Empezó bien pero empezó a resultarme repetitivo y a aburrirme. Quizá lo termine algún día, pero lo he tenido en ***DNF.
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Empezó bien pero empezó a resultarme repetitivo y a aburrirme. Quizá lo termine algún día, pero lo he tenido en suspenso durante demasiado tiempo....more
-La metamorfosis -El topo gigante -Chacales y árabes -El nuevo abogado -Un cruzamiento -Informe para una academia -La preocupación de un cabeza de Contiene:
-La metamorfosis -El topo gigante -Chacales y árabes -El nuevo abogado -Un cruzamiento -Informe para una academia -La preocupación de un cabeza de familia -El buitre -Una pequeña fábula -Investigaciones de un perro -La madriguera -Josefina, la cantante, o el pueblo de los ratones...more
I started this one day and it took me WEEKS to reach to this point. Unfortunately, this book and I are terribly incompatible.
I tr***DNF 24%***
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I started this one day and it took me WEEKS to reach to this point. Unfortunately, this book and I are terribly incompatible.
I tried, I really did. But when the first 18% is done and you still cannot see how/where/when the two guys are ever gonna meet, the situation can be discouraging at least. When you finally got to see them together… I couldn’t feel the spark.
So now I have no reason to go on.
To be honest, I’m not exactly a Private Investigator book fan exactly. Well, I have no idea which my tastes are in a concrete way (it just clicks or it doesn’t) but I’ve come to terms with the fact suspense/thriller is usually not my cuppa when reading, and here it definitely isn’t.
From what I was able to gather, this story has a very grey atmosphere that soakes everything. For the life of my I cannot fathom how Gethin’s and Kell’s paths are even related apart from that random party. Maybe both their plots are intertwined eventually. Who knows.
So, all in all, it’s not a bad book. Not at all. I’m just not feeling it, I’m getting bored, and it’s raw torture deciding to invest my time in this in between more satisfying readings.
I had a problem with this book since the very beginning. I wasn’t horrified right away but the writing style doesn’t agree with me***DNF 14%***
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I had a problem with this book since the very beginning. I wasn’t horrified right away but the writing style doesn’t agree with me, and it made it complicated for me to focus on the story, because it was damn distracting and formulaic.
What do I mean with this?
The author tells things. Facts. Info. Then she tells more things. Facts. Info. Then some more. And more.
I’m reading a chain of events, but with no real meat beneath. It’s like: I wake up, I brush my teeth, I go to work, I come back home, I sleep. Maybe I eat 5 times a day.
But no soul, no emotion.
Jason is in love with his BFF, Matt. Matt rejects him. Jason goes into the Army. 10 years later, he survives an explosion. He is kicked out of the Army. He meets Chris Bacon in Matt’s wedding (oh, my heart, that hurts!), who is a reflection of Matt.
We are told several times how alike they are.
It sounds so sad and pathetic: Matt doesn’t want Jason, but no problem, because Chris is there to replace him. 10 years younger.
Such a coincidence! Such good luck! Win-win!
Needless to say, I was wary ever since.
Chris is sick. Chris is poor. Chris is awesome. Suddenly, everybody wants to have him in his house.
The envy of every abandoned dog.
He needs to go to the doctor, to Matt’s exgirlfriend, Sarah, who is a GP.
I’d have paid to see that doctor interview.
The medical stuff sounded so weird to my ears. Maybe it’s because of the language barrier, maybe it’s because the health system is different from the one in the place I live in. But things are not clear for me in this matter. It seems Chris only spends a little while in the consultation but then he has to have been for a longer while, because, he is given prescriptions for two antibiotics, vitamins, iron, and sleep pills. As simple as that.
The space-time sphere is so surreal in this book.
We are never told how Chris feels. Dizzy? Feverish? Does he cough anyhow? Does he suffers from fatigue? Malaise? Does breathing takes him a huge effort? Does he have any pain, in the chest, in the stomach, wherever? Questions, questions, questions!
Matt gets him and takes him to the doctor.
Out of the blue.
I mean, I had no hint Chris was sick until they go to the pharmacy, because we are never explained how Chris feels.
