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A review by chronicallybookish
Play for Me by Libby Hubscher
Did not finish book. Stopped at 37%.
So this is me, officially DNFing this book.
I hate DNFing, and I especially hate giving up on a book that was sent to me by the publisher, but I’m 30% in and I’m still so bored.
As I write this, the book is one day post release and has a 4.04 average rating on goodreads and a 4.14 average on Storygraph. Though I think those numbers will drop in the weeks to come as more reviews filter in, they’re pretty good averages, even for a brand new release. So, if you’re looking forward to this book and think it’s something you’d like, don’t let me dissuade you.
That said, let’s talk about why this book didn’t work for me.
From the start, the writing didn’t grab me. There was a lot going on—a lot of very emotional, intense things happening to Sophie. I mean, her life is basically falling apart. But the narration feels distanced from the actual emotions. I wanted to feel more immersed in what she was experiencing, but I struggled to connect with her at all.
A handful of pages in, we get to the “inciting incident”, I suppose? Sophie decides to go teach at a boarding school. Inciting incidents are supposed to kick off the story, make things happen, but once Sophie gets to the school…nothing interesting happens for the next 100 pages that I read before giving up. She meets Jonas, her love interest, sure, but they barely interact, and the interactions they do have don’t drive the story or their relationship forward significantly/at all. Also, he’s just an asshole. This is supposed to be a grumpy-sunshine, enemies/rivals/whatever-to lovers type of book, but he doesn’t come off as grumpy-but-lovable. He just comes off as a condescending jerk who annoyed me to read about, for far too long. He was starting to have some redeeming qualities at the 100 page mark, but they weren’t enough to excuse the way he acted the first 100 pages. Not to mention there was no chemistry, no sizzle between Sophie and Jonas at all in the 1/3 of the book that I read. I think the author took the grump part of grumpy-sunshine and took it too far, leaving the reader with a character that has no personality outside of his grumpiness and is just generally unlikeable and uninteresting.
I mentioned that the “inciting incident” comes early on, but that nothing happens after that point. All it kickstarts is that it gets Sophie to the place she needs to be, but the moment that starts the ball rolling for the actual plot and character relationship isn’t until page 115. It did feel like things were starting to happen at that point, but it was just too little too late for me. Everything before that point could have been condensed into under 50 pages, and if it had, maybe I would have stuck with it. But by the time things actually started to happen, I was so bored of and disenchanted with this book and world and characters that I just couldn’t get myself to care.
I hate DNFing, and I especially hate giving up on a book that was sent to me by the publisher, but I’m 30% in and I’m still so bored.
As I write this, the book is one day post release and has a 4.04 average rating on goodreads and a 4.14 average on Storygraph. Though I think those numbers will drop in the weeks to come as more reviews filter in, they’re pretty good averages, even for a brand new release. So, if you’re looking forward to this book and think it’s something you’d like, don’t let me dissuade you.
That said, let’s talk about why this book didn’t work for me.
From the start, the writing didn’t grab me. There was a lot going on—a lot of very emotional, intense things happening to Sophie. I mean, her life is basically falling apart. But the narration feels distanced from the actual emotions. I wanted to feel more immersed in what she was experiencing, but I struggled to connect with her at all.
A handful of pages in, we get to the “inciting incident”, I suppose? Sophie decides to go teach at a boarding school. Inciting incidents are supposed to kick off the story, make things happen, but once Sophie gets to the school…nothing interesting happens for the next 100 pages that I read before giving up. She meets Jonas, her love interest, sure, but they barely interact, and the interactions they do have don’t drive the story or their relationship forward significantly/at all. Also, he’s just an asshole. This is supposed to be a grumpy-sunshine, enemies/rivals/whatever-to lovers type of book, but he doesn’t come off as grumpy-but-lovable. He just comes off as a condescending jerk who annoyed me to read about, for far too long. He was starting to have some redeeming qualities at the 100 page mark, but they weren’t enough to excuse the way he acted the first 100 pages. Not to mention there was no chemistry, no sizzle between Sophie and Jonas at all in the 1/3 of the book that I read. I think the author took the grump part of grumpy-sunshine and took it too far, leaving the reader with a character that has no personality outside of his grumpiness and is just generally unlikeable and uninteresting.
I mentioned that the “inciting incident” comes early on, but that nothing happens after that point. All it kickstarts is that it gets Sophie to the place she needs to be, but the moment that starts the ball rolling for the actual plot and character relationship isn’t until page 115. It did feel like things were starting to happen at that point, but it was just too little too late for me. Everything before that point could have been condensed into under 50 pages, and if it had, maybe I would have stuck with it. But by the time things actually started to happen, I was so bored of and disenchanted with this book and world and characters that I just couldn’t get myself to care.