Book Review: The Trouble with Crushes

You might remember a few months ago I posted a book review for Easy Does It, book 1 of the Bank Street Stories series by Brook St. James. Easy Does It focused on Tess Cohen’s love story with boxer, “Easy” Billy Castro in 1968 Galveston, Texas. The Trouble with Crushes is book 2 in the series and this time focuses on Tess’s younger sister, Abigail, and Daniel King – a friend of theirs from Easy Does It.

The Trouble with Crushes takes place a few years later. Abigail is back home in Louisiana, beginning a her teaching career. Her sister, Tess, and brother-in-law Billy are still in Galveston where he is a successful boxer and they are starting a family of their own. Daniel has just returned from Vietnam, where he was awarded a medal, and is still working in the military but stateside.

Abigail and Daniel became friends in Easy Does It and in-between the two books, they wrote letters regularly while he was overseas. When the novel begins, Abigail hadn’t spoken to Daniel in quite a while. She had been dating someone who did not like that she was writing to Daniel and so she had told Daniel they couldn’t keep in touch anymore. Now single, she misses her friendship with Daniel and regrets her behavior and cutting Daniel out. She especially feels guilty because he was in Vietnam, in danger, and she had only been thinking of herself at the time.

Hoping she can have Daniel back in her life now that he’s back in the US, she reaches out to him. Together they navigate whether they can be friends again or possibly more.

I really enjoyed this sweet friends to lovers story. I felt for Abigail because I think it’s relatable to not realize what you have until it’s gone and then hoping you can fix things. Effects of Daniel’s post-war mental/emotional status are very vaguely and briefly mentioned, but I think that would’ve taken up a huge chunk of the story if that was focused on.

I recommend the book if you are looking for a friends to lovers, clean romance.

I received a digital copy of the book, but the paperback is being released this Tuesday, August 16!