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Describing how a MC feels in a romantic novel is so basic I have no idea why the narrator didn’t mention any of this. I’m not even talking about the feelings for another person but about the most elemental of sensations. Yourself, your body, your inner voice.
We only get to see how he runs super fast and gets into the nursering home to see Matt’s father. BAM. And how fierce and snarky he is. BAM. And how pitiful he is. BAM. Just because.
The character development was superficial at least.
Then they mention the blood transfusion.
“How he keeps up the pace when he’s still so anaemic I don’t know. Sarah said that when she first saw him, if she’d thought he would stay in hospital, she would have admitted him, stuck him on an antibiotic drip and given him a blood transfusion.”
That’s serious, it means the hemoglobin is very low, less than 8g/dl (in some cases, they are recommended with less than 10g/dl). If he needs to be admitted, then admit him. Period. And if he needs the transfusion, you give him the damn transfusion, you don’t dance around complaining to your exboyfriend about doing it or not because oh-so-poor Chris suffers so much and he is so pitiful and oh-my-god, how the hell did he do this all alone!
He ended up giving his own address, and the name ‘Chris Bacon’ but the lack of a date of birth and previous doctor details were a problem for the receptionist.
I don’t understand this. Why has Matt to talk with the receptionist? Wouldn’t it be more logical to be Chris the one who gives his own data (I take for granted that in the UK in the 21st century, people have a tendency to know)? When Chris goes out of the consultation, he gets out immediately, instead of going to reception in order go give such information.
Oh no, he doesn’t. Let’s keep the doctors (and the administration) in the dark.
We are ninjas, hey!
Mmm.
Everything is so DRAMA-DRAMA-DRAMA. I needed all of this to be proved, not to be magnified simply for a dramatic feel.
The scene that made me realize I wasn’t sure if I was reading romance or a children book was the vomit scene after the wedding celebration.
“Fucking wonderful. Consider my previous offer of a blowjob rescinded.”
“Aw fuck Tigger, do you have to say stuff like that?” Mike moaned.
Chris grinned to himself. Payback was a bitch. “You should try it sometime mate, it tastes a bit salty, bit slimy, like uncooked egg white with extra salt. If you swallow quick when it hits the back of your throat, you hardly...” The sound of an electric window motor came from the back, followed by retching.
“You caused it, you get to clean it in the morning,” Jase said as if he was discussing the weather.
“I’ll do it when we get home if you like.”
“When we get home, you are going to bed,” Jase said firmly.
“So do you guys want some real live bacon baguette for breakfast, while I get my runny eggs?” The sound of another window opening and two stomachs emptying was music to his ears.
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1. I don’t get which is the topic of the conversation here. 2. It’s ridiculous how puerile jokes are still present in adult romances. 3. Why is Chris Bacon considered so cool by them all? He’s such a stupid arrogant brat.
I just that I have the feeling the author doesn’t read his own words twice. Doesn’t consider them first. I get the impression she just writes without stopping for a short while in order to wonder: “Does it make sense at all? Maybe this one sentence is distracting for the reader? Does this paragraph sound absurd anyhow in the big scheme of things? Do I really want to portray the characters this way? Can it be I’m taking it all too fast, or maybe too far away in the dramatic sense? Should I write this or that with more depth so that it doesn’t strike as too rushed and nonsensical?”. IDK, certain details give me red flags constantly and distract me from the main story.
Lots of what-the-hell-have-I-just-read moments with characters with a strange cas***DNF after reading 4 chapters***
Permanent state of WTF-ismo.
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Lots of what-the-hell-have-I-just-read moments with characters with a strange case of obvious microcephaly developing less-than-subtle acromegaly. The artsy style is so weird (bordering on ugly), the plot is so mindfuck and confusing (even though I burst out laughing out loud several times) that I cannot decide if this was good or bad. The romanticism is lost on me. But there is no doubt whatsoever that this is hard to forget.
This book is not what I expected it to be, and that’s partly why I left it unfinished. Yes, I guess it’s my fault, I expected a ro***DNF 42%***
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This book is not what I expected it to be, and that’s partly why I left it unfinished. Yes, I guess it’s my fault, I expected a romance, a love story. What I found instead is a magic rulebook.
Not my cuppa.
It was not a pleasant surprise.
