May was not such a good month for books compared to April. Seven DNFs, most in the first week of May.
My review on Goodreads
DNF at 13%
When I read the blurb, I was expecting something a little more like PA from the assistant thing. What I actually got is like a manservant/butler/valet thing with lord-servant dynamics. Weird. It read very historical in its attitudes ("lines of propriety" and such out of place ideals)
I've been informed that this is an anime trope. Maybe it works there, it doesn't work here.
Given that assistant man is like personal servant, how can he still be innocent and uninvolved in mafia business? he's like a huge cotton candy fluff ball. a shrinking violet. you're washing blood out of a shirt get over yourself.
Mafia man's POV was very tryhard, so many swearwords in such a short period of time. It actually made it kind of hard to read. The "explanation" for this longstanding love, at least from mafia man's pov, was ...not. A line saying it was love at first sight pretty much and then random infodumping.
Edward was the love of his life, had been since he’d been graduating high school and Edward had just entered. He’d caught sight of Edward wandering the manor with his father shortly after Edward’s mother had left, walking out on the family and her son, who had been heartbroken.
This is the whole explanation. ???
So this doesn't work for me as the pining/in love with forever thing. approximately 50% of the internal monologue of mafia man is boring lust thoughts.
I don't think i got to the point that I found out why assistant man is allegedly in love.
There was so much description of inane chores that assistant man was very happy to do. like dusting. i don't care about his love of using dishwashers.
Overall, not what I was expecting, and even within what it ended up being, i did not like it.
My review on Goodreads
DNF at 12%
This author has a talent for mutilating the English language in very unique ways.
His head swam from the mix of impunity and embryonic arousal as he inhaled the faint scent of menthol aftershave.
excuse me, what? embryonic arousal??
The idea produced a wide smile of supremacy.
???
There was also the overexplaining:
Every footfall sounded like a gunshot—clear and loud
yes, that was the point of describing them as being “like a gunshot” thanks
Everyone was a mess in this, but not in a good or interesting way. In a “what kind of character is this supposed to be” kind of way. I don’t have patience for these flat boring race-obsessed doorknobs.
I’d also like to mention the incredibly weird Visa Infinite ad. First - why use a credit card you feel you have to explain to readers in a footnote, and second, everyone knows Amex Black is the gold standard Romance Billionaires Credit Card. This seems to be the Amex Centurion in the UK, or according to the one website i googled, the “visa infinite” is typically known as the Barclay’s Infinite. Sounds both fancier and more British. Stick to Amex and most people will actually know what it means.
Incredibly weird card choice, so with the footnote, this reads like a Visa ad. Or like…idk say black card. Wait why do I care, he’s supposed to be rich I would assume he has fancy credit card anyway. ugh.
Anyway. This is the second book I’ve tried by this author (i did finish the first!) and I am officially putting them on my DNR list for crimes against the written word.
* I want to stress that in no way is the mangled writing due to ESL reasons (potential assumption from author bio). The bad writing is 100% due to poor authorial choices.
My review on Goodreads
DNF at 22%
I had a few major issues in this, and I didn’t like anything about the story or writing enough to redeem them and so….DNF.
Issue 1: I would never ever let someone who punches a doorway take my dogs out, or be near them. Your response to frustration is to hit something? Get the fuck out.
Issue 2: We know from Simon’s POV that he can communicate by email/message just fine. Why does he not then take some agency into his own hands, and message Jack saying that he has some trouble talking to strangers? Then he wouldn’t end up in the whole situation of trying to talk and not being able to. It’d probably really lessen the pressure on him too, but that’d require doing something I suppose.
Issue 3: Jack solves this, by suggesting texting instead of talking. Look! Solvable!! Why didn’t you do this before, simon. There’s no thoughts about how its such a great idea/why didn’t i think of it from Simon to excuse it as an oversight, no, it’s just Magic Jack Solutions.
Issue 4: When simon first comes to the door - they have only communicated on the app at this point - Jack asks if he’s SimpleSimon, the username on the app. Simon gets angry about this. Why? Because he chose to use a name that bullies used to call him. Why would he do that??? I DONT KNOW
Issue 5: aka I gave up - they just sort of…start interacting, talking/messaging, and it feels very out of nowhere. Especially the sudden heart-to-heart. Weird progression. Especially after Jack going a bit Suburbia on his neighbor. That’s where I DNFd though.
Also, poor under appreciated Charlie. Why is jack such a rude asshole. Everyone but the animals and Charlie sucks here. Which also, there is such a thing as too many animals in a story, it felt like a roll call every time they were mentioned. Could have settled on a few less and the story would be the same while being more readable.
Overall, i had significant issues with the start of this story. I didn’t really like the writing or characters in general, so I’m just gonna officially DNR this author for my future happiness.
DNF at 67%
This had so many tropes I love: best friends to lovers, unrequited pining, fake relationship...it sounded so great! But it wasn't.
There was no emotion on page, and I never felt connected to the characters. They were all flat, including the secondary characters. I couldn't tell the dual first person POV apart. There was more time spent on describing the house renovations and meals than the characters feelings.
They sort of kissed once early in the book, but at 67% were still not together at all, and in fact Dalton was in the process of running away because he rudely read private letters (could see that coming from a mile away).
