personalities, but that was the only one I ever saw in Olivia, a sort of strange non-problem (if that makes any sense at all).
Because of this, I struggled a little to connect with the relationship at the book's core. Margot was fantastic, but Olivia grated on me a bit, and I think that's why I sometimes didn't find their romance all that compelling. That being said, I must say that this book is fun, written in an enjoyable, simplistic style, and actually made me laugh several times. Their interactions were quite sweet, and the scenes of intimacy between them were well-written, steamy and enjoyable!
All in all, this was a fun ride, and I know that romcom lovers will eat this up happily! It's sweet, a little heated (in all ways!), and Margot is a character that I found easy to love. Sometimes the other characters came off a bit flat, but Margot's absorbing character makes up for that in spades.
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