lizshayne's profile picture

lizshayne 's review for:

2.0
adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I wonder if I would have liked this book better had I not read it in about 48 hours. It does go very quickly and the conceit is cute. Granted, I'm more arranged than accidental marriage, but YMMV.
Basically I had three issues with this book and two of them were from the latter half. (If I'd been annoyed at the beginning, I probably would have stopped).
1) I don't love how the neurodivergent MC was portrayed, although I feel differently about it knowing that this book is nearly a decade old. (Time flies, as they say.) I probably would have been less grumpy about it - both the "I'm not autistic, I'm on the spectrum" stuff and the fact that Partick seemed to actually have generalized asshole disorder that was less about what constitutes an appropriate remark and more about what would read as hurtful. I did appreciate, though, the extremely nuanced handling of "this is why I didn't want to tell you because you'd stop treating me like me", which was excellent.
2) The older I get, the less I find "the mob guy is alright, actually" to be an interesting story. I do think it is possible and important to hold the tension that people who do systemic evil can be incredibly kind to their families and communities, but I don't think this story succeeded in holding that tension or in reckoning with the evil that came in from a plot device. Which like, fine, romance novel serial. But also I can have my own standards if I want them! It is my right as a reader.
3) This problem could have easily been solved by two people having a conversation. The more I read, the higher my bar for this plot device. This does not clear it. 
I do wonder if this is also a decade thing - is it possible that finally, 5784 years since the start of the Hebrew calendar, we have outgrown this trope and this book is just from a previous era? I hope so.

This one is my fault - a story written as a serial has very repetitive sex scenes and, by the end, I was really just skimming them thinking "ehh, okay, this orifice again."
 

It was cute, I obviously finished it and extremely quickly so like, there's that. I just wish I enjoyed all of it instead of enjoying part and enduring the other part.