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booksafety 's review for:
Up Close and Personal
by Jay Hogan
Book safety, content warnings, and tropes & tags down below.
Hospital Architecture 101 had to include the mandatory section, ‘Find the spookiest site for a morgue and build it right fucking there.’
Damn, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this one. Let me start by saying that I love Jay Hogan’s writing. It is a really good book. Unfortunately there’s a fair few things in this one that I really don’t jive with, which impacted my rating a lot. I loved the suspense, all of the action, the forensic pathologist/detective/criminal investigation bits. That shit is my jam. However, Mark is a massive man-whore (his own words), and although I can often overlook this, it was harped on and brought up so fucking much that I literally couldn’t *not* think about it. I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere on the demi/ace spectrum, so hookup culture is a bigass puzzle to me on the best of days, and although I know we’re all different, when it’s sort of ‘jammed down my throat’ like in this one, it makes me uncomfortable. There’s never any hookups on page, Mark doesn’t even look at anyone other than Edward during the book (thankfully), but with phrases like ‘pump and dump’ actually used by the character to describe his usual style, it didn’t exactly make me very confident in their eventual relationship, you know? Both characters have issues with relationships, and it took me until like the last three chapters to even see why they would want to (or how they even could) be together, beyond them having some initial good banter and chemistry.
“You flirt with everyone, Mark. I’m nothing special. You flirt because that’s how it’s done in the one-and-done crowd. Flirt-hook-fuck-leave, right? And I’ve got zero interest in being a notch on your belt.”
Even though I don’t care a lot about spice, I definitely prefer any new experiences for the couple to happen on page, and with blowies being my favorite type of spicy scene, the fact that not a single dong was hugged with a mouth on page really bummed me out, lol. Maybe the worse example of a on-page-miss is how their first ‘I love you’s’ was off page as well. Like, come on!
Edward’s heart squeezed, and he realised that Mark had the power to hurt him far, far more than Edward had ever imagined.
I really loved Edward, which is what saved it and kept me reading, honestly, as well as some great side characters. Edward wasn’t perfect at all, and among other things, he judged Mark’s morals based on his hookup history, and he had to learn some lessons about his presumptions. Overall though, he was interesting, kept me guessing, and it was fun to see how he had multiple sides to him that came to light at the same time as Mark found out about them. I could relate a lot to how Edward looks at relationships and sex, which of course made me gravitate to his character.
“All I’m saying, Detective, is that I don’t do one-night stands, I don’t do friends with benefits, and I sure as hell don’t do the club scene. Nothing wrong with any of those, but they’re not me. If I were interested in anyone, it would only be on a dating basis—a very slow dating basis, I might add. Still interested, Detective?”
It really does sound like a very negative review, but it was entertaining and it’s not like I regret reading it. I just didn’t absolutely *love* it.
⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️
⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Reformed man-whore
Opposites attract
Forensic pathologist
Detective
Crime solving
Mystery
New Zealand setting
Slow burn
⚠️⚠️ Content warning ⚠️⚠️
Mentions of cancer and the death of a family member
Autopsy
Murder
Mentions of torture
Mentions of terrorist attacks (past)
Injured pet
Physical assault
Gun violence
Injuries
Neglectful parents
⚠️⚠️⚠️ Book safety ⚠️⚠️⚠️
Cheating: No
OM/OW drama: No
Third-act breakup: No
POV: 3rd person, dual POV
Genre: Contemporary romance, M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile, no switching on page
Like everything else in Ed’s life, sex was something to be savoured, and the concept of a slow burn had pretty much dominated Ed’s romantic playbook for over twenty-four years—ever since fifteen-year-old Ed had glanced at Vicki Stanton’s pillowy breasts and then, an hour later, at Mitch Ellington’s epically glorious arse in the boy’s change room and thought, huh, Houston, we might have a problem.
Respond a little, maybe give him a reason to want more than a one-night stand.