Speaking of Dalton - he had very little emotion and time spent thinking or processing the part where he got dumped at the altar! Where were the feelings here? He should have so many. No heartbreak, no introspection, no angst. There were some hints of internalized homophobia from a religious upbringing and crappy parents, but that also got dropped.
There were some downright bizarre writing choices: lots of "roaring with" or extreme levels of laughter, slightly odd word choices that didn't quite work, and just some weird descriptions in general.
I tried really hard to stick with it and see if it would improve, and it did not.
DNF at 36%
While the writing itself was generally unobjectionable, the way this story was playing out was just not working for me.
• First: instalust. I’m having a bad run of instalust at the moment apparently. Approximately every other paragraph is one of them lusting over and describing in excruciating detail the others body. Move on please! it is just so much. This does not substitute for real chemistry, or any kind of emotional connection.
• At times, the author pulled off some tense action scenes, with good suspense. At others…less so. In fact, the point I DNFd was one of those ruined scenes. What ruined it? Instalust!
The scene: they’re creeping up on a storage unit of suspicious files, where a hitman is removing said files…instead of a tense moment, danger, physical violence looming…they’re trading sexual innuendo and quips and rubbing against each other.
So basically, the plot that could have been interesting, is trampled by horny.
• There was one scene that made me angry: they hit on and make a random waiter wildly uncomfortable for laughs. teehee he’s young and gay and flustered lets make it worse for fun! the poor dude is working for like two dollars an hour, leave him alone
• A major pet peeve of mine is pop culture references in general, but this one in particular was extra bad. They reference a movie, not by name, saying something like “my drive for revenge is the same as Josie Wells”
first, ok edgelord
second, i get it, lots of revenge drive but that’s all i got. i googled Josie Wells - what returns is the death of a real person in 2022 (this book is from 2018 tbf). It turns out the actual 1976 movie being referenced is called The Outlaw Josey Wales. It’s not even spelled right! Jesus christ.
• The cover is like prime neckbeard pose ca. 2005
See my full ARC review on the blog
here as well!
I am fine with suspending disbelief for reading romance books, I wouldn’t be able to read so many otherwise. But even then, there are limits. This book far surpasses any ability to suspend disbelief because it is just so wrong on all counts.
The “accounting” needs to be called out, specifically. I buddy read this with an accountant friend, and wow. The entire premise is wrong, and I’m just gonna quote them so I don’t mess it up (as a non-accountant):
“Ben finds that the bank account doesn't match net income. This is not an exercise an accountant would perform. No one tries to trace on to the other. And why? Because it's almost impossible for the bank balance to match net income. That's not how accounting works. That would raise zero red flags, even to the most dedicated forensic accountant. There's a lot more that's wrong, but like, for the whole premise of the book to be wrong really grates.”
Even to me, the accounting details seemed wrong, which says a lot. It’s like they watched an episode of Ozark. (I have seen half an episode of Ozark and feel confident this is an accurate comparison)
Ben: The narration tries to build him up as smart, confident, something, but what’s shown is someone with no critical thinking and is a doormat. The mismatch is painful. If he were just supposed to be a wildly naive soggy breadcrumb of a person, that’s one thing. But the other MC says he’s smart, clever, Ben himself thinks things he would never have confidence to do…
Nick: He just didn’t make much sense to me. He’s a forty year old partyboy who’s also in the FBI, and has no friends because he’s a terrible person. He constantly hits on his married, straight partner “as a challenge” and also tries to provoke fights because he is a hungover disaster. Am I supposed to feel bad for him? I sure don’t.
The plot was baffling. What even is the FBI doing? Even with my normal levels of disbelief suspension, it’s baffling. What’s the point of having a partner if you don’t do anything with said partner? Nick is always wandering off alone. And like never checks in with the boss-person? Whoever it might be? This is something that I feel like shows up casually in any law enforcement book, but this one he’s just roaming free. It really lessened the FBI/law enforcement vibes of the whole thing, making it feel like its just two random dudes doing random things.
The romance was distinctly absent. It was all instalust. Telling me they have chemistry does not make them have it, and they most certainly do not have any.
A few side thoughts:
The setting - this is set in Boston, I guess. I kept forgetting, because I could barely remember they were in a city at all, as the location didn’t seem to matter.
Ben kisses Nick and Nick asks him to stop because kissing is tampering of evidence under "Title 18, US Code, Section 1512" and that means Sullivan, the boss, could get away with the crime.
First of all, this is ridiculous. Second of all, I have been assured by a lawyer friend that people who regularly refer to US Code sections never say it this way. It's always 18 USC section 1512. So if you’re gonna refer to the legal code of witness tampering, at least do it correctly. It's the overall interaction with the person that would be tampering, not "did you kiss, y/n”
Overall, this was a miss on all accounts. I do not recommend it.
DNF at 9%
I do not have patience for casual misogyny. No one needs this. Stop it.
"So, Emmett, you’re her knight in shining armor, at least for today. Tomorrow she’ll likely hate you for even presuming she needed rescuing, but that’s women for you, right? Or so I’m told. I wouldn’t know much about that . . . as it happens.” Holy fuck. My gaze slid away in pure mortification. I didn’t ramble or get tongue-tied. Ever.
shut up
I also do not have patience for mind-fried instalust. Where's the tension? Why can’t these people function at all when faced with an attractive person? Am I expecting too much?
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Overall, not the greatest month when it comes to stinkers. Still, there were plenty of good books outside of these!
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