Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Only When It's Us

Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Only When It's Us by Chloe Liese

82 reviews

errie's review against another edition

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3.0

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abicaro17's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-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

4.25

I love love loved Ryder and Willa! Ryder is a former soccer star prospect who's career was cut short by a case of bacterial meningitis that caused him to lose his hearing. Willa is a current soccer star who's losing her mom to cancer and struggling to balance sports and school. When her and Ryder are paired up for a school project, frenemies become lovers. I adored the banter and jokes between them and this slow burn was nice and slow just like I like it!! My only issue was the communication. Not literally obviously because Ryder is deaf but emotionally. Willa and Ryder both refused to talk about anything real almost the whole book!! It was so frustrating to read and it kinda dampened the fun.

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fox_ivy's review

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Parent illness and death

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kelseyholler's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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abby_can_read's review

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emotional 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

3.0

📱
While I had a good time with this book, it was a struggle. I adored Ryder. He kept me interested. Willa fell flat and I found her to be annoying. Since I didn't like both of the main characters, the romance didn't give me everything I wanted.

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jaynovara's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted sad fast-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

3.0

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kaitrates's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

2.0

Let's start with what I liked about this book.

First, the chemistry between Willa and Ryder. I loved watching these two circle closer and closer until they finally came together (literally and figuratively). I also adore a prickly (err...tempestuous) heroine like Willa who's a total firecracker with a big heart. I also mostly enjoyed the sex scenes and their creative use of the shower and the mirror. Bonus points for some light spanking and actually talking about it before doing it! Lastly, I appreciated the late deafened rep - we don't often see this in romance and I'm always here for more disabled main characters!

Oh! I also adored the roomies and every time they were on the page I was smiling.

Now, onto my issues with it.

First and foremost, there were three HP references and apparently these were not removed in the Berkley edition. They violently tore me out of the story, especially knowing Liese already pulled this book to improve the late deafened rep. Like show your trans readers the same care please and thank you.

Some of my other gripes are more objective. For example, there was a lot of inconsistency from characterisations to plot points. Time is spent telling us tha tWilla and her mom read anatomy textbooks but then she uses euphemisms for genitals? Ryder is all "it was the men, not you!" but then trashes romance novels? Money is tight but Willa has an apartment with her friend?

Similarly, there was enough telling that it got to me. Truly, this isn't something I usually notice but DAMN it was rough here! With these info dumps, there often was extraneous info that never came back up or was contradicted (see above).

I also hated that we didn't get to see Willa's growth through her grief. We get maybe a page where we're told she's really struggling

after her mom dies

but then Rooney puts her foot down and then Willa is fine-ish and back with Ryder and saying ILU? We get one reference to her work with a therapist through her inner monologue around the ILU but again: its just being info dumped to us.

Now, there were also a bunch of things that I disliked that are more subjective. Let's just make a list, shall we?

Choo cha and log(jam). 🤢
He's SO BIG and she's so ~~wee~~ compact. Like, is she a sedan?
Magic voice/hands/peen. 🤬 I hate it SO much.
Miscommunication upon miscommunication upon miscommunication. Thankfully, not because of Ryder's hearing loss though.
Adrian.
The Bergman parents meet cute aka the embodiment of "well if a boy teases you its because they like you" patriarchal BS.
7 kids in this economy?! NVM the impact on sustainability...👀
Adrian was forgiven WAY too easily.
The ILU was absolutely not earned (and he realises when he sees her naked WHAT?! THEN CRIES THE SECOND TIME?!)
His voice just comes back and he's able to use it consistently...?

I think what Liese is doing is really important AND I promised my friend I would try another Bergman book if I didn't love this one since apparently her craft improves throughout the series. So I will give her work another chance and hope there aren't nearly as many things pulling me out of the story and diminishing my enjoyment of it.

Original Review
…what?

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porqueerestanvicky's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

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

2.75

This book finally drove the point home: I’m just not the target audience for romance. Not romance with ✨spice✨ in it, anyway —I hate it when the characters’ horny thoughts about one another get in the way of the plot, however little of it there is, and I felt like that happened here every five minutes or so.

Also, how can they be so in love if they literally got to know each other in the tail end of the story? And it all happened after they got each other off?? Wasn’t that kind of the whole conflict of the book, that they don’t talk about anything personal, like ever? Is this how allosexuality works? Am I just too asexual to get it? Okay, spoilery rant over.

I was pleased to see disability rep —especially the takes on how hearing aides are not all what they’re cracked up to be in fiction— but I’m not sure how I feel about the execution as a whole.

All in all, a fun palate cleanser, just not something to rave about, in my opinion.

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lunahale's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective 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

5.0

i cried and i laughed and i read this all in one day

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amy_in_the_city's review

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medium-paced

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

2.0

Well, I really thought I'd love this one, but I had so many issues with it.

First, this was trying to be enemies to lovers, but there was no good reason to be enemies in the first place or for them to hold on to their antagonistic relationship for so long. They jumped straight to enemies just because he didn't hear her say one thing and she didn't know he was deaf. Even after she found out that he wasn't deliberately ignoring her, she still considered him a "frenemy" (this word was used way too much). The main characters frequently acted like they were 10 years old, at one point even throwing elbows and pulling ponytails in class.

I especially didn't like Willa. She completely lost me after she

ghosted Ryder for 2 months after her mom died, not even acknowledging his presence when he showed up to try to comfort her. This had real negative effects on Ryder, and it bothered me that she didn't seem to care about his feelings at all. Then once she came back to him, she was so upset that other women were taking an interest in him that he decided to let her look through his phone so she would know he wasn't cheating on her. Who needs boundaries, right?

For the whole third act, she was so wishy washy about the relationship, and I felt like Ryder was doing all the work to keep the relationship alive. I spent most of the last section wishing they wouldn't end up together because their relationship seemed so unhealthy. With Willa being so flighty and with them demonstrating an unwillingness to face their problems together as partners, I don't trust that they will have a good relationship going forward. Even towards the very end of the book, she still got upset with him for asking her very basic questions about herself because she didn't want to open up to him at all.

I liked that there was disability rep, with a leading man who is deaf, but I kind of felt like the book treated the deafness as an obstacle to overcome before the romantic relationship really could get going. There was a lot of importance placed on him hearing her voice and on getting him to start speaking again. I do appreciate that the author took feedback from reviews after the book was originally published, made some changes, and released an edited edition to try to fix some of the representation issues, but I think some of the bones of the old issues remain. I am not part of the Deaf community, so I am not an expert on how the representation was handled, but others who are Deaf have posted their reviews, and I encourage people to read those for more insight.

This gets an extra star for Ryder. He's mostly a really great guy, and I really liked him.

I think this book also ruined the word "lumberjack" for me forever. I've reached my lifetime quota and might never want to see the word again.

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