“Would you like a bigger spade for that hole you’re digging?”
Hospital Architecture 101 had to include the mandatory section, ‘Find the spookiest site for a morgue and build it right fucking there.’
Damn, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this one. Let me start by saying that I love Jay Hogan’s writing. It is a really good book. Unfortunately there’s a fair few things in this one that I really don’t jive with, which impacted my rating a lot. I loved the suspense, all of the action, the forensic pathologist/detective/criminal investigation bits. That shit is my jam. However, Mark is a massive man-whore (his own words), and although I can often overlook this, it was harped on and brought up so fucking much that I literally couldn’t *not* think about it. I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere on the demi/ace spectrum, so hookup culture is a bigass puzzle to me on the best of days, and although I know we’re all different, when it’s sort of ‘jammed down my throat’ like in this one, it makes me uncomfortable. There’s never any hookups on page, Mark doesn’t even look at anyone other than Edward during the book (thankfully), but with phrases like ‘pump and dump’ actually used by the character to describe his usual style, it didn’t exactly make me very confident in their eventual relationship, you know? Both characters have issues with relationships, and it took me until like the last three chapters to even see why they would want to (or how they even could) be together, beyond them having some initial good banter and chemistry.
“You flirt with everyone, Mark. I’m nothing special. You flirt because that’s how it’s done in the one-and-done crowd. Flirt-hook-fuck-leave, right? And I’ve got zero interest in being a notch on your belt.”
Even though I don’t care a lot about spice, I definitely prefer any new experiences for the couple to happen on page, and with blowies being my favorite type of spicy scene, the fact that not a single dong was hugged with a mouth on page really bummed me out, lol. Maybe the worse example of a on-page-miss is how their first ‘I love you’s’ was off page as well. Like, come on!
Edward’s heart squeezed, and he realised that Mark had the power to hurt him far, far more than Edward had ever imagined.
I really loved Edward, which is what saved it and kept me reading, honestly, as well as some great side characters. Edward wasn’t perfect at all, and among other things, he judged Mark’s morals based on his hookup history, and he had to learn some lessons about his presumptions. Overall though, he was interesting, kept me guessing, and it was fun to see how he had multiple sides to him that came to light at the same time as Mark found out about them. I could relate a lot to how Edward looks at relationships and sex, which of course made me gravitate to his character.
“All I’m saying, Detective, is that I don’t do one-night stands, I don’t do friends with benefits, and I sure as hell don’t do the club scene. Nothing wrong with any of those, but they’re not me. If I were interested in anyone, it would only be on a dating basis—a very slow dating basis, I might add. Still interested, Detective?”
It really does sound like a very negative review, but it was entertaining and it’s not like I regret reading it. I just didn’t absolutely *love* it.
⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️
⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Reformed man-whore
Opposites attract
Forensic pathologist
Detective
Crime solving
Mystery
New Zealand setting
Slow burn
⚠️⚠️ Content warning ⚠️⚠️
Mentions of cancer and the death of a family member
Autopsy
Murder
Mentions of torture
Mentions of terrorist attacks (past)
Injured pet
Physical assault
Gun violence
Injuries
Neglectful parents
⚠️⚠️⚠️ Book safety ⚠️⚠️⚠️
Cheating: No
OM/OW drama: No
Third-act breakup: No
POV: 3rd person, dual POV
Genre: Contemporary romance, M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile, no switching on page
Like everything else in Ed’s life, sex was something to be savoured, and the concept of a slow burn had pretty much dominated Ed’s romantic playbook for over twenty-four years—ever since fifteen-year-old Ed had glanced at Vicki Stanton’s pillowy breasts and then, an hour later, at Mitch Ellington’s epically glorious arse in the boy’s change room and thought, huh, Houston, we might have a problem.
Respond a little, maybe give him a reason to want more than a one-night stand.
“Would you like a bigger spade for that hole you’re digging?”