Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBEST BOOK OF 2023
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2023
ARC Review
I swear I feel like it's been so long since I've read a book by Lauren Asher and now that I've read Love Redesigned, I feel so content with my life right now. Coming back to her world of new billionaires has me so excited since just with the first book, there was so many great characters. From Julian and Dahlia, I can't even express how much I love them and, honestly, they might be my favorite Lauren Asher couple. Also, the side characters, OMG, I simply can't wait for the next books of this series since I just know that the couples are going to be mind blowingly phenomenal. I kind of have a feeling about who will be the other couples but I'll keep that to myself and just hope that I'm right. I've read a good majority of Lauren Asher's books now and I have to say something about Love Redesigned is just so different, I feel like her writing has improved, not saying that her past work is bad, but this book just had a completely different element from her past ones.
I think one of the most important parts that I loved was the constant culture and spanish speaking in the book. It's no secret that I'm Latine and growing up, having main characters that were BIPOC wasn't really seen and even now with a spike in Latino characters, the authors have not grown that much. Based on a study from Wordsrated, Latino authors have increased by 2.96% since 2010 which totals the Latino representation to 7.62% in the publishing industry. I have to appreciate the work that Lauren Asher is doing because not only is she breaking a barrier in the publishing industry but she's having her characters be represented in the best way I've seen. I honestly can't express how much I appreciate Lauren for this book because for some, this might not seem like a big deal, but to little me that was expected to be a minor character in a story, she made us front and center with the best representation that I could've asked her.
Now to the book, the banter between Julian and Dahlia was truly addicting and something that I just eat up when I'm reading books. There's just something about it that left me wanting more and I just felt like I was a part of their lives. The chemistry between all the characters was just very comforting since you can tell that there's love within each other and that at the end of the day, when one of them feels alone in reality they're not since their family will always be there to support them. The meaning of family is really strong in this book and I'm just a complete sucker for that since my family has a big impact on me.
Julian was a very interesting Hero and I honestly didn't expect him to be the way that he was. Is he a possessive jealous alpha? Yes, but there's just something about him that doesn't leave a weird taste in your mouth if he was real. I just feel like he was a gentleman with some jealous tendencies for his heroine which is completely valid. He was just such an interesting Hero that I haven't read in a while, he was just the perfect man and I can see why Dahlia was intrigued with him. Although we don't get to see his growth on paper, we can see that from the incident to now that Julian isn't the same person and has improved himself. I love that he's able to admit that and still acknowledge that he still has work to do which makes me love him more since he doesn't see his vulnerability as something weak.
Dahlia, she was just baby girl and after everything she went through with you know who, I just wanted to give her a big hug. The way her character was written, I just felt like she was a friend that was telling us the chisme about her life and that of Lake Wisteria. There were so many great moments that we get with her and I just loved seeing how the story went through her eyes since it was definitely different from Julian. She has honestly been my favorite character of the year and I just hope that we get to see more of her in the future books.
Overall, I genuinely can't recommend this book enough since there's just nothing that you won't like from this book. The characters, the plot, and the setting just leaves you craving more from this world and the characters. I just love this book so much and I genuinely think it's one of the best books of 2023.
Trigger Warnings:
-Mentions of Infertility Issues
-Mentions of Death of Parents
-Panic/Anxiety Attacks
