the kevin's Extreme Disappointment Reads aka DNFs for June 2022
I said May was a bad month for DNF books, and somehow I ended up with even more in June. Probably a combo of bingo poor life choices, and also a midsummer reading slump.
Well, if you never try new things you never win? I guess?
One star: Ugly by Roe Horvat
One star: Bound to Two Bears by Kelex
Okay, now onto the actual DNFs!
Transformation by Kim Fielding
DNF at 50%
Yeah it’s only 80 pages but I was bored to death
Weird instant wolf-lust by orris
No I do not care to find out if it’s something fated matey bc it was just annoying
Boooooriinnnnggggg
Dysfunctional by Isabel Lucero
DNF at 30%
Dark romance? This was, at best, mildly dusty.
It felt like it was trying too hard for shock factor - mild bloodplay, a weird and useless visit to a kink club, edgy musings over murder....yawn. I mean one of them is a boring vigilante murderer. The other is an edgetastic Nice Guy.
There was a lot of infodumping via internal monologue. We get the entire murder history and justification of whatshisface via internal monologue that goes on for pages, rather than a more interesting conversation.
There was no tension, murdery or sexual. Things just kind of happened. Allegedly other MC is obsessed with MC1...I did not feel that either. He felt more like a mosquito.
Overall, this tried very hard and missed so very badly on a lot of things, but definitely the "dark" part. How does one make stalking and murder a snoozefest?
Devil by Joel Abernathy
DNF at 22%
This was a combination of intensely boring and dreadfully painful.
I thought, since this said cages in the blurb, there'd be kidnapping. And I was excited, because kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome is awesome, and also kidnapping would get this dweeb away from people in the ER. Unfortunately, no. No kidnapping.
• Our sad sack "doctor" MC - wow the medical content in here was atrocious. A patient with a gunshot wound to the chest comes in! Lets....x ray him. No??
• bad doctor MC, who is from a mafia family, is a complete doorknob. everyone knows, don't talk to the cops, ever. what does he do? talks to the cops. the other characters call him out/talk about him being a literal dumb babby, and I have to agree that he is dumber than a literal babby who still sees everything upside down.
• The MCs were wildly cardboard. By the time I quit, Chris the attending had the most personality. Which, well... and also i don't remember the MCs names, but I do remember chris. strong work.
• Lots of infodumping. In fact, just way too many words. Subtract about 150 pages of useless words and maybe this would be skimmable.
• Even the action scenes were low tension and boring, like the assassin man whatever the hell that shootout was??
• the characters had barely met by 20%!!! what the hell. boring as shit
Overall: meandering boring crap, lost track of what’s happening because it’s so drawn out and dumb, no kidnapping, cage is not literal, no romance, characters barely interacted
The Alpha Contract by Eliot Grayson
DNF at 63%
Originally, the one positive thing I was going to manage to say was that at least I finished the book....but I guess not. No positives.
1. Mismatched Mates #6
This is a lie. Standalone? Yes, 100%. Why is it even in this series then? This sets the wrong expectations, like them being wolves and magic mattering and also being good.
2. Werewolves??
Nah. Hope you like omegaverse going-to-work book. Yay!
3. Brook is an omega top!
lol jk
The book starts off with Brook saying he's a top, he likes to top, he'll bottom once for sake of mating, etc....then he becomes hypnotized by the knot. He's not even a power bottom. Just totally erases any prior sexual preferences in the face of alpha dick. Gross, boring.
I did not finish this, but I heard from people who did that this never changes.
4. Dimitri is straight!
Hahaha....yes actually that's true.
This isn't even GFY. Talk about yikes. Repeatedly says that Brook is 'just a hole' or 'just like a woman' kind of thing. I mean literally. Here's a quote.
“Unlike you, I can admit it when I enjoyed something. Yeah, it got me off. A tight hole will do that. Fucking you is kind of adjacent to what I usually enjoy.”
Wow that's super great. Love it. Can really see the romance developing. This is at 61% by the way. And no there is no tension to suggest that Dimitri actually feels otherwise.
Once again, people who finished this told me that he never even manages to touch Brook's dick or do anything even slightly gay. what the fuck
5. Brooks as a character
What a whiny little shit, jeez. He is wildly unsympathetic. Childish, immature tantrums. Maybe that's why no one at the company takes him seriously, if he's that petulant.
6. Dimitri as a character
who? oh you mean this cardboard cutout? haha stop it
7. Pop culture references from 40+ years ago! yay!
I loathe pop culture references in books. I hate them so much. This has a whole pile of very dated references, which is almost worse than the painfully more recent ones. Movies from the 1960s? Heck, movies from the 1980s?? A random childrens book that stopped being published in 1979? A poem from 1785?? (lol ok thats cheating its a famous poem)
(i googled everything in my rage)
who is supposed to know these things?? it communicates nothing if you don't already have background knowledge, other than the knowledge that you've missed something, and this is a freaking werewolf (allegedly) romance (allegedly) book (tbd) published in 2022.
