The first thing you need to know is that I enjoyed reading The Friend Zone every bit as much as I enjoyed The Hook Up and I am grateful to Malin for bringing both into my life. I feel like I need to start with this because I pick this ones nits more than I did The Hook Up’s. Mostly this is because I’ve waited longer to review The Friend Zone, so you are getting my week plus later assessment, instead of immediate after glow.
We met Grey in The Hook Up as Drew’s best friend and team-mate. He’s on the skanky side when it comes to women, but he loves his best friend enough to drive around in a tiny pink car, for reasons I won’t spoil. He also really likes soup and looks like Thor.
Grey didn’t come off as a total asshole in The Hook Up, but the birthday party scene was going to be hard to overcome. Grey and Ivy meet by text after her father lends Grey her car without her permission. As Pajibans and Cannonballers know, great friendships can be built without ever meeting in person. Grey and Ivy become friends long distance before they ever meet in person. I think this was a great device to use, because it’s about the only way I would believe Grey could become friends with a woman without hitting on her. Grey and Ivy do some wonderful pining as their sexual frustration pushes against their fears of ruining the friendship they have.
This is a romance, so they do get together and they do have a happy ending. I liked Grey and Ivy a lot, so was frustrated that Callihan didn’t seem to know what to do with them once they admitted their love and became a couple. After they become a couple it’s pretty much just scorching sex and moments of high drama. Too many moments of high drama.
I imagine we’ll have an opportunity to revisit them in the up coming third book without a lot of their drama in the way.
