If It's Not You

Good book and an easy read. This book is aimed at a younger audience and keeps you interested throughout.

I'll be honest. I've never really been into the step sibling romance kind of books because I've always been somewhat uncomfortable? I guess?
But this one is different. It's not cringey or entirely inappropriate. It's fairly innocent about it (no spoilers). Rahel and Janosh grew up together and there's a lot of pining and angst from Rahel. At first It was difficult for me to get into, so for about 35-40% of the book I was bored. But as I got further in, about halfway, I started to enjoy it.
The only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars is because it's not really my genre. The characters are okay, I think Yannick is my favorite.

Thank you to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and Zarah Bentley for the opportunity to read If It's Not You in exchange for an honest review.

Rahel was only five when her step-father and step-brother entered her life. It wasn't until she was fourteen that she realized that she was in love with Janosh, but one cannot be with their step-brother because society deems it inappropriate or taboo. But they are step-siblings, not blood related. Would it really be so bad?

For years, Rahel planned to follow Janosh to a school only a few hours away by train. she wants to go to medical school, and the choice was strategic in more than one way. When Rahel learns Janosh might be moving out of the country to study abroad with his girlfriend, she is devastated and heart-broken because not only does that go against their plan, but Janosh would be far out of reach in another country with another girl.

Giving him the cold shoulder, Rahel tried to push aside her feelings for her step-brother and dates someone else for a while, but a first love is hard to shake off.

This book is listed as young adult, but based on the current age of Rahel (eighteen) and Janosh) twenty-one) and the premise of events that take place, I would consider this more along the lines of new adult genre instead. The talk of college and planning the near (and far) future is a driving force for the plot. There are also some slightly more detailed intimate scenes that would be worded a bit differently when being delivered to a young adult audience. I love the idea of a "forbidden" romance, and it is very clear from the start that Janosh loves his sister too, but the crawl to get to the romance was just very, very slow in a bit of a frustrating way.

Either way, I thought this novel was, overall, well-written and easy to read. I didn't really care mush about Rahel as a character, but found Janosh to be more interesting. Perhaps it is because most of the novel (with the exception of two intermission chapters) is told in a third person limited perspective from Rahel, so Janosh is then shrouded in a bit more of a mysterious air. I would recommend this for older teens and those looking for a slow burn romance with a relatively satisfying conclusion.