crispycritter's Reviews (516)

Torn on how to rate this. Aiden was not Lucy Score's typical emotionally constipated alphahole who makes the FMC suffer for no reason for over 400 pages, so kudos for writing a nice, likeable MMC. But there was like . . . so much casual misogyny from our narrator and kinda from Frankie, our FMC, who was otherwise really likeable and actually had a backbone? This felt like watching one of those outdated early 2010s romcoms were we punched down on 'stick insect' women repeatedly for being vapid and shallow. It was a massive stretch to try to make me feel bad for the lead with a body like a Kardashian and a massive rack. Poor Frankie??? How dare she have curves - we're supposed to believe dudes find this gross?? Um okay.

This got significantly better after we got through the initial wedding scene. I was considering DNFing it. The characters were a little too over-the-top and cliche there, but things toned down significantly once everyone flew back home.

Like Néomi, I’m just here for a good time. 

PenDoug brought her usual flavor of unhinged darkish romance we all devour and pretend we don’t like. Gotta remove half a star for this being OVER FIVE HUNDRED PAGES - what is this, Krisjen with a J’s epic bang fest to Mordor? Defend this page count, PenDoug. And another half a star because

Krisjen with a J only banged FOUR BROTHERS! Unacceptable.

Anyways, it would be real cool if we get some other stories with the bros who didn’t get the girl. I’m not going to give any hints as to which brother she chooses (tsk tsk other reviewers), but if you’re a real PenDoug stan it won’t be at all a mystery. 

A solid Kleypas but not exactly the book I wanted to end the series. I could have used an epilogue with the rest of the Hathaways 😩

5 stars for Dodger the ferret, as usual. 

Still thinking about the clap back Leo gives to Harry. 
Leo: You forced my sister to marry you by compromising her. 
Harry: Yeah but at least she was still a virgin when we got married. Can you say the same about MY sister?
Leo: 🤷 Guess I’m just better at compromising ladies. 🫳🎤

Listen, I know a majority slice of M/M romance is written by straight cis women and there are tons of thoughts on why this is so. I’m not here to examine that. Just to say that of all the M/M romance written by hetero women I’ve read this was (1) the straightest; and (2) it has a super unsatisfying “HFN.” If your jam is reading about two dudes barely interacting outside of quarterly boring sex scenes for like 7 years and then agreeing to

date in secret for the rest of their professional careers but maybe indefinitely

then have at it. Why on earth does this book have a cult following? Filing this under “bamboozeled again.”

Good, raunchy fun. Extra love for the Clippy and Land Before Time references. These books speak to my inner horny 13 year old self. I love them. 

I kept seeing these beautiful quotes from OEWBG come up on the Tumblr-esque side of instagram, but unfortunately there’s no real narrative structure holding the occasional beautiful thought together. 

I generally love 1st person stream of consciousness books with meandering or borderline non-existent plots. I don’t mind purple or highly lyrical prose. This book is basically a walking trigger warning, but even that didn’t make me put it down- because I thought the violence and horror were handled well.

This book just did not work for me. Poetry isn’t really my jam and this just felt like it should have been a collection of poems. I didn’t feel like there was much reason or justification for it being a “novel.” I dunno, perhaps auto fiction is just not for me and that’s the issue. It feels awful to say, given the heavy subject matter of this book, but it was boring. Boring and dark. And that’s not what I enjoy reading. Respectfully DNFing. 

Well, I read the whole thing. 

Harry Rutledge, woof. An unapologetically bad, manipulative man. But daddy, I love him!