Fight or Flight Is Almost As Bad As Destination Wedding

I'd stayed away from Fight or Flight by Samantha Young when it first came out because I'd heard some pretty negative things about it from fellow readers. I'd been told that there wasn't so much chemistry between the lead characters Ava and Caleb as there was inane arguing and insults being traded back and forth. I'd also heard that Caleb isn't such a great guy and really shouldn't be featured in a romance novel. And to an extent, all of these things are true, especially when you crack open the first chapter of the book and find two stupid characters being terrible to each other for no good reason. But thankfully, the further on you get into the book, the better it gets - although I never end up falling in love with the characters or their story.

The main issues I have with this novel are the meet cute, Caleb, and Caleb's backstory. The so-called meet cute in this novel is that Caleb cuts Ava in line and takes the last first class seat available on their flight, which Ava was patiently waiting in line for. When apprised of the situation, he isn't apologetic in the slightest and goes on to call her pet names like "babe" and blows her off despite the fact that he is entirely in the wrong. He continues to do rude things to her throughout the course of the day, and somehow readers are expected to fall for him while he's being a complete ass. That's not quite what I would call a meet cute, and indeed, I'd be more likely to toss him from the plane at that point than smooch with him. And yet despite all of this, Ava does find herself intrigued by him, which made both of them super annoying to me quite quickly.

But Caleb isn't like that because he's in an airport and exhausted - no, he's just terrible to strangers in general. He never says please or thank you to waitresses or flight attendants on purpose because, according to him, why should he thank a person who is just doing their job? And he never fixes this either - Ava just comes to accept it. Now that I think about it, I don't think Caleb even has a character arc in this novel other than his coming to accept love again. But I was never fully on board with Caleb's character because there was always something off about him. He did have his typical romantic hero moments later on in the novel, but a lot of his scenes - especially toward the beginning - made him seem like a possibly unhealthy romantic interest. But then by the end, he was completely normal, as if he was a different character entirely, and we don't get to see the changes that brought him there.

Caleb's traumatic backstory is a whole different mess. I can't say much about it without spoiling it, but it does seem to be a tad problematic. There seems to be an aspect to it in which a woman is villainized for a certain decision and Caleb apparently cares more for that decision than the woman herself, who apparently did it for her physical and emotional well-being. The woman is called a selfish, conceited jerk because of this decision, and the reader knows nothing else about this woman to be able to agree with or refute this claim. Of course, this woman probably should have confided in Caleb regarding her decision - I don't know enough about the backstory or Caleb to say this confidently - but either way, this is definitely not a black and white topic, and the author only dedicates a couple paragraphs at most to it. 

The strongest part of this book is without a doubt the friendship between Harper and Ava: they're always there for each other, and this friendship is much more appealing than any romance offered in the novel. Their relationship is the only thing that I found genuinely appealing in the book, and indeed, Harper's scenes were more compelling than whatever happened with Ava, which is odd considering that this is Ava's book. Ultimately though, if I could make the choice again, no, I would not choose to read Fight or Flight. I also definitely wouldn't re-make the choice to watch Destination Wedding - I may still be traumatized.