I wanted to read something different from Lyn Gala. I love her Claimings series with a rabid passion. She writes in a way that keeps me interested… but the contents of this book couldn’t hold my attention for long.
For starters, the novel begins when the conflict has already started. I expected to see the story since the very beginning, when Darren and Kavon meet and develop a relationship that goes further than it’s allowed in their magic and not-magic situation. They are part of a FBI Magic unit of sorts. Kind of a Suicide Squad, each one in the team with their strengths and roles.
Kavon is a shaman, whereas Darren is a mundane, and it’s a dangerous situation for a shaman to bond with someone “magicless”. So Kaven withdraws, and that hurts Darren. Enters Ben, an adept whose task is to “anchor” Kavon when he goes to the spirit plane. Darren sees Ben as a threat to their relationship, but also for the team as a whole, and for the serial killer of magic people case itself.
That’s when the book starts, when all of the above is explained in retrospective. I felt I was missing something essential, although I understand exposing all of this in the current thread of the story would make it longer, and none of it would have had any romantic meaning anyway.
I’m not sure if I would have appreciated that or not.
Because I’ve read 42% of the story, and still no progress. No glances, no kisses, no nothing.
However, loads of magic and world explanations. Everytime I glimpsed the hope of something happening for real, I told myself, “This is it, now it comes!”.
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But then the next magic paragraph came just in time to shatter all my ilusions.
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It was driving me mad and I was growing impatient.
After coming back from the holidays in the beach in that faraway country, which I touched and felt the***DNF 44%***
I think it's about time I DNF this.
After coming back from the holidays in the beach in that faraway country, which I touched and felt the definition of 'perfect', they come back to the Middle East to have adventures.
Which spoiled it all.
It means sex. With each other, yes. But mostly with other people. If you don't like open relationships, don't read this book. I think I can consider myself a person with an open mind as long as the author really convinces me in the book. But here they go too far.
I ended up tired of the situation.
Because it was so boring and repetitive. It's sex-sex-sex. And then sex-sex-sex again.
I want to understand this, I really do. I do know Dan and Vadim LOVE each other. Capital letters.
But I needed more, I craved more.
And I hate Jean. I do really hate him. I cannot understand his motives, his hypocrisy, he's the most dishonest character I have ever read, I hate him even more than most baddies. I cannot understand what Dan sees in him. He deserves a slap, he really does. I speak the truth.
So I wanted to give this a chance, I heard a friend telling me this improves, that I shouldn't quit now because it would give me a bad taste.
But I'm sorry, I can't go on. It's stronger than me.
Well, this is painful. This book is a re-edition and the previous version was flooded with shining review***DNF 27%***
Dissenting opinion ahead!
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Well, this is painful. This book is a re-edition and the previous version was flooded with shining reviews and lots of swooning. I expected lots of swooning from my part, too. I was ready for it. But that didn’t happen. In fact, the book required a big effort from me to keep reading.
I was bored to tears.
It’s not that I have something definite to blame for the fail. There is no pet peeve exactly, not a tangible reason I can point to. It’s just this tedious writing that can’t even move me. Not even with the dead partner drama. Not even with the alcohol drama. Not with anything. Indiference is not a good companion. It can’t hold my interest for long.
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This time the cover is much more attractive. I grant that.
But not even the plot was original. It reminded me of:
-Chase the Storm: the mature guy who had been matched up with the love of his life, who died. Some time passes, and the younger guy gets into scene and puts everything upside-down. They are in a ranch. They train horses. This book works since the very beginning.
-After Ben: the mature guy who had been matched up with the love of his life, who was older than him, and now that some time has passed, he still hasn’t overcome his death, and he meets a much younger guy for whom he falls without a chance to prevent it. We are in Seattle instead of in the South. We are in an Internet forum instead of in a ranch. But more or less, the parallelism is there. This book took a little longer to grab my attention for real but it never wandered.
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Still, I wanted to give this a chance.
However, this didn’t work for me.
Now that I’m writing about it, yes, there was something that upset me here.
An emphatic person never says he’s emphatic. It’s arrogant and pretentious. I’ve dealt with a bunch of doctors and psychologists myself and those who say they are emphatic are preciselly the ones whose face I wanted to scratch to pieces.
