Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Spanish Love Deception

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

325 reviews

ingrid13's review

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

4.0

so you're telling me that this man walks around with homemade granola bars in his pockets, breaks beds by solely trying to fit in them, is sculpted like a greek god, AND his name is aaron?? how is that fair for other men out there?? because i simply don't think it is.

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nyquillll's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective tense 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

3.75

Hopeless romantic here - this book did it for me.

I did think the pacing of the story was a bit slow at times, but I think that was meant to be for this slow-burn, and I’m apparently into those kinds of stories now. In hindsight, when you consider the whole story happens within maybe a couple weeks, it’s probably not so slow.

What can I say about this book. At times I was frustrated with the FMC for how much her inner dialogue and doubts controlled her actions, but then I quickly empathized because isn’t that what we all do? I appreciated the author’s handling of this passionate, soul-consuming, pure kind of love which selflessly offered each other to one another. And, of course, as the reader, we can tell from the beginning how enraptured Aaron is with Catalina. :)

This book touched on self esteem, sexism in the workplace (working in a male-dominated profession), international romance, past trauma, power and gender dynamics in relationships, fake-dating, the things you do for the people you love, strained relationships with parents, loss of parental figures, the presence or absence of extended family, and the strength and courage it takes to trust in love and let it flow in.

I adore the love between the two MCs, even if it took them a while to admit it to one another :)

Content Warnings

Minor: Grief, Death of parent, and Cancer

Some of my favorite quotes:

”We are ignoring him though. You don’t need to spare his feelings, he doesn’t have any.”

"They probably thought they were not taking any side, but they were. Their silence was doing exactly that."

"Be there in an hour. best, Aaron." "What in the f-"

"What if I still want to tell you about it?"

"What's so surprising, Catalina? I pay attention when you talk. Even when you mumble to yourself."

"If you think I'm not elated to see you eat, then you don't understand how serious I was yesterday."

"Thank you, boyfriend."

"There you are."

"This was a historical moment."

"No sleeping, baby. Please."

"You'll already know that I am."

"And for a while there, it wasn't like that. All that lightness faded out, and seeing my daughter going through something like that wasn't easy...But that's in the past. She's here now, and she's okay. Happy."

"Anything that bothers you matters to me, and I want to hear about it...Nothing about you is boring or doesn't interest me-ever. Understand?"

"I'll earn my four-letter word."

"It doesn't have to be a dream you need to wake up from."

"When there's a rock on the way and you fall, I tumble down with you. We fight our way up together."

"We protect and heal each other. That's how this is supposed to be."

"Half of them wanted to file the complaint themselves..."

"...as long as I had him, my life-altering moment would never be a measurement of time....He was my moment. And for as long as I had him, my life would constantly be changing, be altered. I'd be challenged, cherished, loved. With him, I'd live."

"I'm here. I'm here. I'm running toward you. I trust you. I love you..."

"I would have come back for you, you know? I told you I wouldn't let you quit on us. You still owed me that four-letter word."

"But I finally got it. I understood how hard it'd hit him, losing Mom. How lost he must have been at the reality of not having a way to get her back."

"Your Thea,"

fromjuliereads's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

While I had quite a few issues with this book, it was ultimately fine and I did enjoy reading it to an extent. I'm confused by all of the hype praising this book though.
The writing was... not great. Clunky sentences, things were worded strange for characters, and there were whole paragraphs and pages of "filler" that felt repetitive - all of the things going on in Lina's head that seemed to just loop. I admit to skimming a lot of those sections. Also the part in Spain was a shockingly small part of the book?
I did like Aaron's character. Sure he could be stand offish and cold, definitely didn't deal with things in the right way and said "baby" way too much - but I felt like his character had more depth in some ways than Lina.

Anyways. The banter was fun, I liked the fake dating aspect. This is NOT enemies to lovers though. It was a fine read.

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_izzi_'s review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

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a_h0204's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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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psyduck11's review against another edition

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2.0

I just think it's a waist of time. If you want to evade reality for a while, yes, fine, but it's just one of the books that I don't understand why booktok pushed forward.
Being Spanish myself I appreciated the little things of Spanish culture and conversations in Spanish but that's it.
Yes, there were some parts of the character's dialogue that was good but the plot was weak and there were almost no descriptions creating the white room effect (I think that's what's called).
The smut scenes and dirty talk were a bit too much for me (I must say I'm not really a huge smut fan). And the pet names (in English and Spanish) made me cringe.
I didn't get why the protagonists fell in love for each other and the only explanation I thought was just lust.
The writing was very choppy. It felt like the author knew the scenes she wanted to write but it just ended up being a mix of scenes without cohesion and no context between them. The wedding (that was one of the central focus if the whole book) wasn't even described!!!! I do not understand it, really
Overall, not a good read and I would have like to invest my time in another book, honestly

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th3misna's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

I needed to have this little breather after reading heavy fantasy for a while and this novel was just what I needed. Fast paced, funny, witty and with top tier tension, is everything a novel like this should be. I always aim for books like this because they make me feel good and airy before I embark on the journey to do some heavy fantasy reads so for anyone looking for a nice book to read and break away from the heavy stuff, this is it. Please be advise that it has a few themes of sickness, power abuse in the work/study area.

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megthecatlady's review against another edition

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emotional 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

4.5

I was not expecting to love this book as much as I did. I really loved the character development of Lina and loved how much we got to know about Aaron as the story unfolded. The spicy scenes, as well as the rest of the book, were so well written. The plot is medium paced but the romance is a slooooow burn, I usually don't like that but it really worked in this book.

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beebowbabe's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.75

Enjoyable read. I found the FMC to be a bit annoying, but adored the MMC. I loved the cultural components and the emotional depth between these two characters.

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k_fry's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted sad fast-paced

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

3.25

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