After the pleasant surprise I got from reading Jeneva Rose’s latest novel, Home Is Where the Bodies Are, I decided to check out the rest of her work and landed on the mysterious sounding You Shouldn’t Have Come Here.
Alternating perspectives, Grace is on her way to an extremely small and remote town in Wyoming. It seems she’s a long way from her New York home, but the dart board led her here. That’s her little habit, she throws a dart on a map and heads to that place for vacation once a year. Though I’m sure a town as small as the one she picked probably doesn’t have a hotel or a motel, I found it odd that she chose to rent out a room via Air BnB from a man on a ranch even further away from the town’s population. She’s eager to see what Wyoming has to offer and doesn’t feel anything suspicious about her rental until she steps foot on the property.
Calvin is the uber handsome Air BnB and ranch owner that opens his place up to Grace. He’s been living on the ranch alone for some time after his parents died in a fire, but it takes a long time before even that detail is shared with Grace. Instead, he placates her with things he was able to look up about her online before her stay. He’s got as shelf full of books he’s never read and he chokes down some brussel sprouts he doesn’t particularly like. It’s only been a few days before he’s convinced himself he’s in love with Grace, and from any reader’s perspective, that’s a scary level of obsession.
For the most part, Grace holds her own, but she also can’t help being attracted to Calvin. He is extremely handsome, as I mentioned. Plus, what’s it to Grace to have a little fun on a vacation. She’s got a real life to head back to in a week’s time. Only, as the days pass, things keep getting more messy. The people in town seem to love Calvin, but their love for him also means keeping some secrets. Despite all of the evidence pointing for Grace to leave, she sticks around. A big reason for that is that her car is broken, but she isn’t really moving mountains to get it fixed.
All in all, the twist at the end was fun and I could totally see a sequel spawning from it, but overall, the book was bad. It reminded me a lot of Verity, which just made the two main characters seem simple and stupid. It was all so cringe-worthy! I’ve read fan fiction a million times better than either of these two books, which was a huge disappointment after reading Home Is Where the Bodies Are. It definitely left enough of a sour taste in my mouth to avoid any of her other works, but if Colleen Hoover is your jam, then by all means. It’s just not for me.