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I speak the truth, those who don’t talk about themselves but focus on the patient are the ones I really like. Seriously, there is this untold rule that says that it’s haughty to talk so highly about yourself for no good reason, but so far, TJ hasn’t heard about that statement. We are repeteadly told how emphatic he is, how good he is at reading expressions, how he has a gift to understand people’s pain and put himself in their shoes.
But you know what? I never believed him as this other-worldly emphatic creature. In fact, TJ sounds so paternalistic in and out of his head he fails miserably at the humbling part.
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That’s why he abandoned Medicine and got into Psychology. Why? Because Medicine (or Surgery, as he implies) is not empathic at all. WTF? Have you heard about Psychiatry? Or Pediatrics? Or Oncology? How can you make a person with a descompensated schizophrenia trust you if he’s hearing voices who command him to suspect of everyone? How do you order a 5-year-old kid to stop crying and let himself be put the stickers on his chest for the ECG? How do you tell someone she has breast cancer and the options she has to erase it? Delicate specialities, those, but most are that way.
Surgery, not empathic? Uhm… how can make the person trust you to put his life in your hands? Being a bastard, maybe that works?
I’ll tell you this: I’ve met Neurosurgeons and Pediatric Surgeons and Cardiologists with more empathy than you would be led to believe. I even met Plastic Surgeons I adored. People who reconstruct faces or give new skin to burnt people or even provide breasts after their total removal. Have you heard about those? No empathy? Really?
There is more than meets the eye.
Choosing a “prestigious” career doesn’t mean you are an insensitive asshole. Of course, I’ve also met lots of insensitive assholes. There are sharks everywhere.
And it’s funny because his teachers tell him he’s not made for Medicine/Psychology, that he gets invested too much himself. Forgetting that part (OMG, he’s so empathic he’s making himself sick), I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to believe that situation: a medical/psychologist student being psychoanalyzed and adviced to see if he’s fit for this career and being told he’s not. Really, I’ve never heard of this before.
Well, whatever, he says he’s not made for being doctor nor a psychologist. That’s why he’s travelling so far from home.
Uhm.
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I prefer Brett’s POV, by a long shot.
Still, the love story is a slow burning one. So slow I never got to see a sparkle. Apparently, none of this guys is the other’s one type, but they are immediately attracted to each other. It wasn’t believable to me. Not at all.
Yes, I’m aware the amount of pages I’ve read is ridiculous but this is a disaster of a book. In the dedication section the author m***DNF 8%***
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Yes, I’m aware the amount of pages I’ve read is ridiculous but this is a disaster of a book. In the dedication section the author mentions 15 beta readers. I have no idea if that’s usual but the number only made me ponder this fact for a while.
And yet I couldn’t stand this book. Unless you count the multiple times I had to put the kindle on my face and laugh… and laugh and laugh, and keep laughing… so as not to cry.
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I was ready to DNF this in just the first scene. But who does that unless it’s a sample? Well, let me tell you that, were this a sample, I would not have bought the book. I’d have thrown it as far as I could and forget about it forever. But I told myself I had to keep going, I had to give it a chance. Who knows, one scene is just one scene, things can get better.
Right?
Well, the problem was not the scene.
I wish.
The problem was the whole book and, yes, I’m daring enough to say that only after reading 8% of it, but that’s more than enough to know I won’t be wasting my time in this.
I don’t make decisions casually. I have a long list of reasons.
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Let’s begin with the narrator voice. It’s so judgmental, so know-it-all. Instead of driving you subtly into forming your own opinion, the narrator immediately condemns one character or another. Leaving to one side these characters are indeed cruel/ignorant/abusive, these opinionated statements only manage to irritate me and grate on my nerves. Assuming that, no matter what, I will always agree with them.
No fuck*** way.
Daniel was unable to free himself from his cruel employer.
His ignorant father had arranged her marriage at the young age of fourteen.
He’d enough of that at home with his abusive dad.
The “enemies” of this story are so absurd they look like cartoons. They are cruel/ignorant/abusive, they have “potbellies” and similar negative qualities. This leads to the assumption that bad people are terribly ugly, and that’s why you have to mistrust them, whereas good people are all beautiful and attractive. I don’t hate many things in life, but this, these prejudices drive me totally mad. This upsets me endlessly.
