A Toy Story

 Read for a reading challenge - a book with a Y in the title. For some reason, the cover made me think of Christmas - maybe because it has a present with a red bow? Anyway, this story has nothing to do with Christmas. The writing was... fine. There were several editing mistakes but nothing too terrible. I never really connected with the FMC and felt like I couldn't get a grasp on her character; the MMC was fine-ish. I just wanted more from him. He also said a few borderline misogynistic things, but considering when the book was published, I let it slide. His dirty talk didn't really do it for me, either, but that's personal preference. Overall, the characters could have been better developed, but maybe the lack of development is simply due to the length of the story. 

Though I wasn't exactly enjoying the story after a certain point, which I'll cover in a second, I did feel like an extra chapter was needed to wrap things up. There is no conclusion to the toy reviewing job - did the new articles go over well? We never find out. 

Now the things I really didn't enjoy: The MMC's dog gets hit by a car. This came out of nowhere, drastically altered the tone of the story, and just seemed unnecessarily dark. The dog is okay thankfully, after emergency surgery, or I probably would have put the book down. I guess this functions as the third act drama instead of a break-up? Which makes sense only from the standpoint that we're not sure what the relationship status is at this point. After finding out the dog will be okay, the pair exchange ‘I love you's. And then it's on to the epilogue - a wedding, because of course. It's not clear how much time has passed, but given that the dog's fur is just starting to fill back in, it seems pretty clear it's been less than six months. But whatever floats your boat, I guess. I will give the book credit (a whole extra quarter of a star) for not ending with a surprise baby.