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chronicallybookish's Reviews (1.53k)
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I think two things are true of this book:
- When it comes to character work, pacing, and plot, this is the weakest book in the series.
- Some of my lack of enjoyment also stemmed from this simply Not Being For Me, and using tropes and character archetypes that I, personally, do not tend to jive with.
Add both of those together, and you’ve got a book that really let me down. However, I don’t think that will be the case for every reader, at least not to the degree it was for me.
Can’t Get Enough, the third and final book in Kennedy Ryan’s Skyland series, follows Hendrix, a childless by choice woman in her 40s who is a talent agent and business woman at the top of her game. She’s never had time for men, until she meets Maverick, the (soon to be) newest Black billionaire. Mav is not only gorgeous, but he’s someone Hendrix can really talk to about her struggles with her mother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis.
The book started strong. I enjoyed Hendrix’s narration, I was invested in her life and especially what was going on with her mother, and I enjoyed her and Maverick’s first meeting. Their chemistry was sizzling, but I was also invested in the emotional connection they seemed to be developing. Unfortunately, I felt like that emotional connection never really developed after that point, and that is one of the major ways that this book lost me.
Maverick and Hendrix’s first interaction proposes their connection as a deeply emotional one–this is someone with whom Hendrix can fully open up to about the difficulties of her mother’s degrading mental state. However, after that first meeting, the focus of their interactions swiftly becomes physical attraction and the tension of “I want to hook up with you, but I can’t because I work with your ex and it would be messy.” That whole trope is generally one that doesn’t work for me, especially when the focus is so heavily on sex and not an emotional connection or love.
We are told that there is an emotional connection there, but it is definitely on the back burner of the book’s focus, and it is based on only two aspects:
- The fact that neither want [any more] children. Which is important in compatibility, but also rather superficial.
- The fact that both of them had experience with loved ones who had Alzheimer’s–Hendrix’s mother and Maverick’s grandfather. I think that this connection was utilized very well in the character’s first meeting, but the ball really dropped after that. For something that is presented as foundational to their emotional connection, we get all of three conversations on the topic, and that is kind of the extent of the emotional development of this relationship.
Throughout the book, we would go several chapters at a time without even a single mention of Hendrix’s mother’s condition. I understand that this was supposed to be because Hendrix was in denial, but I just don’t think it was executed well. You can have a character who is in denial or trying not to think about something, but it should still be having some observable (to the reader) impact on the character and the story, and there were far too long of stretches where it simply did not.
When Hendrix was not actively with her mom, she seemed so disengaged from what was happening to her, and that just didn’t feel realistic to the situation or to Hendrix’s character. This aspect also felt really disconnected from the way the book presented itself in the author’s note at the beginning of the book and by the first few chapters of the story.
We begin this book with a big focus on Hendrix’s mother, and Hendrix even outright saying that this was something that was going to be a very big focus and priority in her life, and how she had been in denial but she was no longer going to be. And then as soon as Hendrix leaves her mother’s house, it’s like all of that went out the window and Hendrix is more preoccupied with her attraction to Mav and the drama it could cause with her work.
Despite this disconnect, Hendrix still felt like a fleshed out character to me for the most part. Maverick, on the other hand, did not. This book is told in dual POV, though we spend maybe a total of 1/3 of the book with Mav, compared to 2/3 with Hendrix, and pretty much every minute spent inside his head I just kept wondering why? I don’t feel like I got anything out of his POV, and his motivations never felt adequately grounded or explored in the narrative. The story would briefly touch on his motivations:
- To buy the basketball team his dad used to coach for, but his reasoning behind that was so brushed over. We get maybe a page about why he wants that, and then the actual meaning behind it never really comes up again. It felt like there was so much under the surface there with Mav’s childhood and the way his father was treated when he coached there (and why he no longer does? There must be a story there and we get zero information) that could have been delved into and really helped flesh out Maverick’s character, but the book never went there.
I wonder if perhaps Mav and his dad are recurring characters from Ryan’s previous Hoops series? Because the way the book handles the topic feels like it is expected to have an emotional resonance and mean something to the reader that I simply lacked the level of detail to feel in any lasting way. It felt like there was a story there that I did not know, but was supposed to feel the emotional impact of anyway. Even if that is the case, I feel like too many readers are coming into the Skyland series having never read the Hoops series, and we needed more information on page in this book.
- To “get” Hendrix. So much of Maverick’s inner monologue in the middle 2/3 of the book was basically “I am the kind of man who gets the things he wants, and what I want is Hendrix.” The ways in which he tried to “get” her (which is also a trope I hate, it feels entitled and borderline objectifying to not respect someone’s decision to not date you) were so superficial and basically just throwing money at the problem instead of again, trying to build an emotional connection.
I also just felt like there were a lot of loose threads in his history and character that made him feel not only two dimensional, but careless. The biggest of which was his daughter. He allegedly was her primary caretaker for years, and calls her the best thing that ever happens in his life, and yet she barely plays a role in his life or thoughts. I get that she’s currently living with her mom, but she’s only just moved out within the last month or two before the start of the story and he doesn’t really seem to miss her or care? It’s such a shallow, nonexistent portrayal of parenthood, and that surprised me because of how thoughtfully and intimately Kennedy Ryan portrayed motherhood and fatherhood in the first two books in the series.
The second of which is his relationship with Zere. He was in what seems to be a very serious relationship that spanned three years, and he seems completely unimpacted by the dissolution of it. He cares about Zere’s feelings on the matter, but doesn’t seem to have any of his own, which doesn’t, at least for me, paint him in a great light.
That said, there were parts of this book that I enjoyed. I appreciated Hendrix as a character, and I really enjoyed the parts of the book that focused on her and her mom. I also loved the storylines about the Aspire Fund. I wish the book had focused more on those aspects and fully cut out the talent manager and Zere drama. The second job really took away from the heart of the story, and where Hendrix’s passions truly seemed to lie, and bogged the story down. There were so many storylines going on at once that it often felt distracted and each storyline didn’t get the development and attention it deserved. Some of them simply needed to be cut so that the scope could be narrowed and the overall story could be stronger.
I will still be reading and looking forward to whatever Kennedy Ryan puts out next because Before I Let Go is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and This Could Be Us was also very strong, but unfortunately, Can’t Get Enough was a major let down for me.
slow-paced
I truly have no idea how to review this book. I don’t think that the first ⅔ of this book needed to exist. It was painfully boring to read, and I felt so disconnected from the characters and events occurring. However, finally, in the last 200 pages, the story felt grounded and progressing, the characters finally felt like themselves, and I was hooked. The final act of this book was phenomenal. I couldn’t put it down, and it left me gasping and desperate for book 4 (heartbroken I’ll have to wait 2+ years).
But, if this book wasn’t part of one of my all time favorite series, I likely wouldn’t have pushed myself through the slog of those first 400 pages in the first place. I’m really glad I did push through, and definitely think it is worth it to do so, even if only to be able to continue the series when the final installment releases in (hopefully) 2027.
I’m giving the book an average rating of 4 stars, because I really don’t know. But if I could rate it separately, I’d give the first 400 pages 3 stars, and that feels generous, but the final 200 are an easy 5 stars, and one of the best things that I’ve read all year.
