Dirty Letters by Vi Keeland &Penelope Ward

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

“In case I wasn’t clear, love is enough for me, Luca. But you have to let me love you.”

So, I’ve avoided to write this review for a really long time now. Why ? Because you’re really going to hate me for my opinion. Clearly, I’m the black sheep because so many readers absolutely loved the book. Whereas I struggled a lot to get to the end without completely giving up on it.

First things first, I absolutely loved the cover ! I could write letters with the person on the cover, so suffice it to say, with a cover like that I was really hoping to love this book. Believe me when I say that I was bummed out when I didn’t. I will say that this is ultimately more because of personal preference rather than anything with the book itself. It’s a “it’s me, not the book ” situation.

Brief Summary of the Plot:

This is Luca and Griffin’s story. When Luca’s dad dies she goes to clear his apartment. There she randomly finds a letter from her childhood pen-pal Griffin who tells her ,- direct quotation: You suck ! Luca had been through some trauma to throw her life off track, but she never actually forgot Griffin, so his last Letter made her sad and she decided to write him again. They start writing again and reconnect in a big way. There are some sweet and sad scenes, some sexy times, but they ultimately get their happy ending.

Now, let’s talk about things I liked and the parts I didn’t quite enjoy. We had a great start with Luca and her therapist. There was a meaningful conversation, we got to see her vulnerable side and see her psychological and emotional issues. Then, we she first started to write back and forth with Griffin the Letters were sweet, funny and honestly heartwarming. Them finding back together and rekindling their connection was perfect.

The character development of Luca was great. In my opinion Griffin didn’t have a big development, but he definitely helped Luca a lot with hers. That was also extremely well done in the book. The connection between them was undeniable, so the insta love trope wasn’t bizarre in this story.

The whole idea of a childhood pen-pal and writing letters was something new and fresh. I loved the idea and it’s the big reason why I’m rating this book 3 stars and not less. But some letters were just weird, others were kinky, and a lot of them just not mature in my opinion. I sometimes had the feeling I was reading the letters of 5 year olds not adults.

And then they started writing about their genitals, sex and Furby key chains. That’s where I internally died a little bit. On top of all of that, Griffin started stalking Luca and had his friend take photos of her. That made things worse, quite honestly.

Another issue I had with the book was the pace. The story dragged in parts and almost felt like fillers in others. Some things said and done were just a repetition of things we already encountered which is weird for the length of the book. The whole book was quite short (a little bit over 250 pages) so having fillers or repetitive actions shouldn’t be in it.

Let’s talk a little bit about the dirty letters before we summarize, shall we ? They were just weird. First of all, why does every romance book out there nowadays have to have at least one dirty scene or innuendo ? Since when does romance equal erotica ? Also, a lot of times the sexy and dirty scenes described in the letters weren’t sexy, they were disgusting ( aka Furby chains) and sometimes downright confusing. So even if you’re reading this book to read some hot scenes, a few of them are cringy to be honest. Truth be told, a lot of them are sexy,-but not all of them.

 To sum it up, the story was cute, sweet and with plenty of emotional parts. It had a lot of potential, the idea was fresh and new. But, in the end it just wasn’t enough to grab my interest and hold it. I found myself skimming through the majority of the book. I usually love Vi Keeland’s &Penelope Ward’s books, but this one was just not my cup of coffee. Do I think most would enjoy it? Absolutely. Some people live for the hot steam in these books. Sadly this was a case of me and my own personal preferences, so take this review with a grain of salt.