Jet Silver
This is the most "book I wouldn't normally read" of the year, probably. Old school, tradpub, M/F romance. I picked it up because a handful of readers I follow rave about it and it sounded like something I wouldn't hate.
I didn't hate it—it's very well written—but I can't say I liked it either. It's widow/rake slow burn, and the characters are well drawn and fully rounded. The writing style is detailed, immersive and propulsive. I liked spending time in this world. But the author's done such a good job at flawed characters that while I liked the leads as characters, they're both such assholes in an unfun way that I wasn't particularly invested in their relationship. Maybe in an ESH, you all deserve each other kind of way. In fact every character sucks in some way or another. That's not necessarily a criticism but I personally need to like at least one character to love a book.
There's the kind of ugh gender essentialism that's just in the water for a book published in 1991, and I also wasn't a fan of the no-no-yes trope. That said! This is a good book. Turns out I still don't like romance-as-the-A-plot books nor reading about rich people being miserable assholes to each other, though. BUT I also devoured all 500-odd pages of it in two days. This isn't an anti-rec. I was never bored. Just not a book for me.
This is the most "book I wouldn't normally read" of the year, probably. Old school, tradpub, M/F romance. I picked it up because a handful of readers I follow rave about it and it sounded like something I wouldn't hate.
I didn't hate it—it's very well written—but I can't say I liked it either. It's widow/rake slow burn, and the characters are well drawn and fully rounded. The writing style is detailed, immersive and propulsive. I liked spending time in this world. But the author's done such a good job at flawed characters that while I liked the leads as characters, they're both such assholes in an unfun way that I wasn't particularly invested in their relationship. Maybe in an ESH, you all deserve each other kind of way. In fact every character sucks in some way or another. That's not necessarily a criticism but I personally need to like at least one character to love a book.
There's the kind of ugh gender essentialism that's just in the water for a book published in 1991, and I also wasn't a fan of the no-no-yes trope. That said! This is a good book. Turns out I still don't like romance-as-the-A-plot books nor reading about rich people being miserable assholes to each other, though. BUT I also devoured all 500-odd pages of it in two days. This isn't an anti-rec. I was never bored. Just not a book for me.