[The] first-rate premise is no match for the tedium of its execution ... Things aren’t so great for readers either. After all, they’re stuck for nearly 300 pages with only lubricious, self-involved Nick and vapid, insecure Jenny, who, to be fair, banter amusingly, but whose intense inner monologues and conversations about the depth and breadth and future of their relationship rapidly grow wearisome.
Nuanced, thoughtful ... It’s well-worth watching the layers of Jenny and Nick’s emotional armor being peeled back as the tension between them and the danger mounts in Kennedy’s increasingly gripping and emotional novel.
While the looming threat of the fire keeps the book’s tensions high, the almost slapstick reliance on sex as a narrative MacGuffin, used to force the characters into revelatory inner monologues, coupled with Jenny’s baffling vacuity...and Nick’s compulsive horniness prevents the reader from developing an emotional attachment to either character that goes beyond an appreciation for their banter ... A great premise—the locked-room romance!—fouled by flimsy characters.
The novel doesn’t quite reach the gravitas it aspires to, but Kennedy ably interweaves Nick and Jenny’s flirty banter with more vulnerable exchanges. It’s a pleasant enough romp.
