Review by crispycritter - At First Spite

crispycritter 's review for:

At First Spite by Olivia Dade

3.5

emotional funny slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is the second Olivia Dade book I've read and I've concluded that she is both VERY hit and VERY miss for me. I DNFed her first book at nearly 90%, which is impressive, considering I can read pretty much any bullshit I find on Kindle Unlimited.

I got this book in the January Afterlight book box and it is cute as heck! It has strawberry spredges.

What I loved about this book:

Dade is a kickass character writer. Athena and Matthew came alive on the page. I knew them, I loved them, I felt for them.
Dade writes awesome plus-sized characters. Seriously, no hemming and hawing over 'oh my body does not fit into society's narrow view on what physical attractiveness looks like how could anyone love me.'
Monster Smut: The smutty book club and the monster smut audiobook warfare were highlights of this book and gave it some MUCH NEEDED levity (which leads me into my criticism).
The fact that Matthew was a virgin is just one of those tropes I am feral for. Pervert that I am.

What I loathed:

As others have already critiqued, this felt too heavy for something that was advertised as a romantic comedy. Athena's depression, Matthew's childhood trauma that has haunted him into adulthood, Athena's heartbreak over her broken engagement . . .
The mental health rep was done well in some aspects and done poorly in others.
We got a visceral description of a major depressive episode. Then we got about two sentences where Athena was diagnosed with depression at her first virtual therapy appointment and immediately given medication. The whole time I was thinking, wow, Dade spent this whole book describing a woman in her 30s with undiagnosed ADHD that has culminated in a major depressive episode - oh nope, no, guess it's just regular depression? Okayyyyyy miss gifted & talented, can't hold down a grown up job, needs to be intellectually stimulated by novel experiences . . . sure. It's depression. It also felt a bit unbalanced to spend so much time showing what depression looks like and giving lip service to what managing mental illness looks like.
Yo Matthew needs to go to therapy. Go to therapy, Matthew. You are arguably doing a far worse job of masking your issues than Athena.
Pop culture references: This is the hill I've chosen to die on, but I don't like when authors mention memes and GIFs and other things that exist IRL. They take me out of the book. They become dated quickly. I'll make an exception for Reddit AITA. In contrast, I love when there are cultural references that are fictional and only exist within a book/series. Hence why I loved the Monster Smut stuff so much and the Sadie Brazen references.
A truly dumb third-act breakup. Wouldn't it have created some meaningful contrast to have Matthew tell his brother to stuff it because he loved Athena so much? Wouldn't that have shown the reader that their love was real (vs her love for his brother, just a temporary hyperfixation). Athena could have decided to end it, not wanting to ruin the brothers' relationship? I dunno. There were better ways than Matthew being a fricken pushover. Go to therapy, Matthew.

Anyways, I am planning on picking up the next book in the series because KARL.

Content Warnings