You Had Me at Hola: A Novel: 1 (Primas of Power, 1)

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It's a great start in the trilogy for Alexis Daria and I can't wait to read the stories of Michelle - my homonymous, lol - and Ava!

You Had Me at Hola is a fun, steamy, and sweet rom-com taking place on the set of a television show. beginning with the characters, Jasmine Lin Rodriguez is a wonderful protagonist. she is hot (let me tell you), funny and sweet. i love her sm <33. not an unlikable fmc at all.When she would read the regular narration parts of the story. And then she suddenly turned into William Shatner! The most interesting thing about the book of is you read two romantic stories at the same time and I have to admit at some parts: I enjoyed telenovela’s plot more than the angsty and emotional love story of Jasmine and Ashton’s so I looked forward to read the script parts about Victor and Carmen: divorced couple, learning from their past mistakes and coming clean about their resentments, secrets , the intimate feelings they still have for each other.

stars. I don't know if my expectations for this one were just too high, but a lot of things about this book just didn't work for me. If you're looking for the kind of romance that features only the two main characters and little else then this one is not for you. There are a plethora of secondary characters in this one. Between the staff of Carmen in Charge, las Primas of Power, Ashton's family in Puerto Rico, and Jasmine's Nuyorican family; there are plenty of new faces to go around. They really are what moves the story. Jasmine and Ashton are both people who are very close to their families and it's such a big thing for Latinx families to maintain that closeness. It was refreshing and endearing to see family dynamics like my own family's. I have a hunch on who might be the next heroine of the story but I'm keeping my mouth shut so y'all can find out yourselves!

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So I probably wouldn't have liked this even if it made me laugh and cry and shake my head in disbelief at its sheer magnificence. There was steam, and lots of attraction and chemistry between the couple. BUT the beginning between them was bit awkward and slow. The love story between Jasmine and Ashton wasn’t sure what it wanted to be and that prevented me from really enjoying it. And it was very sweet and cute – not necessarily my kind of romance. We got to know the characters really well. I instantly fell for them. And the more we got to know them, the harder I fell. Paired with this, there were instances when characters would sit down to have a conversation, and rather than follow a dialogue, the author would just tell us what was said, what the reactions and resolutions were, and continue with the narrative. This was not the rule, and there's plenty of growth between the characters on their own, but these moments almost felt rushed. It was as if we, as the reader, were being hurried along to the rest of the novel.

I loved the diversity of the characters, the representation and how real and lovely they felt. As a queer latina, my heart feels really happy and complete with this book.I adored the scenes we got when they were filming the episodes and how that almost reflected the characters. Not directly, but there were emotional parallels there for sure and I just couldn’t get enough. This book is a hug to the Latinx community and its culture. The times I said "oh my god I do this," "my grandma totally tells me this when I visit" etc. is unreal. I identified so hard with the characters and the story in this novel and I think every Latinx reader will too. The food, the Spanish!!! So much Spanish and it's not italicized!!! Jasmine doesn't really know how to speak Spanish fluently while Ashton does and speaks it with his family. This book was a wonderful experience that completely filled me with joy and happiness. I thought the actual story was cute. There were problems with it but nothing when compared with the terrible reading of this book. With time it has become more and more difficult to find romance novels adequate to my expectations because my social life is non-existent, but there are a few things I haven't yet done in my imagination.

There were odd pauses in the middle of sentences as though each comma was a full-stop period. The last words in those sentences had weird breaks in them, too. I don't even know if I can explain it right... Personally, I found the male MC, Ashton, to be too closed off. I had a much harder time connecting to him, and I found him to be not vulnerable enough, even within his own head. I thought the romance felt a bit... strained? It didn't quite feel natural to me. In fact, I found the romance of their character that they were playing to be more organic. I also thought that the Ashton withheld too much information from the female MC, Jasmine, even when they were in a tentative relationship, for me to have much sympathy for him. When I read this, I had just spilled a glass of water on my laptop, my child, the love of my life, and been informed it would have cost NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS to fix. I spent the day in a malaise of TikTok and reflecting on my own suffering. Eventually I read my library ebook copy of this on my phone, instead of on my then dead computer, as nature intended. But this story is the perfect example of how love is not made of big gestures and great gifts, but by simplicity and being there for the other person. Meaning, you should always feel free to freak out in front of your loved ones, no matter how scared you are to expose that part of yourself.Of course there were other things I enjoyed about this romance, the banter, the Latinx representation, and the drama of a telenovela. It just wasn’t enough to make it an outstanding romance for me. All I can think now that I’ve read this is that I want to read more books that explore Latinx stories, especially within the romance genre. It was rich in culture, boisterous, loud. I mean, you’ve seen that cover. While I generally enjoyed these two—and the heat between them was absolutely undeniable—I will say that when things got a little rough near the end between them and secrets were revealed, what could have been solved with a calm conversation was tossed out the window and replaced with misunderstandings and misplaced blame. Granted, considering the indulgently diverting dramatics of telenovelas, it fit. And Ashton's show of trust toward Jasmine at the end came into effect smoothly because of this. But there was still a nagging little feeling that they didn't need to suffer quite as much as they did to reach that ending. The third-person narration and the dual pov are perfect elements to narrate romantic stories and, in this particular case, I loved the added tv scenes to tell us at the same time the story of Carmen and Victor. You Had Me at Hola was such a treat to read and was the perfect story to break me out of this reading funk that I’ve been since the beginning of 2020.