charlottesometimes's Reviews (3.33k)

 This was a real disappointment to me. So many heavy issues were covered in such an inconsequential way that it was almost offensive, especially when you consider the amount of stereotypes being reinforced and the overly neat happy ending. It was effectively 300 pages of an unlikeable egotist moaning that his life, which has been pretty great so far, might get a little difficult. But then it doesn’t. So that’s nice for him, I guess?

 Why are books that fall into the women’s/light/romance area always about a white middle class woman with a silly name who is kinda a basic bitch, but obsessed with herself and her quirks? I don’t want to fall into the trap of condemning an entire genre, especially one mainly by/for women, but as with all genres there is a lot of very bland, non-challenging stuff filling up the shelves and the stereotypes, and squeezing the more interesting content out. I guess at least this particular book lets you know immediately, via the cynical title, that it’s more concerned about sales and box-ticking than doing anything interesting. Unfortunately it’s also one of those many romance novels whose protagonist is a writer of romance novels, so it has an extra level of defensiveness which makes it even harder to enjoy.
Our lead couple fall into standard, dangerous “they hate each other, so they’re made for each other” territory, with the usual constant negging and mansplaining from the man and self-hatred and sulking from the woman. At one point the male protagonist (MP) says that the female protagonist (FP) “acted like a fairy princess who’d been raised by woodland creatures.” which made me hate them both. On the one hand, who is he to judge? On the other, she doesn’t sound great. The thin plot laid before us relies on the vagaries and prejudices of the publishing industry to settle an inconsequential bet with ill-defined parameters. Meanwhile we spend far too much time eavesdropping on the protagonists’ dull conversations, watching their fantastically boring relationship form and waiting for the inevitable conclusion.
TBH, this book is just not for me, as I don’t really care if generic heterosexual people couple up or not. Especially when I can tell from the blurb that they will.
It also encourages the dangerous “fixing a broken man” trope, which is constantly force-fed to women to convince them to put up with awful men. Why is it the ideal for a woman with a weak sense of self to become a troubled man’s “sentient safety blanket”?

Some of the Boring Things FP Does
Throws away a coffee she has purchased from a small retailer, and replaces it with an apparently superior giant iced Americano from Starbucks.
Tells us about how she spends hours playing spider solitaire.
Compares herself to Meg Ryan
Describes MP as her crush, even though they are both adult who are involved with each other.
Gets unbearably sexually excited every time MP so much as brushes her upper arm with his thumb.
Goes line dancing
Says "“you got a marriage tattoo.” ... “That’s some Cary Grant–level romance shit.””. Is is? What does that even mean? How many tattoos did Cary Grant have?
References “Everybody Hurts” by REM approximately 67 times.

Some of the Most Ignorant or Unpleasant Things MP Does
Mocks FP for being frightened when she unexpectedly falls over him in the dark.
Forces a whole doughnut into his mouth at once, whilst talking.
Grabs FP by the waist and spins her away from him into a car park, then drives off without checking if he’s injured her.
Says “I’ve never trusted myself with anyone … soft.” Worrying.
Spends all sex scenes just pushing FP to-and-fro like a marionette.
Jumps out at FP whilst she’s in a dark basement on her own.

Lowest Stakes Supposedly Dramatic Moments
Accidentally going to a book club. Oh no! What will FP and MP do?
Finding out that your adult love interest was previously divorced. “My brain felt like a top spinning in my skull. It didn’t make sense. …The store seemed to wobble around me.” Seems a touch over the top for something with very little apparent current relevance.

Least Believable Memory
Re: a single teenage party. FP describes “flashes of memory from that night that still made me buzz: his hands on my hips, my hands on his neck, his face against my throat, his arms around my waist” So you were somehow blackout drunk to the extent that you only have memory flashes, but have also never forgotten the way he leant against your throat sexily?

Worst Sexy Sentences
“His Sexy, Evil mouth tightened.”
“ “The heat in my hips spread toward my center, curling around my thighs like kudzu.”
“ “He tasted like vanilla and cinnamon” “ No, he didn’t. Don’t lie.
“ “I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this turned on.” “ Calm down FP, you’re only kissing in a car.
”his mouth pressed into my cheek, my chin, my eye, catching tears as they fell until, gradually, I settled. Or maybe just ran out of tears. Maybe realized I was sitting in Gus’s lap like a toddler, having my tears kissed away.” - What’s worse? The mouth in the eye part, or the toddler part?
”How many times could we possibly end up in situations like this? And how long until I lost what little self-control I’d managed to maintain?” I agree FP. I am real sick of these “oh no, we’ve touched!” moments. Maybe you could just fuck and get it over with? But no, because “He’d be freaked out, afraid that I was too into him, wanted too much from him, that he was bound to destroy me. And meanwhile I’d be … too into him, bound to be destroyed.” So actually, maybe drop the whole thing and run from this nightmare relationship?
”we were desperate to plumb the depths of each other.” ☹
”Gus laughed into my mouth, which somehow made me feel even more desperate for him.” It did?
The sex scenes are also weirdly repetitive. A couple of times I thought I’d actually skipped back a page or two, as the language was so similar.

Clearest Sign of Someone Being Manipulated
“I’d started getting emotionally attached to someone who’d done everything he could to convince me not to."
No he hasn’t FP. He’s done nothing but grab you and kiss you and trap you in cars and hint that he’s into you but too damaged to say so, so you need to pursue him. He’s had you dangling on a string all book. Open your eyes before its too late.

Weirdest Character Trait
“I wondered if it was a lifetime of being treated as if she were sweet, because of her figure and face, that had given her the almost toothy handshake she offered.”
What? Toothy handshake? What?

Most Concerning Plot Development
It gradually becomes clear that MP has been basically on-and-off stalking FP since Uni. Which makes sense, as he is obviously an abusive obsessive. Doesn’t seem all that much of a red flag for her though.

Most embarrassing Moments
The letters-from-the dead-dad wrap up plot device. Mawkish and over-convenient.
The romantic conclusion, when MP does a totally unnecessary Say Anything / dancing in the rain romantic moment just because the book is nearly over.

Summary: two boring, needy people decide to start going out with each other because there’s nothing stopping them, to a background of some publishing/writing backstory that means the author didn’t have to do research on other careers.
It won’t last. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ended up killing her. 

 For a short book, this is incredibly repetitive. It follows the standard “man finds a beautiful, silent mermaid and falls in love with her” storyline, slowly. Every minor thing that happens is told to us by general narrative, female protagonist’s thoughts, male protagonist’s diary, and then via annoying mermaid sing-song. And then sometimes there may be a conversation about it where the same characters repeat the same information to each other, without adding anything. It also has a lot of really bad sex, and is obsessed with telling me about all the male characters ‘cockstands’. I’m not really bothered, TBH. 

Generally speaking, all characters of both genders are sex-obsessed and don’t like women too much. Women are referred to as bitches countless times, to no particular end and without anyone objecting. I’m also not a big fan of the racial politics. The main female antagonist’s motivations are sexual jealousy and hatred of white people, which is uncomfortable, especially since she is never fleshed out and given a more complex inner life, but rather is presented merely as a troublemaking villain. The female protagonist is a white women, and the main source of all our information via the island’s racial situation. The mermaid is a POC, but also a kinda rhyming sex-baby rather than a character. Which isn’t great.