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maeverose's review against another edition
2.5
Sadly, this did not end up working for me. It started out alright, The writing style didn’t put me off (It was a tolerable amount of cheesy) I actually enjoyed the first half for the most part. Fake dating is one of my favorite romance tropes, I liked the idea of a bodyguard trope, especially with the bodyguard being a woman. But then towards the end I started to lose interest. There were also several things that bothered me throughout the book.
Which are:
-Hannah is a very bad bodyguard. She kept protesting doing things that can’t possibly be as bad as things she’s had to do for other jobs, she’s trained to handle tense life threatening situations - yet freaks out and shuts down over a shirtless man in front of her… She’s a grown ass adult, has had sex with men before, and she just shuts down over a man’s undulating six pack (seriously why that word choice)?She was completely clueless about Jack’s fears, nightmares and feud with Hank when she was told during the briefing about what happened with Drew. Isn’t she supposed to be good at analyzing people and assessing situations? And she was scared of cows??? That scene was funny to be fair but made zero sense. Yes this is a cheesy rom com and I’m probably taking it too seriously but still.
-All the back and forth conversations/arguments where Hannah refuses to accept or agree to something but eventually gives in. It always went on way too long, was overdone and got annoying pretty quickly.
-Along those lines, Hannah needing to be told a million times that Jack liked her before she believed it. It started to come across as her just being completely clueless rather than insecure.
-mainly because of those last three things, but also just because of the narration, Hannah seemed very immature.
-a lot of body shaming
-internalized misogyny
-very heteronormative (every single character is cishet)
Which are:
-Hannah is a very bad bodyguard. She kept protesting doing things that can’t possibly be as bad as things she’s had to do for other jobs, she’s trained to handle tense life threatening situations - yet freaks out and shuts down over a shirtless man in front of her… She’s a grown ass adult, has had sex with men before, and she just shuts down over a man’s undulating six pack (seriously why that word choice)?
-All the back and forth conversations/arguments where Hannah refuses to accept or agree to something but eventually gives in. It always went on way too long, was overdone and got annoying pretty quickly.
-Along those lines, Hannah needing to be told a million times that Jack liked her before she believed it. It started to come across as her just being completely clueless rather than insecure.
-mainly because of those last three things, but also just because of the narration, Hannah seemed very immature.
-a lot of body shaming
-internalized misogyny
-very heteronormative (every single character is cishet)
-Jack getting physically aggressive with his brother and smashing that plate
-I felt like there should’ve been a content warning for suicide attempt for the end of the book. Even though we’re told many times that things could get messy given Hannah’s job, the whole book was very low stakes up until then, and that kind of came out of no where. For a rom com especially, it seemed a bit much. It felt like she almost tried to keep that scene a bit lighthearted as well with the writing style, but that’s not a scene you can make light of imo. It felt a bit insensitive.
-I felt like there should’ve been a content warning for suicide attempt for the end of the book. Even though we’re told many times that things could get messy given Hannah’s job, the whole book was very low stakes up until then, and that kind of came out of no where. For a rom com especially, it seemed a bit much. It felt like she almost tried to keep that scene a bit lighthearted as well with the writing style, but that’s not a scene you can make light of imo. It felt a bit insensitive.
