ShiB

By about chapter 2, I was glad her mom died too.

Reviewed: 09-14-22

This book matters, and I mean that. If you struggle with healing from childhood abuse, this will touch a part of your soul that's still wounded. Be prepared.

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Couldn't finish...

Reviewed: 09-05-21

The narration is amazing, that got me to chapter 9. This woman deserves a trophy and a private island for having to read this outloud. What couldn't get me further?
1. This book feels like human fanfiction written by an alien from another planet who sort of knows how humans interact and kind of understands how we speak and emote. This alien has no understanding of inheritance laws or how humans communicate their feelings to one another. And it shows over and over again. People don't act, feel, react correctly and they speak like they're in an art house film. It's, on many occasions, incredibly unnerving and frustrating.
2. The whole plot was useless, as the entire plot would implode if any of these adult characters had a single genuine conversation with a single one of the other adult characters. What's the point of all the scheming anyway, since it seems everything up until the first sex scene was filler for the super sexy part of the book. Erotic fanfiction authored by an alien, written about humans who speak weird, emote weird, are overwhelmingly dramatic and don't react to situations like real humans do. Pass. There's better alien porn out there, I promise. The sex was spooky and a surprise, as I skipped ahead to see what I had to look forward too. I did this three times and each time landed on a sex scene, meaning there's at least three. Pretty yikes, considering the plot had just started by chapter 9 and all we know about these people are they're bad at talking to each other about reality and would rather manipulate for their own gain instead. Sounds... consensual.
3. The characters are problematic, to say the least. Why is the main character dwelling over her senior prom at 27 years old? And why does she care about saving face with an ex boyfriend she never liked? Why does she talk about people like they're disposable and for her use only? Why doesn't she set boundaries with her family to keep from hurting them and herself? Why is she so hostile to someone she hasn't seen in ten years? Why did the author decide to have this man cope with heartbreak by being a serial womanizer and why was that sprinkled in so casually? Like not remembering your last sexual partner's entire name is okay because you're a sad boy? Also, he has no boundaries with his family and let's his brother treat him like trash. He's also still dwelling over a crush he had on a girl 10 years ago but won't talk to her about it, like he isn't a 30-something year old, fully grown man. Hard pass. This plot wouldn't exist if these characters (better yet, the author) chose therapy and self respect.
4. Why are we still writing toxic romances in the future? I'm so tired of reading about narcissists having sex with neurotic women in STEM who talk more about their ample breasts and jiggly asses than science. I could be reading about a badass woman in STEM changing the world and a humble man with a personality and a life passion (like a baker or a veterinarian) helping her do it. It's so exhausting seeing characters abuse one another, manipulate one another, lie and deceive and exhaust every avenue available to them besides basic respect and calling it romance because there's a dash of "his glistening eyes made my heart stutter, him hurting broke me little by little" in there. It's not romantic. It makes me want to file a restraining order against a book.
5. It's not a modern romance just because the main character is smart and in a male dominated field of work. Especially if the entire plot thwarts her lived autonomy to such an extreme she has to marry a man she hates to get her father to stop imposing his will on her dating life. Which is the most over-the-top and ridiculous idea imaginable, considering she could have spoken to him instead.

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3 people found this helpful

I really tried

Reviewed: 05-12-21

I love the writing style and narration and the romance is sweet and believable and it's so easy to root for them... but there are two things about this book that made it just unbearable for me: it's so FREAKING BORING and the Unnecessarily Sexually Repressed Good Girl Falls for Himbo trope embarrasses the heck out of me. IMO, nothing is less sexy in a modern romance than a female protagonist not having sexual autonomy, and quite frankly the author presents a lot of trauma surrounding the character's experience with sex the ONE TIME SHE'S HAD SEX IN 25 YEARS - as a teenager - (~6 years removed from the plot), but doesn't have her resolve the actual psychological abuse that caused said fear of sexual intimacy. Unless you can cure mental illness with penis, she doesn't even seem to register that her entire childhood was totally craptastic and that maybe therapy would be cool. She just... overcomes a deep and almost decade long fear of sexual intimacy... with penis? It would have been amazing to finally see a narrative about a woman who is a Good Girl who just chose to wait for sex because she wants to wait for sex, a Good Girl Who is Waiting for Sex has autonomy. A Good Girl Waiting can still be a sexual being... not the static "she's afraid, she's ashamed, she thinks she's ugly, she's ugly until she learns how to utilize cleavage, conservative family, what's a flirting, omg 3 pages about his crotch bulge, can he see me blushing? ahahaHAHHA," blah, blah, blah. Virgins can be confident, flirtatious and outgoing people with self esteem who just... haven't had sex or chose to stop having sex. Where is SHE? I WANT TO READ HER STORY, THANK YOU. Not "Sally Butterface has never kissed a boy, but now that her glasses are off and she looks like Jessica Alba..." Quite frankly, I'm sick of these Never Been Kissed But Bad storylines. She feels like a repressed and terrified former cult member more than the recovering daughter of fundamentalist Christians. Which, honestly, she is... but that's also only mentioned and not dealt with. None of her hangups are actually dealt with. Holy exposition, Batman. Nothing is seen, only told throughout the entire novel.

