minsessed's reviews
342 reviews

My first Ali Hazelwood book, read on request by a friend, and I actually didn't hate it. 

The best part of this book was it's focus on the experience of women in academia, specifically STEM. It was quite interesting being in Olive's head and witnessing her struggles, both with her living standards as a PhD student and gaining respect from peers (men) in the field. I also liked the writing style. It was very much show not tell and it's the first het romance book I've read in a minute where I didn't feel like I was being spoonfed everything. 

However, I can't express the same love to the characters. I usually like my book men to be quiet and accessories to the fmc but it just wasn't working in this one. There's literally nothing to Adam except the fact that he's built like a fridge, is always dark and brooding, and he hates sugar. I liked Olive a bit more but I just couldn't get behind her decisions sometimes. I understand that fiction, especially romance, requires you to suspend disbelief but asking someone to kiss/fake date you so your best friend can date your ex guilt free is too ridiculous, I couldn't do it. 

Another thing I didn't like was the demisexual rep. <b><i>"It’s not that I want to not have sex. I just . . . don’t particularly want to have it. There is
something weird about my brain, and my body, and—I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I don’t seem to be able to experience attraction like other people. Like normal people."</i></b>  I didn't like how the author chose to have the character say there's something wrong with her as a way to describe her demisexuality. It's also just never revisited. 

Their relationship timeline was yet another thing I could not suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy. It did start off well enough and it's incredibly believable that Olive would have a crush on someone she's talked to a lot for a couple weeks but way too quickly, we found ourselves in love territory and that's where I had to check out. I was even more annoyed when she told him she loved him after a month... like girl please. 

I do not know what I was on but I liked the sex scene, and also when he almost beat up Tom for her. They were so hot. This will not be the end of my Hazelwood journey!!!

stayed up till 3am reading this and giggling to myself. oh I love them so much. kim secreton the only man ever

It's a different kind of pain when a book you hate has a gorgeous cover. 

It makes sense that the author is a film maker because a lot of the issues I had with the book would probably be less so if it were a show. The writing was clunky and filled with extensive descriptions of irrelevant characters and things. The fight/gun scenes were written with more detail than was accorded to the rest of the book.There was so much going on the book that I found it hard to scrounge interest for any part of it. The author also loved to place flashbacks in the most random parts of the book and make it about the most forgettable characters. After you use a singular writing device more than 5 times, it tends to lose its appeal. 

None of the characters in this felt fleshed out. They were all just strung together by concepts and random facts and it made it difficult to understand and/justify why they took certain decisions in the book. And not to rehash the 'male authors do not write female characters well' sentiment but in this case it's very much true with how the author wrote Bernadette. From the beginning we see Bern as an independent, strong woman when she had to take care of her ailing grandma with her friend Ella, and then we move forward a bit and suddenly she's submissive and withdrawn with Melvin. okay fine. She also finds out she's pregnant right before they flee the country. Knowing Melvin doesn't want kids, that they're both fugitives, and that her mother lost her life due to childbirth, I expected the author to use this as a way to give dimension to Bern's character, especially after Melvin choked her. Having her battle internal conflict and doubt about the pregnancy would have done wonders for this story but no! she's so accepting and docile about it. I was just about done with the book when the author decided that killing her off just as she was about to escape her abuser was a good idea, especially when it was very obviously so that we could spend the rest of the book reading about two men perform as alpha men over her death. 

I'd have been less pissed if we at least got a pov of Bern at the end since we're told she'd become a mermaid (the book contains bits of magical realism) but once again we're forced to spend the rest of the book in the heads of Mel, Kwesi and Hughes who are honestly very bland. 

There was no point when reading this that I could have said I was having fun .

I liked the concept of the book, and the stories were quite heartwarming. However, the writing/translation did nothing to properly push this fact. It's overly repetitive and way the characters' actions, outfit descriptions and just the prose in general, were written made this feel like I was reading a movie script.

My major gripe with this book is that the blurb is misleading. It's not that the things detailed in the blurb don't happen, they do, it's that they're such a small part of the general nothingburger that is this book. 

While I do not like to criticize how people respond or react to racism especially in its more covert forms, the premise of this book sets you up for rage and anger and then you get into the book and nothing happens. The letter that supposedly details our main character's experience in her work place and her anger about it all, only gets about 15 pages towards the halfway mark and then it's not discussed again up until the very end of the book. 

I wanted to see discussions about race, racism, sexism and all it's intersectionality in our mc's experience as a gay, black woman who's place and ideas in media are always dismissed as being "too Black." This book had all the ingredients to be something amazing and instead we got 70% that just followed Mickey running around with her childhood situationship while ignoring her girlfriend of 5 years lol. 

The ending further upset me because nothing is actually resolved. It just made an already bad book have an even worse ending and I hated it.