This description about the potential “rivals” of Daniel for Ronan’s qualities as a Dom(These two subs are cousins and they smack each other’s butts. I’m aware there are family-related people who have sex together but the idea of imagining them like that in this book is simply wrong to me):
He (Ronan) knew both Kevin and Jack wanted him to Dom them together, but he wasn’t interested in them on a sexual level. Jack shaved his head, had too many piercings and tats for Ronan’s liking. Kevin was too perfect and not much of a challenge. He also had a few too many tats, but not as many piercings as Jack. The boys have small pot bellies from drinking too much beer and they were both a bit on the lazy side. There wasn’t any magic going on between his legs when he was around them, not like he felt with Daniel.
See? The narrator doesn’t give me a choice to either like/dislike them because she has already made that decision for me, treating me like an idiot who needs guidance in coming to her own conclusions. There is no way I will ever be able to like them, simply because of this single paragraph. I feel stupid reading this.
I feel like a sheep, baaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
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The story begins with Daniel beginning his workday in a dancing club. He is the son of a gypsy leader and only dreams about escaping this world by earning enough money to flee. During the day he paints walls, during the night he swirls around a pole. But he’s not lucky, his father is a shady powerful personality, whereas his boss is an abusive bastard that, as soon as he learns he’s a gypsy and that his father has stolen money, he kicks him out (literally speaking) giving him no choice but to disappear once and for all from the area. Because, else, he will be forced to marry and live the life his father imposes him to.
He’s read in a newspaper/magazine about a man who saves abandoned/mistreated horses and trains them and finds them a home (awwww, surely he has to be a good person!) that’s where he is headed. Close to his destiny, he finds a pub and goes into it to have a drink. He doesn’t realize his is a gay BDSM club. Not even when he notices everybody is male. Not even when he sees everybody is wearing leather. Not even when he sees he’s the weird one there.
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There, this huge Dom notices him and approaches him. Ronan, the Dom, suddenly has this idea of giving him a lesson. Out of the blue. Just because he’s convinced Daniel needs to be taught respect. So he grabs him and smacks him and he doesn’t stop until Daniel calls him “Sir”.
At this point I was so shocked I couldn’t even blink. I mean, the idea of a so-called Dom (and a stranger) manhandling someone like that in a public place and nobody intervening to stop it is so outrageous and ridiculous it’s driving me nuts just picturing it.
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And if that wasn’t enough, Daniel is so excited he has a hard-on and is leaking pre-cum in his jeans.
I mean… What?
Seriously… What?
But that doesn’t stop here because Ronan doesn’t seem content with jumping all over Daniel like he owns him but he also forbids Daniel to drink beer.
I mean… What?
Seriously… WHAT?
“You don’t need to drink alcohol. I don’t want you making any more bad decisions this evening.”
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Sorry? Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to behave that way? What gives you the right to give orders like that to a person you have just met? Touching him without permission, hitting him on the butt, demanding him to call you a certain way, forcing him to confess why he’s there and what he’s escaping from, and denying that person the rightfully chance to have the drink he fancies unmolested.
Ronan is not a Dom, he’s an abusive asshole. If I ever met him, I’d be ringing the police and running in the opposite direction.
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And he has issues. I mean, real issues. Like, he’s a control freak. But I’m not referring to the kinky aspect.
He decides to pay the two cousin subs to follow Daniel.
“I want you to follow him when he leaves. Text me where he settles in for the evening.”
How do these subs react?
The expressions on their faces turned to disappointment. He knew why, but he couldn’t help that he wasn’t attracted to them.
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OMFG, he’s not only a controlling bastard, but he is also an arrogant and insufferable bully. Like, taking for granted everybody will giving their kidneys for free in order to be spend one single night with him and thank him afterwards.
I. Can. Not. Stand. Him.
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But wait, there is more. He looks for Daniel in the Internet. I mean, he’s not a stalker, not at all. (Damn, this book is like the guidelines of “How to recognize you are dating an abusive bastard” *facepalm*.)
And shockingly, he finds Daniel’s father on Facebook. As easy as that.
IDK about you, but this gives me the creeps.
Ronan knows nothing of Daniel but he’s already “his boy”.
“Make sure that mean Scot doesn’t go near my boy.”