Overall, ....what a mess. I recommend not reading this, or if you do, pretend its a brand new series and unrelated to the Mismatched Mates world. And even then, it's still not good.
The Parsley Knight by Dan Ackerman - ARC from Netgalley
See my ARC review here on the blog! (i think its the same text though)
The blurb sounded really neat, but unfortunately all of that was pretty much done with in the first 5%. Why this is 500 pages, I do not know.
• Pretty much everything is glossed over. Things just sort of happen to parsley knight, he rarely seems to have any agency. There's a lot of telling about things, without showing them happening. The scenes are short since nothing is expanded on, which leaves the book feeling very choppy.
• The world building leaves much to be desired - what on earth is going on? There's the fae Otherworld, some sort of semi-fantasy "real" world(?) where Christianity is still a thing....uhhh. There's magic, a couple different kinds, but that's not explored. Lots of lore dumping, but without context it's all just noise. Even their constant jaunts around fae world are just a list of places, because we only see like one in five.
• There's no depth to the characters or their emotions or their thought processes. Parlsey man has a strong response to killing a dude (idk how you become a knight without seeing bloodshed) and the solution is to just groom a horse. Yay?
• The romance.....uh no. The lack of emotional depth, or honestly any characterization, means they have instalove. I don't understand why they're attracted to each other, why they're together, why I should buy into it, anything. It's just another thing that happens. We gloss over all sorts of scenes where we could see them getting to know each other, but it's just a few sentences in retrospect.
Overall, basically everything happens passively off page. The characters are flat, their connection is unbelievable, and the world is a confusing pile of words. I do not know why parsley, I even word searched it and I still do not know.
Big Spoon & Teddy Bear by Tarian PS
DNF at 19%
This was remarkably creepy, gross, and poorly written.
The POV MC is the reason why people don't like to go to gyms. He:
• creepily lusts after every single dude in the gym, calls it a meat market, etc
• judges people for the clothes they wear
• immediately dismisses a heavy set girl who comes into the gym because he assumes she's a weight loss case and therefore irrelevant - this is obviously 1000% gross on its own, but it turns out she's a super heavy weight class olympic lifter potential, that he's supposed to coach. how can he coach anything if he makes these assumptions and cant even tell?? his first coaching attempt with her is also dismissive and misogynistic in attitude
• hates everyone who isn't exactly like him
• probably curls in the squat rack
Bonus garbage:
• weirdly racist
• i went on a three page gym tour for no reason
• sat through an entire employment spiel for no reason, I don't need to know their closing schedule
• the "warning" in the foreword is really gross pls stop sexualizing everything
In summary:
do not read this
Vengeful Lover by Jocelynn Drake
DNF at 35%
This went from blandly readable to just straight up bland.
It's got the hallmarks I've come to expect of this author, honestly - everything is rather surface, characters are somewhat two dimensional, and tense or emotional moments are interrupted by horniness, even when it doesn't make sense (like when Gabriel has spent a long time being beaten, frozen, and tortured.......lets jerk off in the shower.???)
I didn't expect them to be 100% soulless killers, but it was rather cheesy, their humanitarian killer ideals. There's ways this can work, but... "we'll only kill the bad guys!" is what a six year old declares.
Finally, the world politics was not my jam. It was strange to bring in such serious topics into such a light book. Also I just don't like reading about irl political things.
Overall, probably won't try this author again. Also Justin calling Gabriel "G-Love" made me regret having eyes.
Dating the Boss by Jaclyn Osborn
DNF at 20%
• both MCs personality is Horny
• Bad at Business: VP man decides to stay out late hooking up the night before a major important meeting with his CEO. ?? This is after hearing all about how his job is his life yadda yadda. Inconsistent and also annoying.
• Lots of secondary characters idgaf about, presumably from the first book. Entirely pointless scenes - one point, the MC goes to watch football with these people and falls asleep. Yes, I gained so much from this scene.
• Similarly, lots of random useless detail. Like the exact color and brand shirt a secondary character is wearing. I do not care.
• Reed was incredibly gross at the CEO woman they were visiting to pitch an ad campaign to. Calling her "blonde hussy" because he thinks she's looking at whatshisface a certain way? Mad that she didn't immediately sign on for their campaign because she has a meeting with another company the next day?? Do you know anything??? Stop demonizing the woman because she's beautiful and good at business, unlike yourselves.
In summary, all Horny, zero competence.
Coming Up for Air by Amanda Meuwissen
DNF at 14%
This launched me straight into like 400 side characters. Why am I reading about the apartment neighbors children when I barely know anything about the main characters?
I also found the writing to be weirdly...stilted? Not just the odd way Tolly speaks/thinks, since that's deliberate, but there's something just a little awkward.
Anyway, no thanks. I don't want to meet another 600 side characters.
Blade by Aidan Bates and Aly Lyda
If I gained a reputation for sleeping around, it would look like I wasn’t taking my role seriously, and it’d only prove to my dissenters that I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of the presidency.
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