As a seasoned global traveler, journalist, and mother of a kickass photojournalist, there were so many things about Megan Oliver’s debut contemporary romance, Secret Nights and Northern Lights, that called to me. I wanted it to be a grand adventure in Iceland, but it was just … not.

Mona Miller is a journalist with a travel magazine called Around the Globe, unhappily filing her stories on the local beat and watching the world pass around her. She’s timid, unsure of herself, and seemingly content in the forced role of “cheery office party planner.” She’s mousy and self-absorbed, blaming the failed trajectory of her life on her teenage boyfriend breaking her heart fourteen years ago. In her world was based on Winnie the Pooh, she’d be the best choice for Eeyore.

The boy who broke her heart is Ben Carter, former bestie with her twin brothers, and her first everything. Her first kiss, her first lover, her first heartbreak. His abrupt departure the morning after their first night of intimacy shadowed the future of her romantic and professional relationships, and her ability (or lack thereof) to be outgoing and follow through on her dreams of being a globetrotting journalist.

Yes, the story is told through Mona’s PoV, but rather than experiencing an intimate familiarity with a girl wronged by her dream boy, what readers get is chapter after chapter of misery and whining. Truly. My mother always says that happiness is a choice, and Mona Miller chooses to wallow in the muck of her disappointment. It’s like black tar that won’t wash off, which is sad, really, because she is ultimately her own worst enemy.

The first obstacle in the story occurs early, when Mona finally gets the opportunity at an international assignment in Iceland, and she discovers that the photographer assigned to and traveling with her is none other than Ben. Ben who has had a successful photojournalism career traveling the world and regularly publishing with National Geographic. To experience Ben through Mona’s eyes is to experience a heartless man who broke off things via text and ghosted not only her but his best friends (her brothers). So, on the one hand, I wanted to be all Team Mona — ‘cause we gals gotta stick together. Right?

But Ben is no knuckle-dragging, heartless dick. Form the moment they embark on their assignment, he tries to talk about what happened, and why he broke it off with her. Was he a dick when he was a teenager? We’ll never know because as diligently as he tries to persuade Mona to talk, she vehemently turns him down. It’s so frustrating. Like hitting my head against a brick wall would be more satisfying. So many times, I wanted to stop reading and not give a damn; so many pages I flipped past because Mona was whining. This is a book that needed a Moonstruck moment of her getting smacked upside the head to snap out of it.

For three-quarters of the book, readers have to accept Mona’s lead on the trajectory of her relationship wth Ben 2.0 because, despite her passivity in life, she’s aggressively avoiding any opportunity to fill in the blanks on their past. And Ben’s a gentleman who believes that every bad thing she blames him for in her life is warranted. Did he break up with her by text the morning after they finally had sex, at seventeen? Yes, he did. Did he ghost her and her family, including his two best friends? Yes. But might he have a perspective and shitty experiences that directed the trajectory of his life? Absolutely.

I can see what Oliver was trying to do with the sustained misery of Mona’s character, but unfortunately it doesn’t work, and in trying to cast Mona as a woman wronged by a heartless man, she misses the mark completely. Mona comes off as whiny, immature, and honestly, not very likable. She’s static, stuck in the rut of the teenager who was dropkicked into broken-heartedness, whereas every other character around her is dynamic and actively moving through life, which is what I found so frustrating. I wanted, so badly, for Mona to get over herself. She’s so miserable she can’t stand herself, and that reached through my Kindle and made me miserable in turn.

The best part of the book is the setting. Iceland is on my bucket list, and Oliver lays out a pretty good itinerary. But that’s the only thing about it that I liked.