ARC Review: Everything for You by Chloe Liese (Bergman Brothers #5)
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Horse rating: -10 of 5 horses
ARC difficulty: sledding hill
Expected publication: May 10th, 2022
I want to give props to this book for having an authentic “I’m surrounded by straight people” vibe. It was accidental, but strong work.
Here are my criticisms: I believe I managed to avoid all spoilers, but as with any ARC review, please use caution for your own enjoyment.
There is a time jump over the first two years of their relationship
We are told about the instant antagonism between Gavin and Oliver when they meet, coming from Gavin. We don’t get to see this, because there’s a four year time jump. For an enemies to lovers slow burn, this is a critical part of the developing relationship! Excising it like this means that there’s nothing to support this animosity outside of what characters tell the reader, rather than an organic build.
This leads into my main issues with the romance, where I felt there was a lack of actual, believable connection.
The romance and lack of emotions
This does not count as a slow burn in my opinion, due to the pace at which they got together.
Their relationship is never really developed. They go from “we hate each other” (mostly off page) to “hooking up is a bad idea” to “I love you deeply and curiously forever” without actually spending time with each other in between.
They read like cardboard cutouts to me, so the scenes that could have been tender and loving fell completely flat. Even the caretaking scenes, that should have been emotional, felt impersonal to the point that it could have been a caretaker doing it.
They’re being forced to work together as co-captains, why couldn’t there be slow-building reluctant admiration and feelings, instead of lust that turns on like a light switch? It would be both more believable and a more enjoyable read if we saw them building a reluctant emotional connection that was followed by attraction, rather than just random horniness.
This would have made the aggressive caveman protectiveness/possessiveness Gavin displays at random more believable too - as it was, it felt wildly out of character as I didn’t believe he had that depth of feeling for Oliver. Or he has a temper problem, I suppose.
At the end, the author attempts to retcon these multiple unseen years of animosity as unacknowledged love and attraction. This undoes the whole plot, removes all tension of them being enemies or even meanies to each other, and just makes it deflate with a sad balloon noise.
Oliver and Gavin as characters
Oliver:We’re supposed to see Oliver as sunshine, bringing joy and fun back to Grumpy Gavin, and singing musicals. Specifically Hamilton. Hamilton is mentioned a lot.
What I actually got was a rude person with no boundaries. He criticizes choices Gavin makes - home decor, eating habits, clothing choice, etc - in a way that’s supposed to be funny, but just ends up being rude. A larger issue for me was that he never seems to grow as a person - its always about him and himself and his feelings, and has to be shoved into vaguely considering how Gavin feels at the end.
Gavin: Gavin is kind of ignored in this book. Oliver spends so much time focusing on himself, and Gavin focuses on Oliver, to the point that Gavin feels like an outline of a person. His personality is mostly swearing, and being grumpy. He eventually assimilates the Musical Hamilton Personality Trait as well.
Does this truly work as a standalone?
Technically yes, in that I can read it without any background knowledge on the series.
I have also only read the first in this series, a couple years ago. I didn’t have any trouble following this. That being said, the cameos/presence of the rest of the family was done in a very blocky and confusing way. The entire family is introduced en masse, and that is a lot of people. Working them in when they fit, rather than just a roll call of old characters, would be a much better read in general, let alone for new readers.
However, it also does not work as a standalone, due the overwhelming presence of other couples and their stories. This ended up reading like a series of epilogues for the previous MF couples disguised as a gay romance. We have:
A FMC overcoming her commitment hesitations after three years and getting hitched.
A vow renewal for a couple who had a secret wedding.
A random beach wedding for idk who.
Magical Babies for a couple who struggled with babies (for whatever reason) in their book. Two magical babies.
It would be a much better use of page space to develop the relationship between the main characters instead of continuing four(!) separate couples stories.
The sex scene
I’m addressing this specifically because this is the authors first MM, and when it gets Gay, there tends to be issues.
I want to hedge this with the fact that I do not know if all of the sex scenes in this series are as vague and weird as this. As it is, I am suspicious that the author chickened out of writing an actual gay sex scene. It was an odd blend of specific sharp moments, followed by Vaseline Over the Camera style vagueness and purple prose.
It is so vague it reaches Fifty Shades of Grey levels, and I didn’t understand what was happening here:
If you can’t say the word butthole, then you’re not old enough to write sex scenes.
I’d also like to note that penetrative sex is not necessary for a romance. This is pretty heteronormative assumption, and while it does prevail somewhat still in the MM romance world, but they didn’t have to have anal. If the author was uncomfortable writing it, it could have been skipped. Or even fade to black!
The romance book meta commentary
I loathe this.
As an example:
This is simply not how people talk, and it feels almost self-congratulatory about being a romance novel. It’s extremely cringy to read. Instead of talking about how deep romance books are, it would be better to actually build the emotional depth in this book.
