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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am a longtime Cabot fan but this is my first time reading one of her adult novels! I was initially going to give this one 3 stars, and then I started reading other Goodreads reviews and remembered how incredibly irritating it was that Bree refused to evacuate during a Category 5 hurricane. Setting that aside (although I fully understand how impossible it was for some readers to ignore such a privileged stance on natural disasters), I still enjoyed Cabot's charming writing style. Both Bree and Drew annoyed me, but the larger cast of characters were fun and gave the book a ton of small-town charisma. The romance was not the most compelling and the book should have been much shorter than it was. Overall, the setting was the best part of the book for me, so I think the series itself shows promise (let's leave hurricanes out of the next book, shall we?).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Sexual assault
Moderate: Alcoholism
such a great concept and Meg Cabot always writes the best couples. They were seriously a match made in heaven. It had SO MUCH potential but like halfway through I realized the pacing felt way off. Then there were dark twists like a colleen hoover book or something :( It was SO CUTE tho and she has pink hair (!!!) and I love that it was based on Meg Cabot's actual experience during the hurricane. 3/4 the way through it was opening up whole other stories then it was over :/ this is the first "adult" meg cabot book I've read (I would classify it as New adult) and when they had sex and it wasn't fade to black I was like whAt!?!?
I love Meg Cabot and was so excited for a new series. Unfortunately, this is not a great start. While I loved the animal rescue portion of the book, the rest was just ok. Hopefully the next book is better.
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book is titled No Judgments but I sure had a lot of judgments by the end of it.
Bree has run away from NYC after a sexual assault, and is waitressing in the cute little town of Little Bridge in the Florida Keys. A Category 5 hurricane is on its way and predicted to make a direct hit, and most of the residents are fleeing. Little Bridge Island, by the way, is only 8-20 feet above sea level (depending on where it is situated) and about eight square miles big. A direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane gets dangerous very fast in such a place. Hurricane Irma struck the Keys as a Category 4 storm in 2017 and killed people and destroyed hundreds of homes. I have never lived in hurricane territory myself, but another reviewer has and their take is valuable.
Now, I know that many people have legitimate reasons for feeling that they cannot flee in the face of a hurricane. They may not have a car or money for a hotel. They may have disabilities that make it difficult. They may have job insecurity and bosses who tell them they have to complete their shifts.
Bree has none of those reasons. She is a rich girl from a rich family with plenty of resources. She has multiple people offering her rides and places to stay on the mainland. Her reason for staying is sheer stubbornness. I don't believe her excuse of "but I have a cat recovering from surgery." Girl has the resources to make sure her cat lives in comfort in lodging outside the path of the hurricane. No, Bree is staying because she has something she feels she needs to prove. She then, of course, does no preparing, and is going to stay in her flood-plain apartment complex until her kind bosses basically force her to stay with them in their mansion that has a generator and is on higher ground.
Bree's love interest is Drew Hartwell, a handsome carpenter. He also decides to stay because...he wants to do repairs on his house during the hurricane. His house, by the way, is oceanfront property, but don't worry, he has designed it to withstand Category 5 hurricanes (which ehhh...maybe). However, his aunt is pretty sure he's going to die out there, so he's the only one who is confident that it's a good idea to stay there.
Bree is downright mean to Drew for most of the book, for no reason. She is like a grade school boy who doesn't know how to deal with his feelings, so vacillates between tormenting and running away from the person causing all these unwanted feelings. Drew does treat her like she is an idiot for not fleeing. I usually find it condescending and infantilizing when the love interest treats the heroine like a fool. But in this case, he's not wrong. I generally like Drew quite a bit as a love interest, aside from his silly decision to stay in his house and naming all of his dogs "Bob." He's supposedly a playboy, with his truck parked in front of a different house every morning. The explanation for this was so hilariously nonsensical that I just started chortling.
The second half of the book is about the post-hurricane clean up. Bree discovers that many (many) people have abandoned their pets during the storm. I appreciate Bree doesn't publicly express judgment in order to get folks to inform her of their pets so she can rescue them. But I have many, many judgments and it feels strange to have rescuing-pets-that-owners-left-to-die treated like a quirky adventure. Everyone is telling Bree that it will be extremely dangerous to ride out the storm. People are fleeing because they are afraid of being injured or killed. And yet they leave their animals...to be injured or killed. I understand that people do it (apparently Cabot based Bree off someone who really did rescue pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida). But most of the owners are treated pretty sympathetically by the book.
A lot of the problems with this book (well, not Bree's being mean to Drew for no reason) could be lessened if the incoming hurricane was simply a lesser storm, like a Category 2 (though this can still lead to fatalities). It would still cause some people to leave (I assume?) but wouldn't be such a potentially deadly decision to stay. It would also maybe make it more believable that some pets would be left behind (i.e., the excuses that Cabot uses anyway, that folks were on vacation and their pet sitters decided to flee).