-the fact that the villain was disabled and ‘ugly’, plus the villainizing of mental illness in general (no that ridiculous epilogue did not make up for it)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Death, Gun violence, and Stalking
Moderate: Cancer, Ableism, Alcohol, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Blood, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Medical content, and Terminal illness
Minor: Fatphobia and Vomit
Graphic: death of a siblingjamie_reads_stuff's review against another edition
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-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? It's complicated
1.75
I REALLY wanted to like this book. The premise was so fun and I enjoyed the bodyguard tropes. However, there were so many things about this book that I did not enjoy that outweighed the good. First of all, the 4th wall breaking in the writing was incredibly jarring. At times it felt like the 4th wall breakage fit in more for a 90s teen sitcom and not a new adult romance novel. The writing felt incredibly juvenile. Secondly, the humor in this book did not mesh well with me, it was either too corny or punched down to specific women—which brings me to my third point. This book is so weirdly misogynistic; yes I know having a female body guard who is “small and tiny” flips stereotypes but there’s a lot of weird jokes and passive aggressive comments about women who wear too much makeup or have plastic surgery. It’s giving “I’m not like other girls” energy and it’s jarring. Overall, I really really did not enjoy reading this whatsoever. The only reason why it’s not any lower than it is is because the premise is interesting and some of the prose is good. A more spoiler-y review below:
the characterization was kind of misogynistic also. Like Hannah doesn’t have a single female friend and Connie doesn’t count because she’s a mother figure. Like Hannah’s best friend betrays her, Kelly is the stereotypical boy crazy person, and holy shit Kennedy’s characterization was AWFUL. Like the whole scene with the bonfire was giving like mean girl y/n energy it was so bizzare. I literally don’t even remember the main guys name but he’s just like….Chris Evans except he squawks. By the way, the bwok bwok scene?? Horrible
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Alcoholism, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Cancer and Ableism
brokenbodybitch's review against another edition
sad
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
1-2 ⭐️
so yes don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the reversal of the bodyguard idea, HOWEVER, this book is filled with lines shaming others appearance for the fmc's self esteem. His ex is a famous like model or something; essentially she was famous for being attractive (or smth) and the plot hinged an uncomfortable amount on shaming her; either negative comments about how she got cosmetic surgery/wore makeup/got dressed up a certain way and she was made into this kinda negative stereotype, then compared against the fmc, who was 'real' according the the LI 🙄 it was like Yes, this was fun at times and had a decent level of emotion but the woman bashing for the sake of the fmc alone was a bit much for me.
Also there is a lot of tragedy in this book it is not really a happy book, fair warning… ‼️ SPOILERS? ‼️ it starts with her mom dying and his brother is also passed and it was just a lot of possible triggers (PLEASE CHECK TW/CW) packed into one book which like is fine but the description doesn’t really prepare you for the way some of these things are handled and it's like not all that light tbh especially towards the end. I think there are some people who will enjoy this book but definitely check tw/cw (especially suicide and such) and be prepared for some women bashing on women and not great stereotyping of the LI’s ex.
I enjoy the idea but this book missed the mark for me and I didn’t even want to re read the parts of it for the review, and doing that made it drop in my enjoyment of it immensely
so yes don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the reversal of the bodyguard idea, HOWEVER, this book is filled with lines shaming others appearance for the fmc's self esteem. His ex is a famous like model or something; essentially she was famous for being attractive (or smth) and the plot hinged an uncomfortable amount on shaming her; either negative comments about how she got cosmetic surgery/wore makeup/got dressed up a certain way and she was made into this kinda negative stereotype, then compared against the fmc, who was 'real' according the the LI 🙄 it was like Yes, this was fun at times and had a decent level of emotion but the woman bashing for the sake of the fmc alone was a bit much for me.
Also there is a lot of tragedy in this book it is not really a happy book, fair warning… ‼️ SPOILERS? ‼️ it starts with her mom dying and his brother is also passed and it was just a lot of possible triggers (PLEASE CHECK TW/CW) packed into one book which like is fine but the description doesn’t really prepare you for the way some of these things are handled and it's like not all that light tbh especially towards the end. I think there are some people who will enjoy this book but definitely check tw/cw (especially suicide and such) and be prepared for some women bashing on women and not great stereotyping of the LI’s ex.
I enjoy the idea but this book missed the mark for me and I didn’t even want to re read the parts of it for the review, and doing that made it drop in my enjoyment of it immensely
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Grief, Ableism, Alcohol, Body horror, Cancer, Car accident, Mental illness, Sexism, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Minor: Violence and Ableism
Character aims to harm others then ‘plot twist’ he was only there to die by suicide and there is a comment about brain matter not being in someone’s skull because of gun violence I’ll say that…
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