Anxiety and emotional comfort cheese
One of the things this author seems to make as her personal brand is the disability/conditions rep. In this book we have anxiety and chronic pain.
Anxiety: I am familiar with anxiety, and I had problems with how it was handled here.
As someone with travel anxiety, I do not understand why Oliver, someone with self-admitted medication and therapy for said anxiety, does not have medication for travel. This is entirely reasonable thing to have! The fact that Oliver’s panic attack on the plane is solved by hand holding - when Gavin was one of the sources of his stress! - was uncomfortable to me.
Panic attacks don’t need a trigger, they can just happen. It is suggested otherwise in this book.
This book also insinuates, accidentally I suspect, that people with anxiety can’t be happy. This is categorically untrue. I suspect it’s a phrasing failure rather than what the author meant to say, but it would be best to …hmm not say that.
Lactose intolerance and emotional support cheese: This started off quirky, whatever, he eats cheese to feel better. However! We get a horribly incorrect usage of lactose intolerance later, with said cheese.
It was not necessary to give Oliver lactose intolerance, especially if you’re just going to get it wrong. He has a violent reaction to eating way too much brie, and this sets off an event in the book.
I have lactose intolerance. Cheese, even a soft cheese like Brie, does not have high lactose content. Additionally, he says he took a lactase pill - these work extremely well. It says on the package, that you can take multiple pills if you are going to eat lots of dairy. He does not. His amount of reaction is the level I’d expect if he ate like four gallons of milkshake. Not some cheese. In summary: not necessary, and wrong.
I won’t comment on the representation of chronic pain, as I am not familiar with it.
Author soapboxing, aka people don’t talk like this
There were many times in this book where characters would go off into unbelievable lectures disguised as conversations, on various topics like periods, toxic masculinity, believing in yourself, romance books, etc. None of it was realistic, and I found it to be overwrought and dramatic. It doesn’t read like anything approximating human speech.
There were a lot of attempts at poetry, which ended up being purple prose. Sometimes it went so purple that I didn’t know what it was trying to say. It loses its impact if everything is dramatically described, especially appearances.
Soccer, and the rest of the team
For a soccer book, I felt it was pretty light on the actual interactions and team dynamic. There were games, and a few practice scenes, yet it felt oddly left out. I think because the actual co-captaining was not relevant, there was less actual import for the sport to be present.
This was just weird enough I have to mention it. There’s like three or four other named characters on the team, and as far as I can tell, they’re there to show you who the author is agreeing with in a scene. Or crying over a pep talk. All of them react in concert, and it is always strange.
Expositional conversations via secondary characters
All of the emotional realizations and moments are had by massive and blocky expositional conversations, most often with side characters. The side characters who exist solely to tell the MCs how they feel, and expose insights into them we would never have gotten otherwise. They also serve to force a sudden change in course for the plot.
This happens because the characters do not seem able to realize these things for themselves, or about themselves, unless they’re told how to by some side character. Sometimes the characters know things that there’s no way they could have realistically known, like the emotional state of others without evidence the reader can see, or events that happened nowhere near them.
Miscellaneous details
Ted Lasso as inspiration: It’s noted by the author that this was inspired by Ted Lasso. I have never seen this show, and know nothing about it. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t matter at all as far as required knowledge. Maybe it’s relying on some characterization developed in the show - a common downfall of converting fic - and I don’t see it because I don’t watch the show. If that’s the case, then…well, don’t do that.
The three year old: This is the magical happening baby. I do not understand why it was necessary to read about the three year old mimicking the sex noises of her parents. This contributed nothing but a deep wish for me to unread it. The toddler also had Woke Baby moments, like telling an MC that she “respects his boundaries”. Three year olds do not understand boundaries!
General flow of scenes: There’s times where the characters went into long meandering thoughts in the middle of an action scene, and it was confusing. Oliver mused on the relationship and Gavin mid soccer game. It doesn’t belong here. Maybe a single quick thought, but these went on too long, and ended up making the scene very choppy.
There’s just some downright odd stuff, like continuity errors, and people having too many hands for the activities they’re doing, and 24yo soccer players having endless hankies like a clown magician.
Overall, I suspect if you liked the other books and don’t know about anxiety or lactose intolerance, then you’ll like this too based on reviews. It’s a choice to put a MM book mid MF series, that’s for sure. As a prolific MM romance reader, I was intrigued to read this authors first MM romance. Plus, I do love a good enemies-to-lovers sports romance. Suffice to say, I do not recommend it for MM readers.
While there’s no wedding in this book, and very little actual relationship, rest assured, dear readers, I'm sure you’ll get their wedding in like book 7.
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions are my own.