Bree has run away from NYC after a sexual assault, and is waitressing in the cute little town of Little Bridge in the Florida Keys. A Category 5 hurricane is on its way and predicted to make a direct hit, and most of the residents are fleeing. Little Bridge Island, by the way, is only 8-20 feet above sea level (depending on where it is situated) and about eight square miles big. A direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane gets dangerous very fast in such a place. Hurricane Irma struck the Keys as a Category 4 storm in 2017 and killed people and destroyed hundreds of homes. I have never lived in hurricane territory myself, but another reviewer has and their take is valuable.
Now, I know that many people have legitimate reasons for feeling that they cannot flee in the face of a hurricane. They may not have a car or money for a hotel. They may have disabilities that make it difficult. They may have job insecurity and bosses who tell them they have to complete their shifts.
Bree has none of those reasons. She is a rich girl from a rich family with plenty of resources. She has multiple people offering her rides and places to stay on the mainland. Her reason for staying is sheer stubbornness. I don't believe her excuse of "but I have a cat recovering from surgery." Girl has the resources to make sure her cat lives in comfort in lodging outside the path of the hurricane. No, Bree is staying because she has something she feels she needs to prove. She then, of course, does no preparing, and is going to stay in her flood-plain apartment complex until her kind bosses basically force her to stay with them in their mansion that has a generator and is on higher ground.
Bree's love interest is Drew Hartwell, a handsome carpenter. He also decides to stay because...he wants to do repairs on his house during the hurricane. His house, by the way, is oceanfront property, but don't worry, he has designed it to withstand Category 5 hurricanes (which ehhh...maybe). However, his aunt is pretty sure he's going to die out there, so he's the only one who is confident that it's a good idea to stay there.
Bree is downright mean to Drew for most of the book, for no reason. She is like a grade school boy who doesn't know how to deal with his feelings, so vacillates between tormenting and running away from the person causing all these unwanted feelings. Drew does treat her like she is an idiot for not fleeing. I usually find it condescending and infantilizing when the love interest treats the heroine like a fool. But in this case, he's not wrong. I generally like Drew quite a bit as a love interest, aside from his silly decision to stay in his house and naming all of his dogs "Bob." He's supposedly a playboy, with his truck parked in front of a different house every morning. The explanation for this was so hilariously nonsensical that I just started chortling.
Spoiler
Apparently, he usually has a "couple of beers" with the home owners after finishing his carpentry work and Ubers or bikes home. Look man, if you can't safely drive for hours after every carpentry job, I feel like this is leaning into an alcohol problem. It seems like either he should stick to one beer, or he's drinking a lot more than a couple. And this is supposedly a tiny island, people should know most of the houses he's leaving his truck at. I assume it's not all single ladies he's working for. So they think he's also sleeping with an old single dude or someone's wife (or is into threesomes)? Is it not well known that after Drew Hartwell does a carpentry job for you he's going to get wasted and leave his truck parked outside your house? It feels like it would've been simpler and less strange for Cabot to just lean into him sleeping around a bit after breaking up with his girlfriend.The second half of the book is about the post-hurricane clean up. Bree discovers that many (many) people have abandoned their pets during the storm. I appreciate Bree doesn't publicly express judgment in order to get folks to inform her of their pets so she can rescue them. But I have many, many judgments and it feels strange to have rescuing-pets-that-owners-left-to-die treated like a quirky adventure. Everyone is telling Bree that it will be extremely dangerous to ride out the storm. People are fleeing because they are afraid of being injured or killed. And yet they leave their animals...to be injured or killed. I understand that people do it (apparently Cabot based Bree off someone who really did rescue pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida). But most of the owners are treated pretty sympathetically by the book.
A lot of the problems with this book (well, not Bree's being mean to Drew for no reason) could be lessened if the incoming hurricane was simply a lesser storm, like a Category 2 (though this can still lead to fatalities). It would still cause some people to leave (I assume?) but wouldn't be such a potentially deadly decision to stay. It would also maybe make it more believable that some pets would be left behind (i.e., the excuses that Cabot uses anyway, that folks were on vacation and their pet sitters decided to flee).
Not completely crazy about this book, although it was a very cute, summer beachy read. Bree is new to Little Bridge Island, and waiting for a hurricane to come. She's pretty sure she can weather the storm in her apartment, but her very friendly boss takes her in where it's safer. There is of course a flirtation and chase and a very cute love story. The part that made it a bit silly and unbelievable to me was that after the storm, Bree finds all these pets that were left behind when their owners evacuated, and made it her mission to save them all. Who would leave their pets behind? Maybe this is something that happened during Katrina and Meg Cabot was bringing the issue forward. But it seemed a little odd to me, and it took over the whole book which made me like the book a little less.
Let’s be real here, I am a life long fan of Meg Cabot. The mediator series might be my most read series second to Harry Potter. I’ve been reading her books since elementary school, and was so excited to get her latest book.
