Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Merry Inkmas

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Merry Inkmas by Talia Hibbert

66 reviews

autumnwitch14's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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witcheep's review against another edition

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dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Read this book if you seek sexual tension building while a troubled past is being used as an edgy backdrop for smut scenes. If you want to read about a balanced relationship forming, pick up some other book (I suggest Hibbert's The Brown Sisters series, I'm far more impressed with those books than this one).

It bothers me that the Merry Inkmas's main characters Cash and Bailey are represented as nearly perfectly goodhearted people that want to save each others from the ghosts of their dark and traumatic pasts: Both their parents have been in different kinds of abusive relationships. This has lead to the main characters to close up in order to shield themselves from similar harm, but they seem to easily warm up to each other because of their sexual chemistry.

However, Cash and Bailey's relationship has big imbalances of power all the time: they are a customer and a server, or a boss and and employee. There is also economical inequality in their relationship. These things are not addressed enough in my opinion, even though they clearly affect the characters' choises in the present and bring up similar situations from their past where things went very badly. This is a novella so I understand there isn't room for very in depth bonding on mental level if you want to write about the sexual tension building up and releasing in multiple smut scenes, as happens in this book. Maybe I picked up a wrong book for me, but I would have preferred to see more chemistry in the interpersonal relationship besides the bedroom.

I hoped these issues would be at least mentioned in the ending, but they are completely brushed under the rug. In the epiloque

Cash and Bailey are thrust into a happy ever after of one big family with seemingly no trauma or baggage remaining.

The premises of this book had potential to discuss the heavy topics and show how to deal with them, but the novella falls short in this regard, unlike the other books by Hibbert I've read. Hibbert's later books address representation and struggles in a more wholesome and considerate way. Perhaps Merry Inkmas could have accomplished that as well, if it had been a fully fleshed out novel instead of a shorter novella.

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mayareadsxo's review

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lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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jourdanicus's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

5/5 on the spicy scale 🌶️ as usual, which I've come to expect and appreciate from Talia Hibbert. Sadly I felt the plot was a little rushed, which, I guess, ok, it's a novella. Worse than the pacing for me though was the emotional immaturity of Cash. I didn't really like that it was

his mom who ended up telling Bailey all about their traumatic past.

I felt like that should have been a moment between Cash and Bailey.

Also, something about the homeless person savior subplot rubs me the wrong way but idk. And the fact that Cash had

watched Bailey in the coffee shop enough to draw her a lot without her knowledge...

Seems kinda stalkerish in hindsight I guess?

Obviously I will continue to read more by the author, she's one of my favorites especially for romance and erotica, with POC and ND representation. This one just didn't hit like the others for me personally.

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jae_28's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This was such a fun and cute read! It had a grumpy sunshine vibe (which is not my favorite trope) but it wasn’t overdone and was super sweet at times. The story was packed with so much emotion and had the feel of a full-blown novel.

It started out great! I loved the friendship between Cash, Bailey, and John. I desperately needed more of that but it would’ve dragged out the story more than the author probably wanted. I wished we’d seen a bit more of Bailey’s life though. I feel like we saw a little bit of it in the beginning but after that, other than college work she seemed isolated once she stepped into Cash’s world/space; we saw more of him while she basically told us about her. I thought she was somewhat close to her coworker in the beginning but they fell out of the story after that first scene.

The narrator was a bit brusque/quick even on the normal setting, but anyone can fix that by playing around with the playback speed. Only that will make the words sound a little dragged out, but it’s not unbearable.

Not gonna lie, there were times when the characters made me want to strangle them. I seriously despise the whole push-and-pull thing when it comes to developed/developing relationships. Cash legit gave me Edward Cullen vibes because of the whole “I really like her but I’m not good” thing.

But as I said, super cute read with moments of heavy emotion. Unless Hibbert decides to extend this in the future (wishful thinking on my part), I don’t see myself rereading it, but I don’t regret the experience either.

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maddiela's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Picked this up after hearing good reviews of this Christmas romance. Honestly, it didn’t do much for me. There wasn’t much of a storyline to the book, all the characters definitely had potential but the execution of character development by the author really fell flat for me. Spice is there but the rest of the story was so lacklustre that I had trouble wanting to finish it. Definitely didn’t help that I didn’t like the main characters and by the end of the book, I wasn’t even rooting for the characters to have a happy ending and come together. I don’t think I would recommend .

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xandriaisreading's review

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lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

A cute and quick Christmas read! Boss/employee and miscommunication are things I'm not particularly a fan of so it lost me for a bit.

The characters are stubborn. The love story is only 2 months with the majority of their interactions in the second month. Then a 5 year time jump? For a short read, it really tried to stuff as much as it could in to it.

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