Here are my criticisms: I believe I managed to avoid all spoilers, but as with any ARC review, please use caution for your own enjoyment.
There is a time jump over the first two years of their relationship
We are told about the instant antagonism between Gavin and Oliver when they meet, coming from Gavin. We don’t get to see this, because there’s a four year time jump. For an enemies to lovers slow burn, this is a critical part of the developing relationship! Excising it like this means that there’s nothing to support this animosity outside of what characters tell the reader, rather than an organic build.
This leads into my main issues with the romance, where I felt there was a lack of actual, believable connection.
The romance and lack of emotions
This does not count as a slow burn in my opinion, due to the pace at which they got together.
Their relationship is never really developed. They go from “we hate each other” (mostly off page) to “hooking up is a bad idea” to “I love you deeply and curiously forever” without actually spending time with each other in between.
They read like cardboard cutouts to me, so the scenes that could have been tender and loving fell completely flat. Even the caretaking scenes, that should have been emotional, felt impersonal to the point that it could have been a caretaker doing it.
They’re being forced to work together as co-captains, why couldn’t there be slow-building reluctant admiration and feelings, instead of lust that turns on like a light switch? It would be both more believable and a more enjoyable read if we saw them building a reluctant emotional connection that was followed by attraction, rather than just random horniness.
This would have made the aggressive caveman protectiveness/possessiveness Gavin displays at random more believable too - as it was, it felt wildly out of character as I didn’t believe he had that depth of feeling for Oliver. Or he has a temper problem, I suppose.
At the end, the author attempts to retcon these multiple unseen years of animosity as unacknowledged love and attraction. This undoes the whole plot, removes all tension of them being enemies or even meanies to each other, and just makes it deflate with a sad balloon noise.
Oliver and Gavin as characters
Oliver:We’re supposed to see Oliver as sunshine, bringing joy and fun back to Grumpy Gavin, and singing musicals. Specifically Hamilton. Hamilton is mentioned a lot.
What I actually got was a rude person with no boundaries. He criticizes choices Gavin makes - home decor, eating habits, clothing choice, etc - in a way that’s supposed to be funny, but just ends up being rude. A larger issue for me was that he never seems to grow as a person - its always about him and himself and his feelings, and has to be shoved into vaguely considering how Gavin feels at the end.
Gavin: Gavin is kind of ignored in this book. Oliver spends so much time focusing on himself, and Gavin focuses on Oliver, to the point that Gavin feels like an outline of a person. His personality is mostly swearing, and being grumpy. He eventually assimilates the Musical Hamilton Personality Trait as well.
Does this truly work as a standalone?
Technically yes, in that I can read it without any background knowledge on the series.
I have also only read the first in this series, a couple years ago. I didn’t have any trouble following this. That being said, the cameos/presence of the rest of the family was done in a very blocky and confusing way. The entire family is introduced en masse, and that is a lot of people. Working them in when they fit, rather than just a roll call of old characters, would be a much better read in general, let alone for new readers.
However, it also does not work as a standalone, due the overwhelming presence of other couples and their stories. This ended up reading like a series of epilogues for the previous MF couples disguised as a gay romance. We have:
A FMC overcoming her commitment hesitations after three years and getting hitched.
A vow renewal for a couple who had a secret wedding.
A random beach wedding for idk who.
Magical Babies for a couple who struggled with babies (for whatever reason) in their book. Two magical babies.
It would be a much better use of page space to develop the relationship between the main characters instead of continuing four(!) separate couples stories.
The sex scene
I’m addressing this specifically because this is the authors first MM, and when it gets Gay, there tends to be issues.
I want to hedge this with the fact that I do not know if all of the sex scenes in this series are as vague and weird as this. As it is, I am suspicious that the author chickened out of writing an actual gay sex scene. It was an odd blend of specific sharp moments, followed by Vaseline Over the Camera style vagueness and purple prose.
It is so vague it reaches Fifty Shades of Grey levels, and I didn’t understand what was happening here:
We kiss, his hand wandering me, touching me *there,*
If you can’t say the word butthole, then you’re not old enough to write sex scenes.
I’d also like to note that penetrative sex is not necessary for a romance. This is pretty heteronormative assumption, and while it does prevail somewhat still in the MM romance world, but they didn’t have to have anal. If the author was uncomfortable writing it, it could have been skipped. Or even fade to black!
The romance book meta commentary
I loathe this.
As an example:
“I mean, romance novels, while focused on romantic relationships, also spend a lot of time excavating the main characters’ interiority—their past wounds, how those drive their present behavior and motivations, what fuels their dynamic with their love interest and the rest of the characters. I was simply going to use a certain trope to illustrate my point, but speaking plainly will do.