While this one was not my favorite, I still heartily enjoy her writing style and flew through this. I probably won’t read it again, but will keep with this series!
While this one was not my favorite, I still heartily enjoy her writing style and flew through this. I probably won’t read it again, but will keep with this series!
lighthearted
medium-paced
I remember loving Meg Cabot's Mediator series as a teenager and was excited to read this one when I grabbed it off of the shelf.
It's extremely bad. How do you have a Cat 5 hurricane hit a small coastal town and only cause light flooding in some buildings? Yet it moved a yacht from the ocean to the middle of the road on a hill? And the people who have lived on this coastal island town have been here all their lives, battled it out with Cat 5s and then still leave their pets in the homes alone? I get that that's a convenient plot device for the heroine but none of it felt natural. It felt like Cabot was trying to cash out on hurricanes in the way that John Green cashed out on cancer-- as an outsider who did enough research to push along their romance plot but not to actually pay any service to a tragic and very difficult situation.
Onto pettier problems. The romantic hero has four dogs-- a dog lover! Yay! SHE'S a dog lover! Omg! All of his dogs are named Bob. The reasoning? "Dogs are pack animals and don't need names since I'm their alpha." YIKES. I would assume that he murders people for fun. And that's just the outright weird. This book suffers from classic early-2000s "if a man abuses me verbally constantly, we gotta bang!" I lost count of how many times he established that he would "let" her do things or that he needed to be with her to protect her. And then they move in together within... a day? And don't worry, he'll be the only one to recognize her greatness with painting by suggesting that she rescues her own paintings from her home (which is guaranteed to flood) and then pushes her to sell them where they succeed, wildly! I can't stand heroine's with talent that can only be recognized, appreciated, or a part of their story if the romantic interest recognizes them. Felt like that One Direction "you don't know your beautiful" line. Also her painting skills come entirely from genetics?? My dude. That isn't how any of this works.
The heroine is a whole cluster of problems. She escapes her traumas by fleeing to a Floridian coastal/island town-- the traumas are constantly referred to but never revealed in a really pathetic "read on!" sort of way. Once they are revealed, I couldn't help but feel like Cabot both wanted to cash out on hurricanes and also on the #MeToo movement without fully committing herself to either one.
I will leave you with one excerpt about how Cabot handles writing teenagers, to give you a feel for the voice in this:
It was an all around yikes sort of book.
It's extremely bad. How do you have a Cat 5 hurricane hit a small coastal town and only cause light flooding in some buildings? Yet it moved a yacht from the ocean to the middle of the road on a hill? And the people who have lived on this coastal island town have been here all their lives, battled it out with Cat 5s and then still leave their pets in the homes alone? I get that that's a convenient plot device for the heroine but none of it felt natural. It felt like Cabot was trying to cash out on hurricanes in the way that John Green cashed out on cancer-- as an outsider who did enough research to push along their romance plot but not to actually pay any service to a tragic and very difficult situation.
Onto pettier problems. The romantic hero has four dogs-- a dog lover! Yay! SHE'S a dog lover! Omg! All of his dogs are named Bob. The reasoning? "Dogs are pack animals and don't need names since I'm their alpha." YIKES. I would assume that he murders people for fun. And that's just the outright weird. This book suffers from classic early-2000s "if a man abuses me verbally constantly, we gotta bang!" I lost count of how many times he established that he would "let" her do things or that he needed to be with her to protect her. And then they move in together within... a day? And don't worry, he'll be the only one to recognize her greatness with painting by suggesting that she rescues her own paintings from her home (which is guaranteed to flood) and then pushes her to sell them where they succeed, wildly! I can't stand heroine's with talent that can only be recognized, appreciated, or a part of their story if the romantic interest recognizes them. Felt like that One Direction "you don't know your beautiful" line. Also her painting skills come entirely from genetics?? My dude. That isn't how any of this works.
The heroine is a whole cluster of problems. She escapes her traumas by fleeing to a Floridian coastal/island town-- the traumas are constantly referred to but never revealed in a really pathetic "read on!" sort of way. Once they are revealed, I couldn't help but feel like Cabot both wanted to cash out on hurricanes and also on the #MeToo movement without fully committing herself to either one.
Spoiler
Especially when the heroine takes a 180 turn from the fluffy half-baked storyline to put a gun against her attacker's head and threaten his life in a moment of Women Power! TM. Which, because Cabot saved the main character's assault details until the last minute and also ensured that the attack was as light as it could possibly be, felt extremely weird.I will leave you with one excerpt about how Cabot handles writing teenagers, to give you a feel for the voice in this:
"You do know that some of us lived almost our entire lives without the internet?" Mrs. Hartwell seemed amused. "I managed to graduate from high school and college without ever using it once."
Neveah's eyes widened. "How did you even have a social life, let alone do homework?"
"It was called the library." Mrs. Hartwell didn't look so amused anymore. "And we used something called a telephone to call one another."
It was an all around yikes sort of book.