Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - The Spanish Love Deception

9/10. This book had me yearning, crying, and laughing so it was a big success. The only thing I'm taking points off for was the disordered eating to lose weight for the wedding in the first third of the book. It was unnecessary and felt icky to me.

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amberinpieces's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

3.75

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tsked_off's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-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

4.0

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winterisvague's review against another edition

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lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

0.25

The Spanish Love Deception
-- Rating: 1/5

I don't want to be harsh since this is the author's debut novel, but I thought about it hard, and I couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say about it. I will try to break this down coherently so I don’t go on an endless rant.

Writing

Let me get straight to the point without sugarcoating: The writing was terrible from the very first chapter; it felt like I was reading a story written by a teenager on Wattpad. In fact, I have read better books on Wattpad.

The amount of epithets drove me insane. The author likes to use the same descriptions over and over again, which clearly shows a lack of skill and creativity. A simple google search tells you that Aaron Blackford’s blue eyes were mentioned more than 100 times in this book. If you don’t consider this bad writing, I don’t know what else to tell you. It would benefit this book greatly if a lot of the repetitive descriptions were edited out.

This book had the potential to be fun and interesting, but it was poorly written. The author just took all of these popular tropes and jammed it into this book in a poor attempt to make an interesting romance novel. In addition, the pacing was so off; the first half of the book was slowly dragged on, while the second half was rushed. 0-100 real quick.

Nothing about this book justifies the page count. It took around 200-250 pages to set up the basic premise of the story (that’s half of the book!) because Lina was too busy complaining and overthinking everything. It was painful to read. You can easily take out 200 pages of this book, and it wouldn't even make a significant difference to the plot.

The way the romance unfolded was unexciting. There was no yearning or tension, it kind of just happened. Aaron has secretly loved her all this time, she was oblivious to it because she was busy hating on him and being petty, and then she fell in love with him very quickly during their trip. Some of their interactions in Spain were cute, and some felt forced and unnatural.

Aaron was a stiff, unfeeling robot in the first half of the book, and a love-stricken puppy in the second half. I understand that he was 'secretly' in love with her, and that he was finally showing his true feelings, but the transition was so oddly done. He felt like a different character to me in the second half of the book.

The dirty talk was so uncomfortable to read. "I want to feel you milking me, baby." I don’t know if I should laugh or cringe. The smut scenes would have been so much better without the cringe-worthy dialogues.

I can’t believe the author used Aaron’s father’s cancer to bring them back together in the end. The author couldn’t come up with another way to do this?

Characters

Aaron Blackford is sweet and caring, but so is 99% of other fictional man in romance novels. He is your typical male love interest: tall, handsome, intelligent, rich. He doesn’t stand out in his own unique way. Instead of giving us character development and depth, we received countless descriptions of his ocean blue eyes and sexy body.

Don’t even get me started on Lina. The author tried to make her quirky but failed miserably, and she came off as bratty and annoying instead. She made her stubbornness her entire personality trait, she’s childish and petty, and she acts more like a teenager than a 30 year old. It doesn’t help that we spend a large chunk of the book in Lina’s head, because her internal dialogue is extremely repetitive and annoying. I found myself wanting to DNF this book so many times, because I didn’t want to spend another minute reading her internal monologue. I powered through because I’m no quitter.

All other characters are forgettable.

Final thoughts:

I genuinely believe that the only reason a lot of people like this book is because it uses popular tropes; people eat that shit up without giving much thought and consideration about the execution. (I'm being harsh, I’m sorry to everyone who liked it.) To be fair, many people enjoyed this book, so perhaps it just wasn't for me at all. That said, I probably won't be reading her future work.

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thatswhatshanread's review

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funny lighthearted slow-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

2.25

UM. I have many thoughts.

First and foremost, I really wanted to love this. Virtually everyone I know that has read it has gushed over it. And it had those romcom elements that usually make your heart swell and your mind go all melty with love.

Instead, this book just made me cringe. I hate to say that—but the cringe didn’t go away as the story went on. Normally, I love the enemies-to-lovers trope. The work romance trope. The back and forth. The slow burn. The one-bed trope. The TENSION. Unfortunately, all of those predictable nuances felt disconnected and forced to me. The storyline was very similar to The Hating Game—which I LOVED—and maybe that might have also been the reason this story made me so mad.

Because it had POTENTIAL!!! So much potential. But the writing in general was just so so repetitive, especially when it came to certain descriptive words and actions or thoughts made by the MC. It made the veryyyy slow burn even slower. The buildup just didn’t feel organic. And once the buildup rewarded the reader with that moment you’d been waiting for… I just could not. The love interest, which up until that point I actually grew to like, completely changed. This seems to be a common theme in certain romance novels: that the hot-and-heavy moments have to transform the characters into intense maniacs that, frankly, disturb me. Maybe that’s on me. Probably. But seriouslyyyy it felt like whiplash!! It just didn’t feel true to the characters, IMO. It felt a little like a cop-out just for the ~seductive shock factor~ idk.

I must have liked this book in some way to be this frustrated by it. The “ocean blue” eyes were mentioned no less than a thousand times. “My fake boyfriend”, or referring to any character by their relation to the MC instead of by name, drove me crazy. It wasn’t just once. It was multiple times, over and over even when you knew who they were. Also, the excessive use of names when talking to each other. No one talks like that irl!!

Elena Armas, girl, I know this was your debut book and I really do commend you for self-publishing it but— “I hate to say it, I hope I don’t sound ridiculous, I don’t know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn’t know a thing. Sorry to this man.”

Please don’t hate me I just gotta be honest ty!!!!

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