He talks about Daniel as if he were talking about a piece of meat. Like, “Don’t eat my meat, dude.”
Fuck this shit.
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He needed to prove to himself he could Dom a boy like Daniel and make him submit. He wanted to protect him better than he had Finney.
So it’s not for Daniel’s sake, but for himself, “he needed to prove to himself he could Dom”. I can’t even! Are you using Daniel for entirely selfish reasons! To stroke your ego.
I didn’t know I could hate you even more.
“Bessie, I think I found myself a new boy. He’s a bad boy and needs a strong hand to guide him. He has long brown hair, but I never saw his eyes. He wore these damn sunglasses in the bar. I think he was hiding a whopper of a shiner. I wonder what he’s been through. I think he needs me, and I need him.”
On what basis can you say that he needs you and that you need him? How do you know he’s a bad boy? Just because he refused to call you “Sir” and tell you his problems and that he protested when you forbid him to drink alcohol?
Who do you think you are?
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How can this be romantic by any means?
However, he didn’t believe he could force Daniel to go home with him.
Thank God you realize that! *sarcastic*
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See why I was all this while laughing my ass off?
Ronan’s dialogue with his brother is totally nuts:
“Why did you whip his ass on your first meeting? Is that normal?”
“There is no normal. He was disrespectful, so I made a bet with him that I could teach him to respect me.”
“Like you used to do with me. You even locked me up in the dog cage.”
“But you got even with me when you told Da about it,” Ronan said.
“I didn’t like you locking me in a dog cage or spanking me.”
“It was only ten minutes. I timed it and never left you alone.”
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Forgetting about the incestuous relationship (I mean, WTF?, spanking your own brother in a sexual sense? And you treat that theme so casually?) is the author trying to demonstrate Ronan’s “Domanship” is innate? That it’s just his nature and that’s why he instinctively began spanking his brother?
WHAT THE HELL???
I’m freaking out.
Seriously, this book freaks me out.
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I think he not only spanked his brother’s butt but he also smacked him in the head when he was little.
Listen to this:
“I was easy on him, just took him over my knee and spanked him until he called me Sir.”
“That’s exactly what you used to do to me. I hope you Dom another sub soon, before you retort to practicing on me again.”
“I guess I could practice on you, but it wouldn’t work for us. You’re not my type, plus I found my new boy.”
INCEST, PEOPLE, INCEST!!!! It’s not the sexual hint among relatives I have a problem with. It’s this frivolousness in which it’s written and displayed. I’ve read books about this topic that are so masterly written I can only say I’m in awe. But this… This is supposed to be a jokey dialogue but I can’t indulge them, I can’t carry on with his charade. This is too surreal!!!
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“What do you know about him?”
“Not much. He’s independent, though, and he looks like he’s on the run. The thing is, he made me feel like living. He gives me hope that I’m ready to Dom again. As soon as I saw him come in, I knew he was going to be mine.”
For God’s sake, you only got to see him once and you spent those five minutes spanking him and you already know he’s the love of your life?
I. CAN’T. EVEN.
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Ronan has had lots of practice in his bully record.
When Finney got sick, he had controlled every inch of his sub’s life, but that wasn’t enough, because in the end, Ronan couldn’t save him. His thoughts circled with every possible combination of what ifs. Nothing had mattered. Finney was gone. Ronan couldn’t protect him from death. He blamed himself for not being strict enough with him before he’d gotten ill.
Have I just read an apology of domestic violence? Maybe not physical violence per se but this controlling hint is not reassuring at all.
How can this be called “romantic”?
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But do not worry, because Ronan was so heartbroken and so sad. Deep inside, he’s a teddy bear!
He hadn’t had a sub in over a year, not since his last one, Finney, had passed away. Ronan’s heart ached and he had shed many tears for the gorgeous, loving lad.
Awwwwww, I’m so touched. I’ve forgiven him after reading this.
Not at all.
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In my dictionary, these relationships are abusive, nothing related to D/s. I've read books with D/s and domestic discipline in them and I can see the trust and the devotion towards each other. But this? This is an atrocity of a D/s relationship. They never speak for real, never form a bond, never are in their shared-little-world where only both of them exist. Here the Dom has already made up his mind, without putting Daniel's needs first, without knowing him first. I don't see instinct nor devotion nor love here, not even lust! Not that I'm an expert but... it sounds so wrong to me.
