Quick Summary:
Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score is the story of Naomi Witt and Knox Morgan. Naomi answers her twin sister Tina’s call for help and runs out of her wedding before even hitting the altar to come to her rescue. She ends up in the small town of Knockmeout, Virginia to help bail out her troublemaker of a sister once again. Dubbed the “good one,” she’s always felt compelled to help out her sister whenever she’s in need, despite knowing that trouble willingly follows Tina.
Once in Knockmeout, she’s greeted with dirty looks and attitude from seemingly everyone in town, as everyone assumes she’s Tina. As she walks into a local coffee shop, she clarifies that she is not her troublemaker twin and really needs a cup of coffee. Despite that declaration, she’s confronted by Knox Morgan, town bad boy and local angry man. She ends up going toe to toe with him fearlessly, and ends up teaming up with him as she discovers her sister has swindled her yet again.
With no car and now no phone, Naomi is left with only the belongings she left in her sketchy motel room. Except she’s shocked to see her room was trashed and she was robbed by Tina, who left her an unexpected surprise – her 11 year old daughter Waylay. Naomi is now stuck with no car, no phone, no money and an 11 year old kid.
Plot Overview:
As Naomi struggles to pick up the pieces of her now new life with her new niece in Knockmeout, Knox begrudgingly offers her a helping hand to make sure both she and Waylay stay safe. Naomi has to find a job to be able to support herself and Waylay, given that her sister cleaned her out. With the help of Knox’s grandmother, Naomi has a safe place to stay rent free; hilariously next door to Knox. She ends up getting a job at the local bar, Honky Tonk, which she later figures out is owned by none other than Knox himself.
Knox owns the bar, a barber shop and some other properties in Knockmeout, which he purchased with lottery winnings. Despite having millions due to his winnings, Knox maintains a humble and quiet life – all of which was turned upside down once he met Naomi. Though he feels annoyed and angry at her presence, he can’t stop thinking about her or wanting to be around her.
As he grapples with his confusing feelings towards Naomi, they develop somewhat of a friendship, as Naomi remains soft around Knox despite their constant bickering. Their friendship later deepens into something of a real relationship but Knox does not want to get that involved and is faced with making the choice of developing something real with Naomi or cutting her loose forever. As he faces his choice, events take place that makes losing Naomi for good a potential reality.
Common Themes + Opinions:
For Knox, it’s revealed that his fear of commitment is connected to his troubled youth. After losing his mom and grandfather young, and watching his father lose himself to drugs, Knox still carries this heavy grief. He saw his parents as the model relationship where growing up, his parents were undoubtedly in love and it showed. After his mom died, his father used drugs to numb the pain from the loss, spiraling into a full fledged addiction.
Seeing this and seeing his grandma lose the love of her life, his grandpa, Knox no longer believed in that kind of love and didn’t feel worthy or deserving of that. As his feelings for Naomi intensified, he became more scared and tried to run from her knowing that it would be impossible to escape her. Knox is forced to come to terms with this, and has to decide whether he’s going to continue living his life feeling unworthy of real love, or if he’ll take the leap and build that kind of future for himself.
For Naomi, her story is more about her coming into herself. After leaving her fiance at the altar, it’s shown that she almost married her then fiance for the picturesque future she always imagined for herself, and found herself settling for him just because it made sense on paper. Her former fiance relied on Naomi heavily to take care of him, seemingly giving Naomi nothing in return. Though Naomi flees her wedding and used Tina’s call as an excuse, she reveals the real reason she left later on.
Now that she’s in Knockmeout with a niece to care for and a life to rebuild, she has the chance to do things differently and not focus so much of her life on being the “good one.” Given her sister’s troublemaker lifestyle, Naomi always felt pressure to be perfect and put others and their needs ahead of herself. As her relationship with Knox develops, she realizes how much he cares for her and is taking care of her – something not even her fiance ever did for her – and she questions whether she’s worthy of this kind of love and care from someone.
Final Thoughts + Ratings:
I gotta be honest and say I was pleasantly surprised by this book. After being somewhat haunted by it every time I went to Barnes & Noble, I decided to look it up on GoodReads to see what it was all about. I ended up judging the book by its cover before I even knew the synopsis, assuming that it was a Colleen Hoover-esque type of book. Though for the record, I’ve never read anything by Hoover and have zero desire to. That said, I’m glad I picked up Things We Never Got Over. It was the thickest romance book I’ve ever read though it didn’t feel as long as it was. The story and the characters were well written, where I remained captivated and wanted to keep reading. Knox’s lil angry boy act got kind of old fast but after he softens up to Naomi, it felt more like a front to cover up his true feelings.
I give The Things We Never Got Over five stars. I honestly can’t wait to pick up the second book in the series! As for the spice, I was def clutching my pearls a little bit reading through the sexy scenes 🥵 There aren’t that many but the few in the book are satisfying.
Have you read The Things We Never Got Over? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
5/5
