My Own Best Enemy

Apple Valley Love Stories, Book 2

By: Julie Christianson

Narrated by: Rock Engle, Stephanie Rose

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

This isn’t a wedding. This is war…

I get it. We were in elementary school. Just a couple of kids on the playground. But after Nash Hendrix called me Enemy instead of Emily, his stupid nickname haunted me for years.

Now our best friends are getting married, and they expect me to stand across the aisle from Nash the Ruiner without killing him?

Whatever. I can survive that. It’s only for one weekend.

Until it’s not.

When I get roped into wedding planning at all the same places Nash is fundraising, I’m ready to blow up our truce. But the more time we spend together, the more I feel like…not murdering him.

Is it possible Nash and I don't hate each other? No way. He’s still my enemy.

My big, dumb enemy. My big, dumb, gorgeous, sweet-smelling, smooth-talking—Emi, you’re doomed.

This heartwarming, hilarious romantic comedy has all the sizzle and swoon, but no explicit content. The entire Apple Valley series can be enjoyed in any order.

©2021 Julie Christianson (P)2022 Podium Audio

Great contemporary romance

This enemies to lovers story involves lots of wit, mishaps, and laughter. I loved the storyline and the town and characters are well-developed. The narrators make the story come to life through their voices and inflection.

Nash and Emi will melt your heart!

This is an enemies-to-lovers trope with lots of humor and heartfelt moments thrown in. Nash is one of my all-time favorite book boyfriends!

Sweet/clean Contemporary Romcom

I enjoyed being back in Apple Valley for the second in the series. This can be read as a standalone book, but there are characters introduced in book 1 that you will encounter in here.
I enjoyed this story. It was an enemies to lovers tale. There are several layers that the main characters have to sort through to get to their happily ever after.

It's a sweet/clean low angst, kisses only romcom.

I listened to the audio. The female narrator has changed from book 1.intjought she did a good job. I have a slight problem with the male narrator when he does female voices. Sometimes his inflection as the end of a word or sentence irritates me. I know that is my issue, but since this is my review, I am mentioning it.

Fun enemies to lovers with great narration

I enjoyed this sweet enemies to lovers romance. The story was entertaining and original. The dual narration was a real win for me and both narrators did a great job with bringing the characters to life and sounding like what I imagined.

super sweet & clean enemies to lovers

I really enjoyed this story just as much my second time through — in some ways, maybe even more than the first. Nash and Emi are some of the best main characters (although, as much as I’ve tried, I still struggle to choose a top favorite pair from Julie Christianson’s Apple Valley Love Stories 🤷‍♀️). Both Emi and Nash struggle with some big insecurities and fears, and both have to decide if it’s worth it to work through those and move beyond them.

For the audio version, Rock Engle and Stephanie Rose narrated. I enjoyed them both and will be listening again — I liked the representation of Nash more than that of Emi though, overall. For Emi, I think I found her inner thoughts more realistically portrayed than her actual dialogue with others, at least going by what I had imagined/was expecting. Even so, it was good, and I loved it.

Julie Christianson does an excellent job of making her readers feel like we’re there in the midst of this world she’s written. These books can be read as stand-alones (they’re each a complete story), but they’re best read in order because you’ll get the full context and also avoid spoilers that way… not to mention, they’re each excellent! One of my favorite romcom writers – and she only writes clean stories, so I love that I don’t have to sort through reviews to make sure that I’m not going to run across anything I don’t want to read.

I would categorize this book as… a plate of nachos. Something that keeps you coming back for more.

Great big thank you to Julie Christianson for the honor of being on your team for this audio book – I truly loved it and can’t wait to hear the rest!

Funny and sweet

I love the word play in this book, mostly from Emmy. She is quirky, and fun. And the way she and Nash interact is awesome.

This is narrated by a man and woman, which is perfect - especially as both narrator’s voices and inflection perfectly match the characters. They did a great job bringing the story to life.

Clean, with some great kissing.

Love Emi and Nash

Emi and Nash and one of my favorite enemies to lovers story. They were enemies in school and now that they are back in the same town to celebrate their best friends wedding the hatred they have for eachother grows stronger until it doesn't. I want to ring Nash's next at times when he just needs to open his eyes to realize Emi loves him. The narrator's we're great and really helped put you in the characters minds.

really liked it

This one was fun too. I started with the first in the series and wasn't disappointed by the second. The banter between the two main characters was fun. however the female main character carried her grudge entirely too long which made her a bit absurd but who isn't at times. Not perfect characters but fun and enjoyable. It was a good story it was only enhanced by its clean nature. I will be going on to the 3rd.

Female narrator…

…too annoying to finish the book. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard ugh

A rare DNF for me

I’ll start by saying I’ve listened to a lot of excellent romcoms lately, so my bar was set very high, and also that i do like this author. She’s got clean, cute, closed-door romances that leave you feeling good. In fact, i quite enjoyed the first book in this series!
However..
I didn’t care for the characters. They were boring, and the female lead was so petty and mean i could hardly stand her.
The narration was terrible. Am i the only one who thought the male was drunk? There was definitely slurring. Female wasn’t that bad but i wasn’t a fan of her interpretation of a lot of the lines. Idk- I could see both narrators doing well in other roles, but the voices just didn’t match these characters at all for me.
And the story as a whole felt a little phoned in, especially after listening to the adorable the Mostly Real McCoy. Male lead had no reason to like female lead (seriously, guys, she kinda sucked) and he didn’t really have any depth to him. outliers weren’t really necessary or meaningful. I found conversations/interactions to be pretty boring. (Except Conversations between female lead and her best friend.. those were painful to listen to.)
And situations the characters found themselves in left something to be desired.

Gah i hate being so harsh when this is clearly a talented author- but in my opinion, this one missed the mark and if you’ve read some impressive romcoms lately, skip it.