Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - By a Thread

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

By a Thread by Lucy Score

21 reviews

megan_laffey's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful sad slow-paced

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

5.0

This book gave me ALL THE FEELS! I was laughing out loud, mad, sad, happy, incredulous, furious, heartbroken, and when I thought all hope was lost, Lucy sewed my heart back up and kissed it. She gave me a HEA.

There was a part in this book where I felt like my heart was ripped out. If you read this already, you probably have 1 or 2 guesses where this happened. 5 out of 5 🌟 and I’m keeping it on my bookshelf forever.

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I absolutely adore the Knockemout series and wanted to read more of Lucy’s work. This one is everywhere in the book community, so I excited to read it. This book was good.

This book has two points of view. The first one is Dominic Russo. He has just got a woman fired, he was having a bad day and took it out on a bystander in a pizza shop. But he knows there is nothing innocent about Ally Morales. She proves that on the first day on her new job, in his office after being hired by his mother. She like to argue with Dominic in front of the other staff members and her annoying personality is clearly brighten up the magazine’s office. But Dominic is determined to not abuse his position of power like his father did. However, once Dominic realizes she’s working herself to death with half a dozen dead end jobs for some secret reason she’s doesn’t tell him about. He is planning on fixing everything so he can get on with his job. The second one is Ally Morales. She got fired for being rude to a rude customer and now she’s worried about making ends meet and paying for her dad’s care home. When Dominic’s boss employs her, Ally has two goals in mind – make enough money to pay for her dad’s care home and annoying the living shit out of Dominic. Dominic wants her to quit, and Ally is determined not to. She doesn’t know why Dominic wants to quit until he stalks her to one of her jobs and she finds out the real reason.

This was the second workplace romance I've read and the first one was The Hating Game. I loved this storyline and the spice. I didn’t hate the main characters, but they did annoy the crap out of me for 15% of this book during the middle. They just gave me complete whiplash, one minute they hate each other and they don’t want to sleep with each other, the next they are obsessed with each other and want to have sex all over the office. This book could have been cut down by about 100 pages if the third act conflict didn’t happen. I didn’t think the third act conflict was necessary as I would have preferred them to carry on with the Paul Russo’s a scumbag and let’s take him down and then have some therapy storyline instead of the I’m insecure and you are sleeping with the good-looking dude storyline.

However, the side characters saved this book. I know this is a standalone, but I would love another book from Faith’s point of view of running the strip club and the love story between her and Christian came around. I would have loved to see more of Buddy and his wife because they were great. Dominic’s mother carried this on her back and I'm thankful she did. As always with Lucy’s books I loved the bonus Epilogue that she does and that she always manages to make you want more by pulling on those heartstrings. I liked the storyline for the first 85% of it with the whole I want you, but I can’t have you but then also making sure that Ally was eating and sleeping. I love dual POV, I think it makes the storyline and the books 1000% more interesting. I just felt it was missing something to raise it to five stars, but I will be carrying on reading more of Lucy’s work.

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hannibanani29's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced

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

3.25

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ruthhmarieereads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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kyleethecatlady's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

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

4.25

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autumnvoight's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

1.0

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chrisljm's review against another edition

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challenging lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

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weelasswithabook's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful slow-paced

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

4.5

CW sexual harrassment, SA, casual ableism, dementia, medical debt and money struggles

⭐ Rom-Com
⭐ Enemies to lovers
⭐ Office romance
⭐ Forced proximity

This. Was. So. Good!

I find it hard sometimes to commit to a romance over 350 pages, as it usually suggests to me that there's going to be a lot of unnecessary conflict. This, however, was delightful. Dealing with quite heavy topics such as dementia as and workplace sexual assault, Lucy Score managed to write a great love story which didn't overshadow or detract from the heavier parts of the storyline. It also still managed to be genuinely funny and steamy. So the length (500+ pages) of the novel was more than justifiable.

There's a lot of push and pull in here, combined with both characters being so strong willed and having such high standards for themselves that they can't show vulnerability to one another in an equal balance.

The enemies to lovers aspect of this was genuinely funny. It's so petty and childish (spelling out insults in foodstuffs, subtly giving each other the finger in the middle of important meetings, stuff like that), but I just thrived in it.

Content Warnings

noellelovesbooks's review against another edition

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4.25

Content Warnings: Sexual scenes, parent with dementia, parental abandonment, toxic relationships [both familial and romantic], sexism, and pregnancy.
Mention of: workplace sexual harassment, sexual assault [of minor and adults], abuse of power, and infidelity.

Ally is juggling a lot to ensure her father, who has dementia, gets the best quality care he can. Working a handful of different jobs and barely making ends meet has made the last year extremely stressful. When an entitled customer refuses to put his phone away, which is a restaurant policy, she’s ready to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Forced to take his father’s position, as creative director at his mother’s magazine, Dominic is determined to show he’s a hard worker and not anything like his sleazy dad. Feeling like he doesn’t deserve the job he was given he’s constantly second-guessing himself and wonders if he’ll ever get the swing of things. It’s been a year of non-stop stress and repression of anger so when a server calls him out on his behavior he decides to give her, and her manager, a piece of his mind.

Dominic hates that all the associates always seem nervous or afraid of him but that doesn’t mean he was excited to find out his mother hired Ally. As soon as he sees her he tries to fire her but sadly her employment is not up to him. What’s worse than working with someone who doesn’t seem to respect you? Finding that same person increasingly attractive.

I adored the banter between these two and the steady slow burn as they fought their growing attraction to each other. As someone who’s read many third-act conflicts/breakups, I wasn’t prepared for how much this one would hurt. The problem that arises, and words that are said, is one that I felt wasn’t given adequate time for forgiveness to make sense…at least for me.

The opposites attract, workplace romance, and enemies to lovers vibes really had me going and I was smiling and laughing through most of the book. Overall I really enjoyed the book but I would have appreciated a little more time spend on the final conflict. It felt, to me, like it was resolved rather quickly though the book technically tells us it’s been a decent span of time.

***Bit of a Spoiler about the ending below, STOP READING if you don’t want the spoiler***

I really enjoyed the ending except that out of nowhere Ally tells Dominic she’s pregnant. It didn’t feel necessary. The way the ending was written, I feel, it would have been better to just do everything the same but not have that pregnancy announcement. Then in the bonus epilogue [that I think you get for signing up for a newsletter] have a bit about how after the book ended they found out they were going to have a baby etc.

Due to them being 39 and 44 when the book started and them not mentioning wanting kids, the entire book, I wrongfully assumed this would be a romance without pregnancy so those few final pages really threw me off. I have a lot of friends who don’t want kids or who’ve struggled with infertility who love reading romance books, that don’t include pregnancy in them, so I was really excited to recommend this book…until that ending. 😅

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soniajoy98's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

3.0

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