DNF at 52% ... I just didn't care about the characters, so it was easy for me to stop where I did, (view spoiler)[pretending that they just died when DNF at 52% ... I just didn't care about the characters, so it was easy for me to stop where I did, (view spoiler)[pretending that they just died when the bad guys run them off a cliff in their car. (hide spoiler)] :-P...more
2.5 stars -- This is my first exposure to E. Davies as an author and my second time reading a book with a trans man as part of the romantic pairing. W2.5 stars -- This is my first exposure to E. Davies as an author and my second time reading a book with a trans man as part of the romantic pairing. While the story as a whole was fine, it lacked any real spark to get me invested. Largely, this was due to the fact that there wasn't much in the way of conflict and what was there didn't really get to the point of being fully realized.
I do not recommend reading this book as a standalone! This sixth book of the series does claim to be a standalone, and it would be that if the definition of standalone were simply that the romantic arc involves characters who haven't been point-of-view (POV) characters earlier in the series. I fully expected upon picking it up that the author would involve at least some of the ten characters paired up in previous books, but their involvement is heavy-handed. In fact, one of these other characters actually has multiple chapters where he is the POV character instead of either of the two being paired in this book! Worse, these chapters did little if anything to advance the plot of the romantic pairing of this book. Perhaps because there were so many back characters here, the author felt the need to drop hints about things that happened in other books, especially when we were in the head of this character. It resulted in my feeling like I was finding things out that I didn't deserve to know. And that made me less want to read those chapters, and it frankly left me less likely to pick up the earlier stories in the series, even if I had enjoyed this one more. Overall, their involvement seriously hampered my enjoyment of the story being told about this book's main characters. If the book had not been blurbed as a standalone, I would not have started with this book.
As far as the trans representation was concerned, I'm not trans, but it felt authentic to me and it was handled more subtly than in the other trans book I have read, Second Chance by Jay Northcote. So that certainly wasn't an issue for me reading the book. But even the internal conflict with the trans character felt subdued. Yes, there are times where we get to experience some of the pain a trans person goes through, but the way these scenes were handled didn't really feel as important to the character's development as I hoped they would.
Honestly, this can be said about the rest of the conflict in the book too, as there were plenty of things that could have turned into big problems for the couple, within both their business relationship and their personal one, but none of it really panned out. While low-angst romances are fine with me, this seemed to fall even below that. At no point was I truly concerned about the couple's success. And part of what makes romance intriguing to me is witnessing the love grow and persevere through adversity.
So the two things I wanted to get out of this book, I didn't really get either one. And that's a shame, because books with main characters who are trans are far too few....more
(Originally posted 4 July 2017): 2.5 stars -- Since the blog I review for is participating in the blog tour for this book, I am withholding my non-glow(Originally posted 4 July 2017): 2.5 stars -- Since the blog I review for is participating in the blog tour for this book, I am withholding my non-glowy review until after the book's release, but suffice it to say that I think this book is only okay at best. ---
(Edits posted on 21 July 2017): Now that it has been more than a week since release, here's the quick-and-dirty:
Changing Lines is my first exposure to either author, RJ Scott and V.L. Locey, and while I didn't have issues with the writing style they used, the focus of the story overemphasized an overused component in the gay-professional-athlete trope to such an extent that it made me lose interest in the romance.
The Good: - I really loved the fact that the voices of the thirty-something coach (Jared "Mads" Madsen) and the barely-in-his-twenties player (Tennant "Ten" Rowe) were not only very distinct from one another but also used language differences appropriate to ages. This made the characters feel realistic and made it obvious which character's point of view was being used at any point in the novel. Whether or not this means one author wrote one character and the other wrote the other doesn't matter, because the distinction was among the best I have read. - This is related to the previous point a little, but it was refreshing (and honestly fun to see) that even though Ten, like most anyone that age, was all about sex sex sex, Mads made him wait for it, taking things slow to make it be more than sex.
The Bad: - I had a difficult time connecting to the characters emotionally and, perhaps somewhat as a result of that, failed to get any sort of big feels from the relationship itself. - Instead of clearly being focused on the relationship first and on Ten's process of stepping out from his older brothers' shadows and other individual things after that, my expectations were let down by the fact that the book's focus was apparently on the process of Ten coming out. Obviously, I have no problems with this concept; it's downright expected to be a plot device in books that involve gay professional sports players in this day and age. But this device is overused, mainly because there are only so many possible outcomes, so after you've read more than a handful, they start to get repetitive and predictable unless the authors weave it into their story in such a way to make it different. Unfortunately, that didn't happen here.
