I went into Something Wilder really wanting to love it. Christina Lauren has given me stories that have taken up long-term residency in my brain (Love & Other Words still rents a penthouse suite up there), so I expected that same emotional imprint here. But this one… didn’t land the way I hoped.
After reading other reviews, I realized Christina and Lauren approached this book with one clear intention: fun. And yes, the book has plenty of fun baked into it—adventure, chaos, treasure-hunt energy—but “fun” didn’t translate into “enjoyable” for me. If anything, I think I walked in expecting their classic formulaic romance magic, and that expectation might’ve set me up for disappointment.
The romance between Leo and Lily had potential, but it never went deep enough to hit where it needed to. We get the basics: he worked on her family ranch, they fell in love in their early twenties, had a lot of chemistry, then life pulled them apart. Ten years later—boom, reunion. But because their past was summarized rather than explored, the weight of that second-chance longing didn’t fully settle in my chest the way I wanted it to. We’re told their history, not invited to feel it.
And as the plot picked up, I found myself skimming through the final chapters just to reach the end. The pacing felt rushed, like the story was trying to fit too many beats into too few pages. Honestly, I think I might’ve enjoyed this book more if it had committed entirely to being a friendship-centered adventure instead of trying to balance that with a romance that never had room to bloom.
That said, the creativity is there. The premise is fresh. And I can absolutely imagine an alternate universe where Leo and Lily get their own fully fleshed-out contemporary romance—first love, heartbreak, reunion, the whole emotional buffet—and Christina Lauren would crush it.
This just wasn’t that story for me. So I’m giving it 2 stars: points for creativity and concept, but it’s not a book I’ll remember.
Song choice: Fresh Out The Slammer by Taylor Swift
I went into Something Wilder really wanting to love it. Christina Lauren has given me stories that have taken up long-term residency in my brain (Love & Other Words still rents a penthouse suite up there), so I expected that same emotional imprint here. But this one… didn’t land the way I hoped.
After reading other reviews, I realized Christina and Lauren approached this book with one clear intention: fun. And yes, the book has plenty of fun baked into it—adventure, chaos, treasure-hunt energy—but “fun” didn’t translate into “enjoyable” for me. If anything, I think I walked in expecting their classic formulaic romance magic, and that expectation might’ve set me up for disappointment.
The romance between Leo and Lily had potential, but it never went deep enough to hit where it needed to. We get the basics: he worked on her family ranch, they fell in love in their early twenties, had a lot of chemistry, then life pulled them apart. Ten years later—boom, reunion. But because their past was summarized rather than explored, the weight of that second-chance longing didn’t fully settle in my chest the way I wanted it to. We’re told their history, not invited to feel it.
And as the plot picked up, I found myself skimming through the final chapters just to reach the end. The pacing felt rushed, like the story was trying to fit too many beats into too few pages. Honestly, I think I might’ve enjoyed this book more if it had committed entirely to being a friendship-centered adventure instead of trying to balance that with a romance that never had room to bloom.
That said, the creativity is there. The premise is fresh. And I can absolutely imagine an alternate universe where Leo and Lily get their own fully fleshed-out contemporary romance—first love, heartbreak, reunion, the whole emotional buffet—and Christina Lauren would crush it.
This just wasn’t that story for me. So I’m giving it 2 stars: points for creativity and concept, but it’s not a book I’ll remember.
Song choice: Fresh Out The Slammer by Taylor Swift
