Ick

Too much fandom not enough story. Couldn’t connect 

Everything about this is awful 

This is trash

I was warned there would be lots of bug horror in this book, and I thought I could handle it since I made it through Camp Damascus okay. But then there was maggots. I really, really can’t do maggots.

I should have checked the content warnings before I picked this up. I absolutely love Akwaeke Emezi and her writing, but this book deals with child sex trafficking, as well as triggering my religious trauma. THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT IS A BAD BOOK. I didn’t DNF because it was bad. I’m just not in a place that I can handle it right now. I hope to come back to it eventually though.

I have really been trying to push with this series, despite not really loving any of the books, but I think I’ve finally had enough. For a lot of reasons (some are judgement calls, some are absolutely personal preference and probably wouldn't bother someone that loves the romance genre).

For one thing, it is uncomfortably positive about the military and police. It’s not anything overt like “Blue lives matter!” Or “Man, I sure love being in the army!” It’s just that a lot of the characters are currently in the army/police force, or else are ex-cops. At first, I thought maybe we were going to address why someone might leave the force, if it clashed with their personal morals. But instead, it seems that this is merely a device for storytelling. For example, one of the two leads in this book is an ex-cop who now works for a private security/investigation company, because it serves the romance better if he can spend all his time bodyguarding the other lead character, instead of having pesky things like job hours or superiors to report to. 

I also feel like, in this entire series, the author sort of plucks tropes out of the air and forces a story around them, resulting in a pretty lackluster product. In the second book of the series (Midnights Like This) it was supposed to be a “fake dating” dynamic, which usually entails a lot of longing and buildup and whatnot. But there was no buildup at all. They had feelings for eachother - and had sex with each other - right from the start. There was nothing we had to work for, aside from waiting for an apology from one of the leads, which after they were together without it anyway, didn’t really feel like it had much purpose.

In a similar vein, all the characters seem like cardboard cutouts of each other. The smaller guy is stubborn and sassy and emotional and a twink. The bigger guy is super protective and a “golden retriever”. The author sometimes gives them distinguishing characteristics, but only as an aside to say “this guy is this way” without ever actually showing it on page. Like in this book, the bigger guy (I cannot remember any of their names) is said to be the “strong and silent” type, not speaking much. But all throughout the book, we don’t see that even a single time. He talks a completely normal amount. 

This got weirdly religious randomly half way through. Also, again completely out of nowhere, there was suddenly books like Gulliver’s Travels and the Bible and Great Expectations in a fantasy world that until that point made no mention whatsoever of our world. Super threw me out of the story. Ick.

This book is just boring as hell

I would’ve loved this as a kid but I just couldn’t make myself pay attention