There's no plot... nothing happens to motivate you to continue except for the same fluttery cute scene slightly rewritten 165 times. It took me over a month to finish this book. There's an unnecessary make over sequence, because virgins obviously don't understand fashion or make up. Oh! Don't forget the token POC who is, to her core, a 2D character who cares about nothing else but matchmaking and protecting the protagonist from the Himbo. She's shallow and vapid and still the most interesting character. I'd skip this one. It's like a well written fanfiction one would enjoy to cool down from an intense, plot driven narrative. Not an actual novel.

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8 people found this helpful

This was SO GOOD

Reviewed: 04-17-21

the writing style is full of feeling and very poetic, the twists are incredible but not out of nowhere crazy, the character development is ON POINT! This was a show stopping performance with a full cast and it was well worth the adventure. I was on the edge of my seat trying to see if Pipa and Ravi could possibly vindicat Sal.

CW/TW (also slight spoiler I wish I'd known): a dog dies!!!

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3 people found this helpful

SO CUTE!!! I LOVED THIS BOOK!

Reviewed: 04-09-20

By far, I loved Lizzie and Malcolm the most. A really silly romp that I enjoyed from start to end.

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1 person found this helpful

VERY Romantic!

Reviewed: 04-06-20

I found this novel very enchanting and the romance between J and C was perfectly paced and built so wonderfully, I found myself wishing it wouldn't end. The character growth was incredible, the plot was intriguing and fun. Although one plot point seemed to be a reach logically, it didn't over all ruin the believability of the story itself.

Also, Joel may be my favorite Mary Balogh man. He is very real and caring and affectionate without the aristocratic arrogance and nonsense most of her men have to overcome to be tolerable. And, of course, Rosalyn Landor was perfection. Though, she always is!

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2 people found this helpful

Transphobia is the plot twist!

Reviewed: 02-05-20

Main character is unlikable and selfish, also hateful and disingenuous. She lies a lot and her relationship with her stereotype of a boyfriend is laughable.

Skip this one. Main character outs a trans woman FOR REVENGE. And there's no remorse.

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May be haunted by the ghosts of pedos

Reviewed: 12-01-19

Listen, do not get me the least bit wrong. The writing style is poetical and genuinely well done. The rest is haunted by the ghosts of misogynists, rapists, and pedophiles.

Ryen is useless and pathetic and Misha is bonkers bananas nuts. He is an abuser, he is selfish, he is a bully, and he is legit the scariest love interst I have ever seen in a book. HE BREAKS INTO HER HOUSE AND THREATENS HER WITH SCISSORS. They are both barely 18, seniors in high school (HIGH SCHOOL??), they have graphic sex on several occasions in which the female lead is TOTALLY UNAWARE OF THE IDENTITY OF HER SEXUAL PARTNER, and still has sex with him even after his lies are brought to her attention by her own sluething. (ANAL DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT, THAT IS DANGEROUS FOR WOMEN YOU IDIOT). Their first graphic sex scene involves the main female lead asking the main male lead to "stop so they could go somewhere else." In which he does not stop, takes no effort to stop, but nonetheless tells her he will. Their second graphic sex scene involves him coercing her into masturbating for him and then him having sex with her "as he wants" despite her protests that he's being too loud. He physically attacks her on three separate occasions and she physically attacks him once, all before chapter 10. He lives in an abandoned amusement park despite being Paris Hilton rich (exscuse? daddy issues caused by his own bad attitude), he is a sanctimonious predator with pervasive and possessive issues that he takes out on THE FRIEND HE HAS KEPT FOR 7 YEARS.