It’s time to turn the page. Now we’ll talk about stereotypes. Gypsies stereotypes. The narrator and the characters are clearly full of prejudices. Gypsies are these dirty untrustworthy trash criminals whose only goal in life is marrying and having 10 kids before the age of 20 and while they do that they steal everything they can put their hands on whenever they can.
I’m so disgusted and uncomfortable by all these assumptions that I can simply not overlook them. I’m not going to say it’s racism but I have to admit reading these hints makes me so uncomfortable I don’t care if the author is really crossing an invisible line or not. For me, it’s insulting and humiliating enough to consider a serious DNF.
The general book is so judgmental it’s offensive. These unfortunate comments were totally out of place. I’ve read other books with gypsies and prejudices but none of them were so obvious as to show in such a categorical statement that ALL the people in a certain group are a certain way, a VERY NEGATIVE way, no alternative available.
“Do you know what they say about gypsies?”
(…)
“They are usually thieves and never stay in one place, so be careful. I’m just worried about you.”
“I know you are. I tried to buy him a soda and he refused. He said he likes to pay his own way.”
I beg your pardon? What has anything to do with buying him a soda and him refusing that? I’m sorry, I failed my last intelligence test.
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No, it’s not only the opinion of one character, but this perspective of things is inherent in the narrator’s voice, in the recounting of events, in the tale of Daniel’s past. Everywhere. And it drags you to have the same opinion. Because, as I said, the narrator is like that.
“I guess you’re going to have to teach him who’s the big boss.”
“I did. I bought him a soda and took his beer away.”
What’s going on with that soda? For real?
Also, this is so calculated, so forced.
He wanted to paint all the stables green, but there weren’t enough hours in a day to do everything. He’d planned on hiring someone to help him, but hadn’t found anyone he wanted to work closely with.
Oh, Daniel used to work painting walls! He’s heading to Ronan’s exact ranch. This is all such a big coincidence! It’s destiny! They are meant to be together! (I don’t know if you noticed but this is a sarcastic comment)
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There is also a little of American patronizing. I mean, the characters are supposed to be Irish or at least European. So it’s only logical the narrator and the characters think in an Irish, European way. It’s so inappropriate to say a horse is 14hh tall or that “he must be of drinking age, which is eighteen in Ireland.” The narrator has to have a consequent perspective of things, have a voice adapted to circumstances of place and time. So please, speak in “cm” and don’t say “which is eighteen in Ireland” because it’s totally obvious this is an American POV and it sounds as if the narrator is explaining things to kids in a museum. As if Europe was a museum and people living there were animals in a zoo with these exotic lifestyles.
It’s exasperating.
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For all these reasons, I’m unable to keep reading: the stereotyped and offensive version of gypsies, the bidimensional characters, the confusion of the D/s dynamics with an abusive relationship, the ridiculous insta-lust and insta-love, the judgmental and condescending narrator, the hurried and clumsy storyline.
I felt I was reading a mandatory list of typical M/M scenes. It’s as if the author wrote a shopping list and she has to fo***DNF 29%***
Oh dear…
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I felt I was reading a mandatory list of typical M/M scenes. It’s as if the author wrote a shopping list and she has to follow it no matter how unsuitable the items are by themselves and also by the order in which they are displayed in the story. Everything is so blunt, so unnatural and predictable I was struggling with the book since the very first word.
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It’s like one of those old clocks that work smoothly. But sometimes they don’t, and every cog makes a big effort to find its place in the next wheel, creating an unpleasant squeak every time it moves a bit forward. It needs oil but sometimes it also needs a new mechanism. A total reparation of the pieces and replacement. That’s the feeling I had here, every cog was an item in the following list, and the squeak they produced was very annoying and, each passing cog was beginning to grate on my nerves. I got stuck again and again in order to roll my eyes.