This is simply not how people talk, and it feels almost self-congratulatory about being a romance novel. It’s extremely cringy to read. Instead of talking about how deep romance books are, it would be better to actually build the emotional depth in this book.
Anxiety and emotional comfort cheese
One of the things this author seems to make as her personal brand is the disability/conditions rep. In this book we have anxiety and chronic pain.
Anxiety: I am familiar with anxiety, and I had problems with how it was handled here.
As someone with travel anxiety, I do not understand why Oliver, someone with self-admitted medication and therapy for said anxiety, does not have medication for travel. This is entirely reasonable thing to have! The fact that Oliver’s panic attack on the plane is solved by hand holding - when Gavin was one of the sources of his stress! - was uncomfortable to me.
Panic attacks don’t need a trigger, they can just happen. It is suggested otherwise in this book.
This book also insinuates, accidentally I suspect, that people with anxiety can’t be happy. This is categorically untrue. I suspect it’s a phrasing failure rather than what the author meant to say, but it would be best to …hmm not say that.
Lactose intolerance and emotional support cheese: This started off quirky, whatever, he eats cheese to feel better. However! We get a horribly incorrect usage of lactose intolerance later, with said cheese.
It was not necessary to give Oliver lactose intolerance, especially if you’re just going to get it wrong. He has a violent reaction to eating way too much brie, and this sets off an event in the book.
I have lactose intolerance. Cheese, even a soft cheese like Brie, does not have high lactose content. Additionally, he says he took a lactase pill - these work extremely well. It says on the package, that you can take multiple pills if you are going to eat lots of dairy. He does not. His amount of reaction is the level I’d expect if he ate like four gallons of milkshake. Not some cheese. In summary: not necessary, and wrong.
I won’t comment on the representation of chronic pain, as I am not familiar with it.
Author soapboxing, aka people don’t talk like this
There were many times in this book where characters would go off into unbelievable lectures disguised as conversations, on various topics like periods, toxic masculinity, believing in yourself, romance books, etc. None of it was realistic, and I found it to be overwrought and dramatic. It doesn’t read like anything approximating human speech.
There were a lot of attempts at poetry, which ended up being purple prose. Sometimes it went so purple that I didn’t know what it was trying to say. It loses its impact if everything is dramatically described, especially appearances.
Soccer, and the rest of the team
For a soccer book, I felt it was pretty light on the actual interactions and team dynamic. There were games, and a few practice scenes, yet it felt oddly left out. I think because the actual co-captaining was not relevant, there was less actual import for the sport to be present.
This was just weird enough I have to mention it. There’s like three or four other named characters on the team, and as far as I can tell, they’re there to show you who the author is agreeing with in a scene. Or crying over a pep talk. All of them react in concert, and it is always strange.
Expositional conversations via secondary characters
All of the emotional realizations and moments are had by massive and blocky expositional conversations, most often with side characters. The side characters who exist solely to tell the MCs how they feel, and expose insights into them we would never have gotten otherwise. They also serve to force a sudden change in course for the plot.
This happens because the characters do not seem able to realize these things for themselves, or about themselves, unless they’re told how to by some side character. Sometimes the characters know things that there’s no way they could have realistically known, like the emotional state of others without evidence the reader can see, or events that happened nowhere near them.
Miscellaneous details
Ted Lasso as inspiration: It’s noted by the author that this was inspired by Ted Lasso. I have never seen this show, and know nothing about it. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t matter at all as far as required knowledge. Maybe it’s relying on some characterization developed in the show - a common downfall of converting fic - and I don’t see it because I don’t watch the show. If that’s the case, then…well, don’t do that.
The three year old: This is the magical happening baby. I do not understand why it was necessary to read about the three year old mimicking the sex noises of her parents. This contributed nothing but a deep wish for me to unread it. The toddler also had Woke Baby moments, like telling an MC that she “respects his boundaries”. Three year olds do not understand boundaries!
General flow of scenes: There’s times where the characters went into long meandering thoughts in the middle of an action scene, and it was confusing. Oliver mused on the relationship and Gavin mid soccer game. It doesn’t belong here. Maybe a single quick thought, but these went on too long, and ended up making the scene very choppy.
There’s just some downright odd stuff, like continuity errors, and people having too many hands for the activities they’re doing, and 24yo soccer players having endless hankies like a clown magician.
Overall, I suspect if you liked the other books and don’t know about anxiety or lactose intolerance, then you’ll like this too based on reviews. It’s a choice to put a MM book mid MF series, that’s for sure. As a prolific MM romance reader, I was intrigued to read this authors first MM romance. Plus, I do love a good enemies-to-lovers sports romance. Suffice to say, I do not recommend it for MM readers.
While there’s no wedding in this book, and very little actual relationship, rest assured, dear readers, I'm sure you’ll get their wedding in like book 7.
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions are my own.
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