Something Fabulous

A bit of a slow starter for me, but fluffy and delightful all around. If the next book is in fact Belle and Peggy (apparently it's Peggy, at least), I need Belle to dial back the drama about 50%, because she was pretty insufferable until the last 20% or so (and that's a generous estimate). Everything about this book is ridiculous and over-the-top, but she was just a pill. Anyway, other than the kind of slow start, I really enjoyed this. Alexis Hall does both humor and emotion so well, he's probably top of my instant-preorder list.

I guess I'm just not a fan of Hall's writing and [b:Boyfriend Material 50225678 Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1) Alexis Hall https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575987260l/50225678.SX50.jpg 73590298] was a fluke.This is a very long historical MM romance written by someone who obviously doesn't have a lot of experience writing historical romances. The language in this book is very modern (and you can't just excuse that with a “warning” at the beginning saying you “intentionally” modernised their speech) and the characters are stereotypes with a lot of queer shoved in wherever it could be. I'm not really a fan of “everyone is gay” type narratives because it just isn't realistic - not to say there weren't plenty of queer people but it was also very illegal for a long time and dismissing that for your narrative and to up your representation percentages is cheap. I also just feel really bad for Valentine and hate all the other characters. He's just being what he was raised to be and both Tarletons as well as random side characters are being absolute bastards to him for no reason than they think he should be someone completely different. It made me physically angry the more I read on. Falling in love with someone who has been a shit to you after a grand total of 2 days is... lazy. Valentine just thinks he loves Bonny because he saw his butthole, I guess.If it had been about half the length I guess it might have been more enjoyable but I found myself really struggling to get through it when I usually lap up even the most mediocre of historical romances. This is for the casual MM reader who is into Bridgerton or Another Period and thinks those are good representations of the early 1800s.

Had to stop at 45% because I was just rage reading at this point and my time is more valuable than that. Sorry, but not for me. I couldn't stand Bonny or his sister, spent half the time wondering why Valentine didn't just up and leave - especially right at the first-time he was (very rudely) rejected - and the historical inaccuracies were really just the rotten cherry on top of a terrible tasting cake. I liked Boyfriend Material, but this was just not at all for me. I think I'm gonna give Alexis Hall books a break for a while...