Kam
Okay, so this wasn’t as bad as it could potentially have been. I was somewhat skeptical of the whole “romance that breaks the fourth wall” premise, and while the execution wasn’t terrible, it’s not as spectacular as I was hoping it would be. At the very least, it functions, doesn’t get in the way of the rest of the story, and is sufficiently entertaining. I think the concept would work better in an audio format, as opposed to a written one.
Given the subgenre this novel belongs in, it makes sense that the book’s primary focus would be the sex scenes and the romance, and fortunately those aren’t too bad. The sex scenes are satisfactory and not overly egregious, nor as transgressive as some of the marketing around this book implies - even one notable incident with a garden hose is quite tame compared to what happens in some other books in the same subgenre. Readers looking for harder-edged erotica may find this somewhat blander than they’d like, but for readers who have considered engaging with darker subject matter but aren’t ready for the high-test stuff, this book makes for a decent stepping stone.
That being said, I think improving the character development, and working on building out the world, would do a lot of good things for this story - including the romances, and therefore the sex scenes. As things stand, the characters have the potential to be more interesting than they currently are, but that would mean they need to be characterized better. And as for the setting, that too could be made more engaging if there had been a bit more worldbuilding done to bring together the somewhat-disparate pieces of information that already exist in the story, and make them form a cohesive whole.\
Overall, this book isn’t all that bad a read, but it could be much better. While the fourth wall breaking romance aspect might work better on audio (maybe now’s a good time to pitch this to Quinn?) , the rest of the book isn’t all that bad; improvements in terms of characterization and worldbuilding would certainly go a very long way towards making this more than simply passably entertaining.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.
Okay, so this wasn’t as bad as it could potentially have been. I was somewhat skeptical of the whole “romance that breaks the fourth wall” premise, and while the execution wasn’t terrible, it’s not as spectacular as I was hoping it would be. At the very least, it functions, doesn’t get in the way of the rest of the story, and is sufficiently entertaining. I think the concept would work better in an audio format, as opposed to a written one.
Given the subgenre this novel belongs in, it makes sense that the book’s primary focus would be the sex scenes and the romance, and fortunately those aren’t too bad. The sex scenes are satisfactory and not overly egregious, nor as transgressive as some of the marketing around this book implies - even one notable incident with a garden hose is quite tame compared to what happens in some other books in the same subgenre. Readers looking for harder-edged erotica may find this somewhat blander than they’d like, but for readers who have considered engaging with darker subject matter but aren’t ready for the high-test stuff, this book makes for a decent stepping stone.
That being said, I think improving the character development, and working on building out the world, would do a lot of good things for this story - including the romances, and therefore the sex scenes. As things stand, the characters have the potential to be more interesting than they currently are, but that would mean they need to be characterized better. And as for the setting, that too could be made more engaging if there had been a bit more worldbuilding done to bring together the somewhat-disparate pieces of information that already exist in the story, and make them form a cohesive whole.\
Overall, this book isn’t all that bad a read, but it could be much better. While the fourth wall breaking romance aspect might work better on audio (maybe now’s a good time to pitch this to Quinn?) , the rest of the book isn’t all that bad; improvements in terms of characterization and worldbuilding would certainly go a very long way towards making this more than simply passably entertaining.
Originally posted at kamreadsandrecs.tumblr.com.