This is a book about kids who have sex, and you will listen to these children having graphic sex. And if you're anything like me, an adult aged person, you will be VERY, SUPER, uncomfortable. You will feel like a pedophile. Like the author should feel like a pedophile. Because this is pretty gross, material to age wise. And the sex is obscenely adult and abusive, teetering towards non-consensual. Overall a bad read.

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1 person found this helpful

Bad on all sorts of levels

Reviewed: 07-23-18

1. This book is homophobic. Lesbian jokes from the jump. Constant reference to the bredth of Chastity's shoulders making her "look like a drag queen" when she wore feminine clothes. A very gross homophobic slur is used casually against a gay man, and without reproach. It's never called out or mentioned again. That was insanely jarring.

2. Chastity constantly perpetuates misogyny. Negatively commenting about smaller women's bodies, often mocking their personalities without knowing them just for being supposedly more beautiful than her classically. This is a boring and bad trope and it would have been nice to have an Amazonian Sports goddess who doesn't hate herself and all other women she perceives as superior to her. It would have also been nice to see her not shun or muck women who actively participate in femininity, and enjoy it, but that bad personality trait was forced into this narrative with gusto. She doesn't stop doing this throughout the entire book. There's absolutely no growth of character, and she really needed it.

3. The word "bleeping" is used every other sentence to replace an expletive. However, this is unfounded as there is cursing in the book and it honestly gets really annoying and feels very juvenile, considering these are adults in their 30's. Oh, and it's used a lot. Like every other sentence a lot.

4. Speaking of really annoying - Chastity is truly the worst heroine. Age obsessed, baby obsessed, looks obsessed, weight/height obsessed (she mentions her exact pound to height ratio at least 9 times, and it's very off-putting), all around mess. She is a single woman in her early thirties "approaching spinsterhood" who hates her appearance because men "don't find her desirable" (they do, she's just literally been obsessed with the same man since she was practically a third grader. Also WHO CARES? Being desired by men isn't how women should measure their worth. This trope is sexist and should be stopped). She doesn't grow at all as a character. She gets worse as the narrative progresses. In a genuinely embarrassing way, too.

5. SPOILER ALERT.

The heroine kinda loses it. The entire plot focuses on the obsession of a 31 year old woman who sort of falls into this lifelong obsessive fantasy over a 72 hour love affair she had at 18 with a family friend (who, honestly, was raised like her brother from such a young age that it's kinda... gross).

I've had to skip over an hour of this book just to see how it ends. The only 2 redeemable qualities are the great narrator and her husky and honey voice and Chastity's dog, Buttercup. Who is by far the most likeable character.

EDIT: Chastity having a literal mental breakdown when her divorced mother dates a guy is laughably selfish. Especially because it takes her mother sitting her down and saying "I deserve to be happy" for Chastity to ACTUALLY take her mother's happiness in to consideration. As she always sides with her father, ubfoundedly, and never actually thought of her mother as an independent entity separate from her father and his happiness. Which, yeah, I guess... if you're a 12 year old daddy's girl. This is almost obscene in it's solipsism coming from a 31 year old woman who is closer in the narrative to her mother than her father.

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8 people found this helpful

If You've Lost Someone, You'll Get It

Reviewed: 07-06-18

The only thing I didn't like about this book was how little we got to learn about the narrator's love interest and his family in real life. We just learned little bits about him as one of her classmates and bigger bits as SN.

The grief, and the ability to reach across voids to grab onto others who have suffered similarly, is incredibly well done. If you've lost someone close to you, you'll connect with these brilliantly heartbreaking aspects of the novel most. I'm still in the phase where I count the days, so that really struck me. I didn't realize other people did this, too.

That being said, this is 100% YA. And it's the most obvious plot you could imagine. You can tell almost immediately who SN is, foreshadowing is heavy handed in most instances. It does lead to some wacky "No, you're wrong!!" moments that lead to a very rewarding reveal, so I'll let that slide this time.

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