I wanted more space pining!

Samantha Young isn’t an author I have read before, but her romances are very popular in my library, so I figured this was the best time to jump in. Young is a good writer, and I didn’t have any issues with her style. A Cosmic Kind of Love has the type of romance plot I’ve never seen before, which is pretty exciting. In this novel, Hallie and Chris meet when she accidentally sees videos he sends to an ex while he is in space, and Hallie falls for him. Feeling guilty that she invaded his privacy, Hallie records a video about herself and sends it, which kicks off their slow-burn relationship. Hallie is a bit more eccentric than Chris, whose main trait seems to be he’s super hot and an astronaut, but they bounce off each other well.

One of my main criticisms of this book is that I love a slow burn, but it took until about a third into the book before the characters actually meet, and we see if they have chemistry. There’s so much set-up that it feels a little bit of a slog to get to, especially considering Hallie is a people-pleaser character, so you spend a lot of the book reading about other people taking advantage of her. It feels like a downer for large parts of the book, and you want to get to the romance, but the slow build is the central theme of said romance. It’s not bad, but it feels like a meal where it’s not entirely balanced flavor-wise. Chris’s sections also feel like a lot of filler for portions of the novel, even though I generally liked him. Also, who living in NYC in the year of our Lord Dolly Parton finds pink hair THAT strange on a woman who plans parties for a living? I work in a library and have pink hair; it’s not that serious.

Another thing to be aware of if you’re going to read this or recommend it to patrons is that it focuses heavily on toxic relationships, especially between adult children and their parents. I really wanted a romance novel and ended up feeling like this was a family drama with romance as a subplot. It was heavy in parts; honestly, I wasn’t into that aspect of it. Every time there was a cute scene where I thought the romance would start to ramp up, a follow-up with one of their families ruined the mood. I think showing those family backgrounds is important; it just wasn’t the style of romance I was looking for today.

Title: A Cosmic Kind of Love
Author: Samantha Young
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9780593438619

Three Descriptors: Family relationships, Slow-Burn, Slow Paced

Read Alikes:
Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee
After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
The Love Con by Seressia Glass
The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai