If Not You by Ellen O'Clover | 4 Stars
If Not You by Ellen O'Clover follows rival copywriters as big pitches for their jobs lead to them going on what is essentially a month-long vacation together. Mattie hasn't liked Campbell since their internships ended with him getting a promotion over her and since he won an award over her for a campaign titled If Not You. During the trip, Matties gets to know Campbell better and begins to see him in a way that she never has before. I enjoyed Mattie a lot. I liked the depth that she had from how much she put into her job to her issues with her parents to her concerns about her friendship with her best friend changing. Campbell is a wonderful love interest as well, he's been down bad for Mattie for ages and he has depth when it comes to not loving his job and with his struggles with his dad having memory issues. I liked the two of them together, even though their relationship working required quite a lot of growth from Mattie. I was not the biggest fan of how the third act drama went down which is actually the biggest issue I had with the authors previous novel, The Heartbreak Hotel. With If Not You, a grand gesture is made by one of the characters, and the other character still later makes them put in the work to bring them back together and it just kind of ruined things for me.
Synopsis:
Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town.
Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just…there, with his golden-boy smirk and the familiar gaze that never fails to taunt her across a crowded room.
Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him—and earn the promotion she covets.
During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.
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