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crispycritter's Reviews (516)
I understand sometimes things happen in romances for Romance Reasons, but the set up was a lil too cliche. I haven't bought into the initial conceit and I'm just going to nit pick. Bowing out now.
Look at me, DNFing books I don't like early and often! I'm no longer suffering through books I loathe just to write 1-star diatribes on here. Look at this character development.
Look at me, DNFing books I don't like early and often! I'm no longer suffering through books I loathe just to write 1-star diatribes on here. Look at this character development.
Many romance books have a problem - a MMC problem. You know them - fictional men who don't have distinct character arcs and just exist as personality-adjacent springboards for the FMC's hopes and desires. They wear glasses, they 'read romance' (yeah, that's all you say, and I side eye the heck out of that statement without more information). They're hot but they don't know it. They're not like other fictional men.
Charlie . . . *sigh* Charlie is not that book boyfriend. He’s so much better. That’s the only way I can explain BK making me root for AN ACTUAL FINANCE BRO who RECOMMENDS LISA KLEYPAS TO HIS GUY FRIENDS? Readers, Charlie is the blueprint. I yearn for Charlie. This is how you write a book boyfriend.
This was the perfect way to wrap up this series. BK Borison’s next book is already pre-ordered TYSM.
Charlie . . . *sigh* Charlie is not that book boyfriend. He’s so much better. That’s the only way I can explain BK making me root for AN ACTUAL FINANCE BRO who RECOMMENDS LISA KLEYPAS TO HIS GUY FRIENDS? Readers, Charlie is the blueprint. I yearn for Charlie. This is how you write a book boyfriend.
This was the perfect way to wrap up this series. BK Borison’s next book is already pre-ordered TYSM.
Sunshine x sunshine might be my favorite romance trope. This book was not good for my sugar cravings.
Look, sometimes we deeply, depply relate to books in a good way. Sometimes books just strike a nerve, in a very very bad way. Birding With Benefits was the latter.
I get the desire to write FMCs with flaws. Personally I think Dubb went a bit too far - making Celeste unlikeable/uninteresting/not engaging enough that I didn't want to root for her to fall in love. She was already reading as cringey 42-year-old Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Someone forgot to seal the time capsule! Another awful blast from the past has risen from the depths and she's just as cringey but with wrinkles! Representation? Making her a clueless, hurtful parent was the last straw.
Perhaps there is some third-act climax where Celeste has an ah-ha moment. But girl - this isn't women's fic. I'm here to watch two people fall in love. And Celeste's flaws as a human were pushed so far to the front of my mind that they undermined my interest in Celeste's love life and my belief that she was even capable of loving John. That she even deserved someone like him. The book's hook (Celeste steamrolling John into the "fake dating") was just one of many symptoms indicating she was not doing ok and was not ready to date. She needed to go to therapy, talk about her lingering bitterness towards her ex-husband, her need to control and dictate her daughter's future without taking her daughter's feelings into consideration (more steamrolling), and to understand why she was engaged in this relentless pursuit to say yes to weird shit. One of two requirements for a book to be a romance is that it ends with a HEA or a HFN - and I just don't see how the Celeste that I read about halfway through the book was gonna be able to get there with The Most Perfect Man Ever John (that's a diss).
Petition for someone to write a fanfic about John and Chris. I need a do-over.
I get the desire to write FMCs with flaws. Personally I think Dubb went a bit too far - making Celeste unlikeable/uninteresting/not engaging enough that I didn't want to root for her to fall in love. She was already reading as cringey 42-year-old Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Someone forgot to seal the time capsule! Another awful blast from the past has risen from the depths and she's just as cringey but with wrinkles! Representation? Making her a clueless, hurtful parent was the last straw.
Perhaps there is some third-act climax where Celeste has an ah-ha moment. But girl - this isn't women's fic. I'm here to watch two people fall in love. And Celeste's flaws as a human were pushed so far to the front of my mind that they undermined my interest in Celeste's love life and my belief that she was even capable of loving John. That she even deserved someone like him. The book's hook (Celeste steamrolling John into the "fake dating") was just one of many symptoms indicating she was not doing ok and was not ready to date. She needed to go to therapy, talk about her lingering bitterness towards her ex-husband, her need to control and dictate her daughter's future without taking her daughter's feelings into consideration (more steamrolling), and to understand why she was engaged in this relentless pursuit to say yes to weird shit. One of two requirements for a book to be a romance is that it ends with a HEA or a HFN - and I just don't see how the Celeste that I read about halfway through the book was gonna be able to get there with The Most Perfect Man Ever John (that's a diss).
Petition for someone to write a fanfic about John and Chris. I need a do-over.
Other things I did not like:
- Referring to a 35 year old character as middle aged (it's not). As being an old mom for having a baby at 35 (woof. Don't we get enough of this shame in real life? Couldn't we at least gently push back on this in fucking escapist fiction instead of making it seem like Maria made a 'middle aged' woopsie she and her partner are making the best of?).
- John, a 'real' woodworker, letting Celeste touch his tools. Doing anything sexual in his shop. I know, I know. It's just fiction. Get out of the shop, Celeste.
Includes such greatest hits as “he was as thick as a soda can” and “he hit my cervix and I liked it”
Bamboozled by the beautiful cover - this felt really similar to my reading experience with Forged by Magic. I really don't mind fantasies that have modern voices - Cin and her family were super cute - but I draw the line at completely nonsensical set ups and lore for THE QUEST and the introduction, randomly, of a nickname. Why you callin her "little rabbit" out of nowhere, bro? I blame the TickyTac.
This seems like another example of trad pub picking up an indie book that gained popularity on its own and simply repackaging - this shouldn't have been pushed out before some significant revisions. Whatever's cheapest and easiest, I guess.
This seems like another example of trad pub picking up an indie book that gained popularity on its own and simply repackaging - this shouldn't have been pushed out before some significant revisions. Whatever's cheapest and easiest, I guess.