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kyatic's Reviews (974)
I had such high hopes for this one (I called it the Gay Book of the Year when my preorder arrived) and maybe I expected too much, but dang. No.
The good:
- diverse characters; one protagonist is Chinese-American and the other is Jewish. Their identities are clearly drawn and well shown, rather than just being tokenistic, especially Emma's.
- fairly realistic depiction of what it's like to work on a TV show, although I've worked on them for nearly a decade, so the errors did bug me a bit more than they might most readers.
- I liked the family relationships, particularly the very realistic sibling dynamic between Emma and Avery. That was probably the highlight of the book for me.
- the #metoo subplot was done very well, although I think it came in too late and was dropped too early. The way that women are marginalised in the TV and film industry was explored pretty accurately and I liked how it was resolved.
The bad:
- the plot was so, so, so phenomenally slow. I don't think anything of consequence happened in this book until I was more than halfway through. It took me nearly 3 weeks (!!) to get through the first half. After the halfway point, it picked up, but if I were the sort of person to abandon books, I would have DNFed this one.
- it's billed as being a celebrity romance, but it's... not. Jo, the one who's apparently famous, goes out and about without ever being recognised. She goes to baseball games and restaurants, waits outside for taxis, and nothing happens. They spend the entirety of the book just working in an office together. The office might be on a TV set, but it's still an office. This is just a glorified office romance. I would have loved to have seen more of how Jo's fame impacted her, because it was only ever mentioned in passing.
- constant telling and not showing. Everything in this book is stated. There are whole paragraphs where every sentence starts with 'Emma went ___. Jo said _____. Emma then did ____. Emma thought ____. Then Jo went _____.' It's so bland, and there's hardly any interiority to the characters' thoughts; we're just told what they're thinking all the time, rather than seeing how what they think might impact on their behaviour.
- there is literally no chemistry between the two mains at all. None. Sometimes, we'd get a little 'Jo thought Emma was beautiful,' but that's not enough to show a frisson of attraction. They just seemed like a boss and her employee for the whole book. They had hardly any meaningful conversations.
The ugly:
- most of the book is taken up with Emma and Jo having a huge wedge drawn between them, and the reason for it is incredibly low stakes / low drama, which meant I just didn't care. It made Emma look incredibly petty to be so angry about absolutely nothing, which meant I didn't warm to Emma at all.
- the dynamic between Jo and Emma is... skewed. Jo has all the power, being apparently famous and also Emma's boss (and sidenote: having Emma call Jo 'boss' all the time was clearly supposed to be hot, but it really wasn't) and I don't like relationships where one person has all the power. 'Tis not my thing.
- every single problem the two of them had could have been summed up if they'd just had a single conversation with each other that wasn't "hi boss," "hi Emma," "do you want coffee?" "yes please," "OK, I'll get the coffee," "thank you, Emma."
- we wait until 98% of the way through the book, and then the big get together scene is summarised. In a single paragraph. With no direct speech. I nearly threw the book at the wall after slogging through the whole thing for no payoff. And sure, there's a saucy scene after that, but I wanted love confessions! I wanted some evidence that they knew the ramifications of Emma dating a celebrity! I wanted boundary negotiations! And all I got was 'they sat on the couch and talked about x and y. Jo said that she thought x and Emma agreed but also said y.' That's not how you do romance, folks.
I'm glad that a mainstream publisher is finally publishing f/f romance - I believe this is their first! - but romance needs a few things to work. It needs interesting characters, chemistry between the leads, a well-drawn situation that keeps the lovers apart, and sharp writing. Unfortunately, this really didn't have any of the above. I'd read other works from the author, but I think they needed a lot more editorial guidance.
The good:
- diverse characters; one protagonist is Chinese-American and the other is Jewish. Their identities are clearly drawn and well shown, rather than just being tokenistic, especially Emma's.
- fairly realistic depiction of what it's like to work on a TV show, although I've worked on them for nearly a decade, so the errors did bug me a bit more than they might most readers.
- I liked the family relationships, particularly the very realistic sibling dynamic between Emma and Avery. That was probably the highlight of the book for me.
- the #metoo subplot was done very well, although I think it came in too late and was dropped too early. The way that women are marginalised in the TV and film industry was explored pretty accurately and I liked how it was resolved.
The bad:
- the plot was so, so, so phenomenally slow. I don't think anything of consequence happened in this book until I was more than halfway through. It took me nearly 3 weeks (!!) to get through the first half. After the halfway point, it picked up, but if I were the sort of person to abandon books, I would have DNFed this one.
- it's billed as being a celebrity romance, but it's... not. Jo, the one who's apparently famous, goes out and about without ever being recognised. She goes to baseball games and restaurants, waits outside for taxis, and nothing happens. They spend the entirety of the book just working in an office together. The office might be on a TV set, but it's still an office. This is just a glorified office romance. I would have loved to have seen more of how Jo's fame impacted her, because it was only ever mentioned in passing.
- constant telling and not showing. Everything in this book is stated. There are whole paragraphs where every sentence starts with 'Emma went ___. Jo said _____. Emma then did ____. Emma thought ____. Then Jo went _____.' It's so bland, and there's hardly any interiority to the characters' thoughts; we're just told what they're thinking all the time, rather than seeing how what they think might impact on their behaviour.
- there is literally no chemistry between the two mains at all. None. Sometimes, we'd get a little 'Jo thought Emma was beautiful,' but that's not enough to show a frisson of attraction. They just seemed like a boss and her employee for the whole book. They had hardly any meaningful conversations.
The ugly:
- most of the book is taken up with Emma and Jo having a huge wedge drawn between them, and the reason for it is incredibly low stakes / low drama
Spoiler
because Emma is literally just annoyed that Jo has made friends with Emma's sister- the dynamic between Jo and Emma is... skewed. Jo has all the power, being apparently famous and also Emma's boss (and sidenote: having Emma call Jo 'boss' all the time was clearly supposed to be hot, but it really wasn't) and I don't like relationships where one person has all the power. 'Tis not my thing.
- every single problem the two of them had could have been summed up if they'd just had a single conversation with each other that wasn't "hi boss," "hi Emma," "do you want coffee?" "yes please," "OK, I'll get the coffee," "thank you, Emma."
- we wait until 98% of the way through the book, and then the big get together scene is summarised. In a single paragraph. With no direct speech. I nearly threw the book at the wall after slogging through the whole thing for no payoff. And sure, there's a saucy scene after that, but I wanted love confessions! I wanted some evidence that they knew the ramifications of Emma dating a celebrity! I wanted boundary negotiations! And all I got was 'they sat on the couch and talked about x and y. Jo said that she thought x and Emma agreed but also said y.' That's not how you do romance, folks.
I'm glad that a mainstream publisher is finally publishing f/f romance - I believe this is their first! - but romance needs a few things to work. It needs interesting characters, chemistry between the leads, a well-drawn situation that keeps the lovers apart, and sharp writing. Unfortunately, this really didn't have any of the above. I'd read other works from the author, but I think they needed a lot more editorial guidance.
Will I stop reading strange and hilarious romance novels and get back to my usual literary tastes at any point soon? Probably. Will it be today? Nope.
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