Review of "If Only You Knew"

“Falling for you was the most inevitable thing in the world for me.”

Oh my gosh!!!!!! I just recently got this book at Half Priced Books and I was on the fence about it, but boy was I wrong. 30th book of the year, and what a good one it was.

If Only You Knew by Ellie K. Wilde is a friends to lovers story following Parker Woods and Summer Prescott. It’s the third in the Oakwood Bay series, which I definitely plan on reading when I can get my hands on the first two. Summer and Parker have been friends since they were 3, and we get some insight as to how their friendship has developed over the years, along with their friend group. And not only their friendships, but stronger feelings.

It’s very obvious that Parker has feelings for Summer, to everyone but him. I seriously loved the conversation where they’re all chatting about him thinking about Summer naked and the rest of them are saying “no, she’s a friend, I don’t think about her that way”. And then one of the girls asks if Parker thinks about them naked and he immediately says “no you’re my friend, why would I?” That realization was PERFECT. He’s so down bad for her and it was just…ugh. Yes.

Aside from their relationship, I loved the backstory about them individually, with Summer having issues with her parents, specifically her dad, how Parker finally realizes, after their fight, that Summer can’t save him and bandage him up, he has to be the one to fix his life. I think it brought two broken characters together and made for some good angst, seeing as Summer pushes away her entire friend group over the issues she struggles with. I related to her so much through that aspect and it made me admire her. I also like how she did what she wanted, even though she was scared leaving Parker after the competition, he showed her that even if someone leaves, some love just doesn’t go away, like she’s so used to. Her being scared to love and scared to get close made so much sense.

There’s a lot of ups and downs in this book, when you think they’re close to admitting it, Summer gets a date, or she presses and asks if Parker wants her to set him up with anyone else. And the scene where he sets up a little fort for her only for her to say she has plans, and a date??? It broke me. Him then refusing to even hear her utter the word ‘date’ UGH!!! I did love the slow burn, even though we know how each of them feel, it made it much more intense. Them almost fucking in the school classroom, then at the inn, it made the time when things finally broke between them all the more delicious.

Plus…it was so hot!!! The rumor of him tying his lovers up and it being true and so…yummy. How he finds things to tie her up with, the string from his sweats, cooking twine, ropes for a surfboard, JUST YES. Although, it didn’t feel very on brand when the rumor was going around, because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to sleep around much. He was yearning bad for Summer the entire book, crashing her date, punching the guy who was using Summer to cheat, I just found it hard to believe he would’ve been sleeping around as much as the rumors said. I will say, I don’t know if I remember it being mentioned that he did a lot; just that he likes to tie up the women he sleeps with.

Overall, I don’t have many downsides with the book. Aside from overusing descriptors like “state-of-the-art” kind of style, where there’s multiple words separated with dashes (I will be honest I don’t know what it’s called or how else to describe it), but it dissipates the further into the book I got. And Parker ruining Summer’s date with Gavin, I didn’t particularly care for. I understand it’s to show how impulsive and crazy protective he is of her, but it felt a little unnecessary.

I laughed, I cried (a lot) and I fell in love with the two characters individually and together. The ending was perfect and so sweet, I loved every page of this. These two were meant for each other and I loved how their love for one another continued throughout the whole book, even when they were unofficially together. It felt so natural, and Summer silently telling him she loves him before saying it, UGH! I was sobbing. The way Parker loves her is just so pure and heartfelt and beautiful, it made me so jealous. He’s not perfect, but he’s a lover boy and we love that. Below is my overall rating.