In Your Dreams (When in Rome #4)

by Sarah Adams

genre: contemporary romance

representation: anxiety and panic attacks (lived experience)

rating: 3.75 stars

Madison Walker is the family wild child–and the town disaster. After barely scraping her way through culinary school, she’s in desperate need of a fresh start with nowhere to turn, when an unexpected job opportunity is dropped into her lap: Return to her hometown of Rome, Kentucky to open a restaurant with her brother’s best friend, and her childhood crush, James. But everything is riding on this restaurant’s success, and Madison isn’t sure she’s up to the task.

Sarah Adams’s books are undeniably bingeable, and In Your Dreams is no exception. It was light, easy to read, and tooth-achingly saccharine. Madison is my favorite protagonist of the series, but unfortunately, I felt rather apathetic towards James, and was unmoved by the dynamic between the two of them. It seemed like a solid 75% of James’s personality was that he was in love with Maddie and had been forever, and it was so unconvincing to me. We are not led to believe that he and Maddie interacted much beyond a passing interaction before the start of the book, and he hadn’t seen or spoken to her in over two years. And yet he is completely in love with her and knows everything about her? He’s never had a meaningful interaction with her in his life, and yet he knows her better than her own siblings, with whom she is incredibly close? The story was told entirely in the present day, and there were no flashbacks or even references to touchstone interactions between the two of them from which his emotions could stem, and that left the whole dynamic shallow. Maddie’s feelings–a schoolgirl crush she outgrew, that was resparked when he re-entered her life–were solid, but since James’s feelings were the lynchpin of their dynamic and the foundation that their relationship was built on, the whole thing didn’t work for me.

However, I adored Madison’s journey outside of the romantic arc as she grew to believe in herself and learn who she is and who she can be in this town where everyone already has all of these set (and rather negative) expectations of her. I connected so deeply to her fears and self-doubt and her desire to be known, and her character arc of coming to trust herself was compelling, and I did appreciate how James encouraged and supported her in this growth. Some of the plot was rather ridiculous (namely, everything with Tommy–who, by the way, sucked way more than the story gave him credit for), but it worked in a silly goofy kind of way. I do love the town and family dynamic Sarah Adams constructed in this series, and I’m sad to say goodbye to Rome, Kentucky, and the Walker siblings. I wish the series had ended on a stronger note, but I’m looking forward to see what Sarah Adams has in store next.