I've begun posting initial reaction videos on TikTok. You can see the video for this book here.t And if you want to look, all of my KU highlights/comments are also publicly visible. This one has...a lot.

But, suffice to say my initial reaction (at 9:30 this morning when I finished, compared to the 1:30 in the afternoon now) is the same: Disappointed with this problematic book.
First, yes: I am a queer person. Pansexual nonbinary, to be exact. I fully recognize that I am not the voice of all queer people, nor should I be. So, objectively say...this book is harmful. Is every other queer person going to agree with me? No, of course not. Are more than a few going to? ...Yeah. I think they will.

The entire plot hinges on the idea of a gay man willingly going to a wedding with a straight man, as a ruse. As a joke. Neither of them (and it is alluded a few times in the novel that they do this frequently...) actually THINKS THROUGH what that could mean. Nate never considers the fact that photos of the two of them "gaying it up" at this wedding will be leaked to the media (which, as someone in the public eye, he should DEFINITELY be aware of). Also: where was the foresight of what he'd tell his family the next time he brought home a woman? (Again, the idea that Nate WAS in fact straight, and not gay --as he discovers through exploration).

I am also REALLY not okay with the premise of a man wanting to piss off his *mother* that he would attempt to derail is ex-fiancé's wedding with this nonsense. While yes, she cheated on him and that's not okay... be a fucking grown up, Nate. Disappoint your awful Mom by saying: "No, sorry, I'm not comfortable going that wedding." Not to mention that his relationship with his parents is another thing that is not consistent. He puts up with them to go to the family cabin every summer?? He's got quite a lot of money. Why doesn't he just buy his own fucking cabin???

The writing itself was incredibly inconsistent, and I feel like this did not get the editing attention that the first one did. I rated the previous book 4 stars! I really enjoyed it! I thought this author showed some serious promise! But this one makes me wonder what the fuck I was thinking! There are points where I feel like the author completely ditched all of her skill at the door.

For instance, I have a note on the sentence: "Being full-named by Collin was incredibly hot". ...That is the most infuriatingly bland sentence, leading into a spicy scene, that I've ever read in my LIFE. It was the first instance in my life where I had a complete understanding of the phrase "show don't tell". HOW was Collin "full-naming" him "hot"? What kind of reaction did it incite? Give me SOMETHING to make me CARE.

A lot of times I thought to myself, "Cripes, this sounds like something I wrote when I was in middle school, for fucks sake..." **IF YOU ARE GOING TO WRITE ADULT RELATIONSHIPS YOU NEED TO WRITE LIKE AN ADULT.**

The sex scenes themselves were...a bit much. I'm not going to make any assumptions about the author and their sex life, but dear god. I've questioned a LOT of female authors when they're writing anal sex scenes in particular, but even the handjobs and blowjobs in this book were just... Oof. Tough to read. And there seemed to be MORE of them than in the previous book, which didn't add anything to the story. At least the scenes in the previous book, while bland, did actually add *something* to the plot itself. A couple of these were just sex for sex sake, which could have happened off page. I also did note, because *my god*, I wish more authors would recognize this: not all gay men have anal sex and I *really* wish that Collin would have explained to Nate that while *he* enjoyed it, he shouldn't feel pressured to try it. ESPECIALLY since there is this huge stereotype that all gay men are either a top or a bottom, etc. But of course, this is also a scenario of the "Magic Prostate", so....

Another reviewer mentioned something along the lines of "this made me understand why people complain about cishet women writing gay fiction", and...yeah. This is definitely right up there in problematic examples for me. And I have read a LOT of cishet woman written MLM novels over the years. I even enjoy some of them! But it's true that cishet women basically dominate the MLM romance genre, writing books specifically for other cishet women and completely disregarding actual gay men and gender-nonconforming folks actual experience.

I fully admit that I have written some problematic things myself in the past (my first released versions of [b:Real Talk|54173346|Real Talk (Dark Little Town #1)|Sam LaRose|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1592582690l/54173346._SY75_.jpg|76268393], I accidentally included a conversation where a character calls a genderqueer person a "muff-diver"...and I definitely knew better between writing that scene and releasing the book!), even *as* a queer person! But I am also much more aware of those problematic stereotypes and verbiages. So, my suggestion to this author (and honestly some of these readers) is: learn about queer people. Gay men are not just women with penises. Please be more aware and attempt to find queer beta readers or at least beta readers who are aware of diversity issues. You may even want to invest the money in hiring a sensitivity reader, because I am 100% sure that they would have ripped you a new one for this book.

Woo. Okay. So. There is a third book already loaded on my app. Am I going to read it? Yes. Because it appears to be a Close Proximity Trope (unlike the Fake Relationship Trope, which I already admit that I hate and was a bit leery of this book going into --but it can be done well! One of my favorite books I read this years so far was Fake Relationship!), like the first book in this series. HOWEVER, if it has the same issues as this book did...I'm afraid I'm just going to have to drop this author. I'll continue being disappointed because I really, really did believe that Hannah Henry showed a lot of promise. But this book just made me sad and feel a more than a bit defeated when it comes to queer representation and accuracy. I hated how wildly different it was from the first book in the series with it's inconsistencies and the lack of growth. Worst, this was a *regression* for the author. So, so disappointed.