Something Fabulous

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.