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These are the issues I had in this book:
[image] Shirt tearing in a “passionate” moment [image] Shifting demonstration and wow-you-are-indeed-a-shifter moment [image] Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine [image] Smart-ass-y characters that are not funny at all [image] Man made a mistake and you hate him for it and as expiation he goes to an hospice acompanying people to their death, now I feel like crying because he is such-a-good-person-I-cannot-bear-it [image] You don’t want him but now you do want him but now you regret wanting him, male menstruation at its best [image] You fucked and now he claimed you but you are mad because you didn’t want this [image] You googled and found out he has schizophrenia and the guy knows you googled it [image] You try to quietly escape but he was there expecting you to do so so he stood there with arms and legs crossed and a smug expression on his face, ruining your plan [image] He was evil but then he only wanted to protect you so that’s why he had stayed away from the house you lived in all this years but in truth he wanted you since the very first moment he set his eyes upon you [image] You are marked and claimed now but you refuse to acknowledge that fact and deny everything for the sake of it [image] You faint and he grabs you and pulls you against his chest and then he undresses you to your bed [image] Oh, he has something on his face, you try to rub it and now your finger is in his mouth [image] A dog pack attacked you because they wanted to claim you and the panther guy came out of the blue and killed them, that’s so heroic-wait-a-moment-I-put-my-hand-on-my-forehead [image] Continuous possessive sex scenes that are in fact not that hot but tiresome instead because they are obviously following a studied agenda
There is only one thing the author didn’t fulfill: personality. The characters are basically made out of papier mâché: stereotypical, full of holes and terribly bidimensional.
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So I’m sorry but I’m afraid this book is not for me and it was becoming so frustrating I had to DNF it. I recommend reading other reviews before deciding to dismiss it.
This one went over my head. I admit I had doubts about this one since the very beginning, despite the great reviews. But one thing is to suspect it, aThis one went over my head. I admit I had doubts about this one since the very beginning, despite the great reviews. But one thing is to suspect it, and another thing altogether is to experience it in person.
My main and only problem with this book is this simple fact: it’s extremely boring. Apart from a detail or two I got a little upset about, this is the only objection I have.
The writing style doesn’t agree with me. I struggled with each passing chapter hoping for a ray of sunlight to appear, to no use. There were a few hints where I realized this story would take off at some point. However, I was let down again and again.
And again.
I felt I was at the same landing strip the whole way, waiting for some signal to begin the trip.
I was expecting to fly and I was on the ground instead.
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When I saw that this book would never improve and that it would get 2 stars, being generous, I decided there were better things to invest my time in. It was becoming homework to me, and that’s not fun.
43%, it took that long for me to realize it wouldn’t start up.
At first I got the impression Jalen was a Latino, but when they said he was “brown” the questions began. This is what happens when authors are ambiguous in their descriptions. I NEVER get it right. I just want authors to play fair and don’t beat around the bush, because feeling stupid upsets me endlessly.
At least it wasn’t like that time when I found out the MC was black when they chose to display a black model on the SECOND book cover in the series or when the author says AT THE END of the book that the guy was born in Nigeria. It’s like “Hey, now that you got to 95% of the book, I forgot to mention I’m black, before you get to the 100%, you know? That’s all I wanted to say, goodbye!”. My face is priceless.
Why is it so difficult to mention an ethnicity in so many words?
I don't really care what color his skin is. If the author says nothing about the appearance of the characters, I'm okay with that. But if you are going to describe them, do it properly, please. Above all when you are going to show aspects related to it, like marginalization and racism. There is a tendency in using euphemisms and I believe it’s eventually counter-productive.
To sum it up: just don't bring up a vague reference to skin color and then never explain anything. Yes, I know, I’m a little…
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Please, don’t get this wrong, all of this was to simply show that I want to know where my characters come from, not only in a geographic sense, but culturally speaking and the like, because that shapes someone and makes him grow into what he currently is. I want to understand them better. I want to get to know them. And, above all, I want to have a proper and faithful image of them in my head. It’s not a criminal request, right?
And authors tiptoeing around it is not the best way to do that, in my humble opinion. I value it when someone says it naturally in a book. But I didn’t get that impression here, unfortunately.
Apart from that, the media stuff and music show bullshit was getting on my nerves. I felt I was watching some kind of Big Brother and it was unbearable. I realize the author did a good job portraying the falseness and stupidity of this kind of… competitions (I don’t know how to call them, sorry) but it didn’t make it less painful to read.
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