The Ugly: - While there is a good slow-build romance taking place in the story, something I appreciate typically, once the characters make it clear that they're interested in seeing where a relationship could go in spite of the forbidden nature of the coach/player dynamic, the story seems to skim over that development process, giving only a few highlights between the other, more common scene prevalent in the book, which I'll get to in the next point. This certainly hurt my ability to connect to them as a couple, and since that's one of romance's main goals, it hurt my overall enjoyment of the book. - The book contains no fewer than SIX complete scenes of Ten coming out to various people in the book. (I actually think the number is eight, but I'm giving a couple of them the benefit of the doubt.) I'm all for coming-out scenes when they're vital to the plot, doing more than just causing some short-lived tension, advancing the conflict for one or both of the members of the relationship. For the most part, these scenes failed miserably to advance the plot of the book much at all. And since the coming-out scenes outnumbered the scenes that advanced the romance between Ten and Mads, I couldn't help but scratch my head about the focus of the novel. One or two fully developed coming-out scenes, followed by the set-up and allusion to more times when the character comes out, is plenty to show how that story arc develops. Even three can work if there's good reason for it. But six to eight? Overkill. That's the only word for it. And more than anything else, that focus was what disappointed me about the book.
As far as whether I'll read more books by these authors, individually or collaboratively, probably. But this book was not the right place for me to be introduced to them.
The authors and/or publisher generously provided me a complimentary copy of Changing Lines in exchange for this fair and honest review.
2.5 stars – This is another of those times where I'm almost certain "it's me not you" applies, and it's another case of my feeling bad for not liking 2.5 stars – This is another of those times where I'm almost certain "it's me not you" applies, and it's another case of my feeling bad for not liking a book from an author whose past books I have enjoyed a good deal. But it's hard for me to come up with much positive to say about Christina Lee's Regret because my issues span the spectrum.
One of the bigger issues was that I didn't like either of the main characters, though I really should have because the set-up for the story line is something I should have been able to get into. Nick's entire character is defined by a devastating tragedy that happened twelve years prior to the start of the novel, something that he feels completely responsible for, but it isn't until the big reveal that we find out exactly what it is. Instead, all we get about Nick's character for the majority of the book is that he feels obligated to live his life in a way that will not bring him happiness. Since we have Nick's point of view (POV) throughout the book—the POV alternates between the two main characters, Nick and Brin—it felt disingenuous that Nick would never even think about the details of what he had done, thereby keeping it a secret from the reader, while giving the reader his constant barrage of thoughts about being undeserving of happiness and of being filled with agony and remorse over whatever it was that he had done. Nick's self-loathing overwhelmed me because I wasn't given a specific reason to feel sympathetic to his plight. So as much as I wanted to, I couldn't understand for most of the book why I should feel anything for him. Instead of feeling sympathy, I just felt depressed by all the heavy self-recrimination.
As far as Brin was concerned, he hates Nick for something that happened eleven years ago when they knew each other in high school. This, at least, we learn the details of early in the book, so I could easily understand why Brin felt the way he did, and it's something I could agree with too. Circumstances, as described in the blurb, unwittingly force Brin to cohabitate with Nick for a few weeks, and it's clear quite early that Brin is still attracted Nick (and vice versa), so the fact that Brin opts not to confront Nick directly from the start—nor did he even talk about it to his best friend, who is also Nick's roommate!—put me in a state of irritation about Brin too.
As such, the "I want him, but I hate him for something he did to me eleven years ago" versus "I want him but I deserve to be miserable for the rest of my life for something unrelated that I did twelve years ago" dynamic just didn't work for me. It felt wishy-washy, largely because Nick's "crime" is completely unrelated to the animosity between he and Brin. Nick may blame his past tragedy for making him do what he did to Brin, but based on what we know about Nick, it's likely he would have done it anyway. Therefore, that manner of trying to make the big tragedy affect both characters simply didn't work for me. So in addition to the fact that I didn't like either character, I never got to the point where I believed their motivations either, so it made the romance harder for me to enjoy.
And that's ultimately what kept me from liking the book as much as I wanted to. Despite the fact that by the end, I was starting to feel the characters and their desire for each other more, the fact that the real conflict of the story only directly affected one of the characters made that drama overshadow the romance. And when the resolution finally did come, it didn't carry the emotional punch I thought it needed in order to balance the constant and heavy angst Nick carried around with himself for the entire book.
All this being said, my past enjoyment of Christina Lee's books has not been tarnished because this one book didn't work for me. I am still looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series when they come out, as there are definitely several characters introduced in Regret that could be potential characters.
The author generously provided me a complimentary copy of Regret in exchange for this fair and honest review.
2 stars – Riley Hart has long been a favorite author of mine in the genre of M/M romance, so any time she has a book coming out, it’s automatically ad2 stars – Riley Hart has long been a favorite author of mine in the genre of M/M romance, so any time she has a book coming out, it’s automatically added to my must-read list. Because I’ve read and loved so much of her backlist, it pains me to say that Gone for You simply didn’t work for me.
The best-friends-to-lovers trope is something that usually works well for me. The circumstances here—one friend in love with the other before a ten-year separation, but even that isn’t enough to squash the feeling—aren’t what kept me from enjoying the book, nor was it the conflict in the book either. I just didn’t connect with the characters in the way I’m used to when I read this author’s books. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Matt is lost, having given up his dream and opting to pursue something he hates but is good at. Oliver still loves him, and being the fixer personality, he wants to help Matt however he can, even though his feelings for Matt are unrequited. Unfortunately, Matt and Oliver are stuck in this pattern for almost the entire novel. Other than the fact that they eventually start sleeping together, they stay in essentially the same spot as they were when the novel starts.
