Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood || Review

Title: Problematic Summer Romance
Author: Ali Hazelwood
Release Date: May 27, 2025
Format: Paperback
Where to Buy: Amazon | Bookshop
My Rating: 4.25/5

Synopsis

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life. Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him. 

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life. 

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists. 

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

My Review

I am very late to the game reviewing this book. I read this in June (peak summer romance reading season) and really enjoyed it. It was pretty much everything I love about Hazelwood's books—a badass woman in STEM dealing with everything that comes with that and figuring herself out falling love with a man who just wants to see her succeed in life.

If you monitor book-ish drama, this book was at the center of quite a bit of it. A lot of individuals felt that the age gap of the romance was inappropriate and that the author should be canceled for having utilized this trope. I suspect these individuals were outraged on principle and did not actually read the book. A friend of mine pointed out that utilizing "problematic" in the title could have been part of the issue. It led people to believe the romance would be all the bad things that age gap romances can be about: power imbalance, a man "waiting" until a woman turns 18, etc. So they just never read and made assumptions.

Well there's a reason we saying to assume makes an ass of you and me. Hazelwood took the age gap trope and made sure to make it as un-icky as possible. In fact much of the book had Conor claiming these age gap problems were the reason he couldn't be with Maya. Conor was so aware and afraid of potential perception issues that he himself became condescending, quasi-controlling and infantilizing.

Maya is independently wealthy so there isn't a monetary power imbalance. She is a brilliant scientist with offers for fellowships around the country. And she and Conor while aware of one another's existence through xx, Maya's brother, they didn't actually know one another and have actual conversations until Maya was in her twenties.

At the heart of it though, Hazelwood, through Maya, pushes that society has to stop infantilizing women in their twenties. Sure people in their twenties can make bad choices and act unnecessarily impulsively, but so can any person regardless of age. Additionally every person has such an individualized experience growing up that we cannot paint with a broad brush. In Maya's case, she lost her parents at a young age, she did the rebellion, drugs and bad choices in high school. Then at 18, she went to college in a completely different country, completely alone and starting over in a way that meant that she was significantly more mature than most individuals her age. Maya knew exactly who she was and what she wanted from her life. She was not some young girl who didn't know right from wrong or didn't understand that actions have consequences.

The friend of mine that I previously mentioned ended up not loving this book because she hated Conor as he was trying to not be in the relationship. She thought he was condescending and controlling and hated how he was deciding what was best for Maya and ignoring her input. For that, I will say, "Well done, Ali Hazelwood." She did what she set out to accomplish, reminding people that women can have minds of their own and you shouldn't make an assumption about another person's relationship.