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A review by juliereadsromance
The Favor by Suzanne Wright
4.0
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A strong 4/5 stars
I really enjoyed this book! Wright manages to employ the billionaire boss / fake dating trope without making it feel boring or redundant, which is a huge accomplishment, given how many romances are built on these tropes. It’s so easy for romance novels to feel repetitive, and this one doesn’t. I think the reason these tropes don’t feel stale here is that the characters are really well drawn, with interesting back stories, and the tension and action here is exciting but not so astronomical that it feels absurd. Sure, Dane is kind of mean, but he’s not cruel. He’s not a bully. And Vienna is sweet, sure, but she’s not passive or flat.
Also, Vienna’s father with dissociative personality disorder is a really interesting and well-integrated part of the story. Wright doesn’t make it a spectacle. She draws Simon as a full and interesting person who has a chronic medical condition, in this case DID. To me, Wright took some of the stigma and sensationalism out of the diagnosis, and I appreciated that as a kind of transgressive move by the author.
I have a few light criticisms. If I rated this book at the halfway mark, I would have given it 4.5 stars (rounded to 5). But, the tension in the book started to putter out for me in the third act. Also- it was like Wright *almost* wanted there to be a mystery involved, but it really wasn’t much of a mystery, or at least not a high stakes one. Basically, a couple people want to break up Dane and Vienna, and you’re not sure which one is doing which evil scheme. But it kind of doesn’t matter? So that aspect of the plot didn’t really keep me.
Overall, this was a hugely enjoyable book to read. Definitely a contemporary that struck that difficult balance between rom com and angst. It’s not some super light, pie in the sky, rom com. But it’s also not five layers of angst to pummel your way through. So it’s a contemporary romance that I think many readers will like!
A strong 4/5 stars
I really enjoyed this book! Wright manages to employ the billionaire boss / fake dating trope without making it feel boring or redundant, which is a huge accomplishment, given how many romances are built on these tropes. It’s so easy for romance novels to feel repetitive, and this one doesn’t. I think the reason these tropes don’t feel stale here is that the characters are really well drawn, with interesting back stories, and the tension and action here is exciting but not so astronomical that it feels absurd. Sure, Dane is kind of mean, but he’s not cruel. He’s not a bully. And Vienna is sweet, sure, but she’s not passive or flat.
Also, Vienna’s father with dissociative personality disorder is a really interesting and well-integrated part of the story. Wright doesn’t make it a spectacle. She draws Simon as a full and interesting person who has a chronic medical condition, in this case DID. To me, Wright took some of the stigma and sensationalism out of the diagnosis, and I appreciated that as a kind of transgressive move by the author.
I have a few light criticisms. If I rated this book at the halfway mark, I would have given it 4.5 stars (rounded to 5). But, the tension in the book started to putter out for me in the third act. Also- it was like Wright *almost* wanted there to be a mystery involved, but it really wasn’t much of a mystery, or at least not a high stakes one. Basically, a couple people want to break up Dane and Vienna, and you’re not sure which one is doing which evil scheme. But it kind of doesn’t matter? So that aspect of the plot didn’t really keep me.
Overall, this was a hugely enjoyable book to read. Definitely a contemporary that struck that difficult balance between rom com and angst. It’s not some super light, pie in the sky, rom com. But it’s also not five layers of angst to pummel your way through. So it’s a contemporary romance that I think many readers will like!