And because I never got to the point where I liked the characters, I was left with all sorts of time to focus on things about the plot and writing that I found bothersome. The biggest of these was the fact that there is so much repetition. I’m not just talking about Matt and Oliver essentially walking in place. I mean repetitive thoughts and statements throughout the book, often in the same paragraph. Instead of going toward understanding the characters—something I didn’t need, because I understood their plight fine, I just didn’t understand why the plot had to stick in the same spot for 85% of it—it gave me the impression that this novel should really have been a novella instead, and a short one at that. To be honest, I’m not sure which caused the other, my disliking the characters or being frustrated by the repetition.
I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve read by Riley Hart. I know that her writing style is typically fairly simple. She’s more about writing the story and giving the feelings than she is about big, beautiful words, but until Gone for You, I never had the impression that I was reading a book that was way too long for the story it contained, and that’s exactly what happened here. Hopefully, though, the next will be better. I certainly won’t be letting this one change my opinion of her books as a whole.
The author and/or publisher generously provided me a complimentary copy of Gone for You, and while it pains me that I didn't like it enough to give a positive review, this is my fair and honest opinion of the work.
2 stars – Every now and then, I get to the end of a book that I struggled to get into and realize that there was a good story there and that it could 2 stars – Every now and then, I get to the end of a book that I struggled to get into and realize that there was a good story there and that it could have been really good if only it had been told differently. Falling for the Player, by Jessica Lee, is one such novel. It had plenty of potential but because I never quite connected to the characters or their attraction to one another, by the time I got to the part of the book that had all the feels, I found myself wishing I had been pulled in somewhere along the way so that I could have felt them more.
One steamy hook-up between star running back Patrick Guinness and pre-law student Max Segreti indelibly marked each in the other’s memory. But one night was all it was. Three years later, their paths cross again when Max brings his vehicle to Patrick’s family auto shop. Max is now a law-school graduate, but he has always lived by the law set down by his father, the affluent man who owns the family’s law firm and who would never condone Max being in a relationship outside their elite social circle, especially if that relationship were with a man. Patrick is now a former NFL player after giving up his dream because of a knee injury. The devastating loss shortly thereafter of his father meant the family’s auto shop and the raising of his high-school-aged brother fell onto his shoulders. Being from two different worlds has both men convinced that they could have no future together, but the attraction is too intense to ignore.
Intense is a good word to describe the general mood the author is trying to impart on what Max and Patrick share in Falling for the Player. It comes through well in the initial hook-up found in the first couple of chapters. After that, the story fast-forwards to the present and their next meeting. I really think this is where my lack of connection to the characters started. Instead of giving me some character development, the book immediately gives the next time Max and Patrick meet, and it isn’t long after that before they hook up again.
Sure, I can understand physical attraction, but I wasn’t feeling it as something more than just physical because I didn’t know the characters very well at all. The start of the background storyline had been mentioned by this point, but it was overshadowed not only by their physical attraction for one another but also by the overdramatic portrayal of how every mistake one or the other of them makes causes them to think that they’ve ruined the chance to get back together. In many respects during the development portion of the novel, my lack of connection to the characters resulted in my being able to pay too much attention to how overblown everything seemed to be, from the characters’ reactions to things to the writing itself coming across as hitting every romance-novel cliché instead of simply giving me something that would pull hard on my heart strings. It all felt like the author was trying too hard to make it intense without taking the time to give me a reason first to care about the characters enough to where I could feel the intensity between them.
About two-thirds of the way through the story, at the point where Max and Patrick are together on a basis that’s more than just hooking up, there is another temporal jump, so instead of being able to watch and enjoy the development of feelings between them, there is only a recap of how good the past few weeks have been. So instead of being ready to feel the turmoil and emotions caused by the ramping up of the background plot from here on out, I still didn’t feel like I had much of a connection to the two guys. It’s a pity because there are plenty of issues in the story that created conflict and had satisfactory resolutions. Yes, I was happy that things worked out between them, but the lack of a connection kept me from getting very much of the sort of pleasure I long for when I read romance novels.
I imagine there will be many readers who love the intensity and writing style found in Falling for the Player. It didn’t work well for me though. There were simply too many missed opportunities where adding a couple of chapters of character development and relationship development could have made all the difference in making me care about what happened with these two men. This is my first exposure to Jessica Lee’s books, and though I’m not completely certain, I think this is her first attempt at an M/M pairing in her romances. I also can’t say with full certainty that this isn’t a case of “it’s me, not you,” so if you’re familiar with this author’s work, it could well be a much more enjoyable read for you than it was for me.
The author and/or publisher generously provided me a complimentary copy of Falling for the Player in exchange for this fair and honest review.
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