crispycritter's Reviews (516)

Whelp, I could have done without that epilogue.

It just doesn't compare to Rent: Paid in Full. Miller + Ryan forever.

I desperately want to understand the hype behind these books.

Another review where I loved this book so much I don't know how to talk about it. If I could give this book 10 stars I would. 

I made a valiant attempt to get through this. Referring to you-know-what as hot cream? Jail. Also why on earth was the FMC, a city attorney, so involved in two other characters' divorce? Show your work. What party owns the subdivision? What is the legal relationship of the parties??? Why is one of the divorce attorneys talking to you about privileged client information you don't need to know? Once the author referenced Suits & Legally Blonde I should have known this was going to be one of those books about lawyers written by a woefully uninformed nonlawyer - which might be my biggest trigger. At one point our super spunky lady lawyer says that the old, misogynistic attorney "probably thinks [she's ] an assistant or someone equally beneath him." You mean he thought you were the paralegal??? Also RUDE, we do not talk down about paralegals (aka "assistants). Jail.

Another ruthless DNF. First person single POV reads like it was written by a middle schooler and I can already tell it’ll be a slog to get through. 

Super jarring to have our teacher of the year nominee MMC make a snap judgment that his new student (the love interest’s daughter) would be “a pleasure to have in class” simply based on her appearance. Isn’t this bad teacher 101? Judge a book by its cover? Additional negative points for the strange conclusion that this five year old chose to look nice and it wasn’t her dad wanting her to look nice for school. It’s giving “bad kids are just inherently bad and it has nothing to do with their home life.” 

This is the second Good Morning America romance pick that has been a major disappointment and I’m starting to think I can’t trust their romance recs (I'm looking at you, Dead Romantics). Their other recs are generally solid. But it’s like they pick whatever shitty zero spice romance is new and call it a day. 

This book is some bizarre, unpleasant time capsule - Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Love Actually - somehow published for the first time in 2020.  Quinn is the same emotionally constipated buffoon we used to root for without the charm of Colin Firth or Hugh Grant.

This book has massive plotting and character issues. It’s a romance without a romance. Quinn, our love interest, is barely on the page. And when he is he is a WALKING RED FLAG as both Minnie's internal diagloue and her friends keep wisely advising her. It's a weird flex in a romance novel to ask us to root for the dude that Minnie's gut is telling her is a bad idea. Most of the relationship between Quinn and Minnie seemingly develops off-page.

We can't count the flashback scenes as romantic development since they don't realize there was any connection between them until the end - and even then - they only connect one of the moments together.

BAD, SOPHIE COUSENS. THIS WAS BADLY DONE! What relationship we do see develops through her desperately showing up at the same place she thinks he’ll be on Sundays. Girl, he has your phone number. If he wanted to he would. Quinn doesn't seem to treat his other friends this badly. Seriously, this dude is presumably using the phone to text & make plans with his friends, how in 2020 is he going old school and just hoping to run into you?!?! It's not romantic, he just doesn't care. I have been you, Minnie. I have dressed up and desperately waited to run into a guy where our classes overlapped because he couldn't be bothered to call. Jesus. I don’t want to root for a relationship like this.

Oh you guys kissed and he ghosted you? Girl no.

I just feel like this whole book was Minnie setting “boundaries,” not being able to enforce them, and then rationalizing letting Quinn treat her badly. Once again, I don't want to root for this. Expecting a guy like this to change is a fantasy. And Cousens just did not have the writing chops to pull off the magic required to make me believe.

So much fricken time spent with secondary characters and I kept thinking WHY? How is this furthering the relationship between Quinn and Minnie? I’d say we get a 70% Minnie and her friends 30% Minnie and Quinn split if we are being generous. Reader expectations are arguably the most important factor in whether someone will enjoy a book or not. This was marketed as romance, not women's fic, not general contemporary fiction whatever The cover tagline is, "How many changes to meet your perfect match?" I expected the romance to be at least equal to whatever personal growth Minnie experiences in the book. And yet - it read like a subplot. That is incredibly frustrating. At 60% I kept thinking wow, we must be getting to the romance soon, yeah? Nah.

The time jumps are nonsensical and confusing. I'm not sure what they added other than showing Quinn in relationships with perfectly fine partners. That's not giving me a lot of confidence in the long-term viability of the relationship. One girl likes taking selfies, mercy me. Minnie arguably has bigger 'flaws' that Quinn seems to be unaware of - she's basically Briget Jones 2.0 Hot Mess Express. But getting her life together. Most of the characters in this book, Quinn included, act as though Minnie is not a fully fledged adult and needs some looking after. Is Quinn going to feel resentful that he's basically dating a stand-in for his mother because he doesn't believe Minnie can live independently? THAT is a real, fundamental deal-breaker. 

We eventually realize

that Quinn and Minnie have been unknowingly circling each other for years and oh yeah, some of these plot strings are never connected satisfactorily. Example 1: Quinn and Minnie never learn that they were chatting with each other as kids over how to assemble Minnie's second-hand Lego Millennium Falcon. What even is editing anymore if we're violating a basic narrative principle? *cough* Chekhov's Gun *cough* Example 2: The Indian street dog. They both fed/gave attention to this dog. Minnie has a pic of Leila, the dog, and her as her phone background - we are never shown Quinn seeing the pic and recognizing it. 'Tee hee it's such a small world.' NO. STRAIGHT TO JAIL. Example 3: The party at Bambers when Quinn and Minnie kiss as teenagers. Quinn realizes that this was Minnie when she uses the same unique term in the present. Cousens tells us that Minnie realizes he's also that boy from Bambers, but how?? We don't see that initial scene from her perspective and as far as I know there was nothing particularly unique about Quinn that night. Didn't she say she drank so much she threw up on herself or something? Was she even sober? What jogged her memory?? TELL US!!! I COULD GO ON.

 

Yet another book where the character thinks, oh he could be happy with me for a few months before his commitment issues rear their ugly head and we break up - no wait I’m lonely let’s bone - and as the reader I’m sitting here like no girl your first instinct was good. Not enough was shown on the page to really believe these two were gonna make it and Quinn was in a good place for a serious relationship. 

Romance authors, I will keep saying this - telling us your MMC is going to therapy doesn’t get them a free pass to be a dummy for most of the book and then just end up with a happily ever after. You. Need. To. Show. Us. They’ve. Actually. Changed. Ya know what woulda been a real easy way to show Quinn was making progress? He has a massive aversion to talking on the phone. Maaaaybe he starts calling Minnie and they have actual conversations together. Just a thought.

Both their shitty moms magically change for the better at the end. Poor Quinn & Minnie. Incredibly cheap and unsatisfying. Their moms just needed a friend. Bam. Problem solved. 

DNF at page 300 because the romantic conflict was solved ages ago, the “danger” the FMC was in is immediately mitigated, and now all they’ve been doing for 200 pages is boning. It’s just info dumps and knotting and I’m not sure where we’re gonna go in the last 40% of the book so I will respectfully see myself out.