Amberlough

DNF - PG 80

Why?

Because this book is not for me on so very, very many levels.

First up, as this was the first thing that caused me trouble, my library only had this available in audio book format, so I listened to it. And I hate the narration. First, the accents. They are so jarring - and terrible sounding. I'm not going to say they are fake, but they sound it to my ears. (I'm not good with accents, like telling where they come from, but they sound like such a hodgepodge of French, British, Irish, possibly Scottish and German - and for as much as I love accents, they all sound bad.)

And...as of the point where I stopped, I believe we have three main characters - two men and one woman. Yet we have a female narrator - and I truly HATE what so many audio books have their female narrators do to sound more ‘masculine'. I don't know what it is about their voices, when they try to voice male characters, but there's this quality to them that I usually truly cannot stand. I do not have the same trouble with men voicing women, as they usually do not seem to try to change their voices as much and I wish that, if each main character wouldn't get their own narration, that we would have had a male narrator.

So, now, other issues besides the narration.

This book is very...sexual. So, we first me our main main character - I assume - Cyril when he is waking from his lover's bed. We first meet our third main character - who is the second POV character because our second main character is Cyril's lover Aristide - Cordelia when she is waking from her lover's bed. (Actually, from the sounds, while they were taking a break in getting frisky that, sadly for them, happily for me, ended when one had to go to work.)

This is not something I like, care about or need to read. But, it gets worse, because it is not only extremely sexual, it's rather crudely sexual as well.

There's a whole lot of crass sexual remarks and crude innuendo and while this would usually not bother me - in fact, it would probably make me laugh - I think it's bothering me in here, because this book is trying so very, very hard to be sexy and it's not. It's off-putting when the non-fade-to-black sex scenes (of which I get two in only 80 pages) feel like coerced consent. (Both feels like the song Baby, It's Cold Outside, when the predator keeps saying ‘let's have sex' while the prey is saying ‘no, I'm not interested, not tonight' until they finally give in.)

Related to this is my absolute inability to actually care about an already established couple when their ‘issues' are a major plot point. Cyril and Aristide's issues are a major plot point. I also feel like they are both terrible people - Aristide more than Cyril - and they are so, so bad for each other. There is no trust there and, really, all I get from either is lust for the other.

Cordelia's relationship is even worse because she is cheating on one man with another. One knows, the other doesn't. She wakes up in the cuckold's bed and - the next day? - is later found by him when she's having sex in her dressing room - of the theater he owns - with his friend.

By this point, all I have is disgust for this story, but I do have other issues. Aren't you lucky?

I personally think that each of our three main characters are terrible, horrible people with absolutely no redeeming qualities. I hate, loathe and detest Aristide, (don't ask why, just everything about his personality grates) Codelia is a drug-selling cheater and Cyril is a cruel, bitter man.

The world building is confusing as heck. There are all these name drops and info dumps that - not gonna lie - made my eyes glaze over. Someone said this is based around the Weimar Republic and that sounds likely. But there's so much stuff in here that's barely explained that...I can't help but wish the book hadn't been set in a quazi-historical setting, but the real deal setting.

So, yeah. This is a book that happened to me, but I am so glad I grabbed the audio book instead of buying the book - as this was a book that had been on my TBR for so very, very long.