Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Just One Damned Thing After Another

Finished it out of spite because i have been DNFing quite frequently. Its all spoilers and rants I will not be tagging, proceed at own risk.

1. Fucking hate first person narratives that try to write purple prose. People do not have thoughts the way Taylor thinks her narrator does. Max also seems very smug and pleased with herself and her humor, its kinda icky. Especially when she rags on other characters hubris.

2. Characters are completely underdeveloped and replaceable. The entire book could have been written with a cast of 10 and instead it had 30. After awhile I stopped consulting the cast section at the beginning of the book because I realized not only did I not care but it truly did not matter which character did what because it was all just about moving the plot forward and centering Max at all times. Literally no other plot point was every made with another character, every single thing was directly tied to her. So obnoxious only seeing the story from one persons - very limited - point of view. She didn't even have an empathy or wondered about others experiences. Just all about her in her head and how the whole of St Marys revolves around her constantly. Main Character Syndrome and I mean that in the most derogatory way possible.

3. Completely out of character development. And not in a "he wouldnt say that" way but in a truly is this person secretly multiple personalities way. Chief barging into Max's room and accusing her of adultery? And then fine two pages later? Absolutely makes no sense narrative and makes their relationship seem weak and unstable (while Max clearly thinks they are soul mates)

4. Jodi Taylor claiming historical accuracy can eat my entire ass. I dont even like history and i know more about the time periods that some of this book took place in.

5. The sex scenes??? Literal wtf moment. Aggressive, harsh, fast, out of place, crass. This wasn't smut it wasn't erotica it wasnt even porn. Crashing the bosses car and then having sex on the hood so aggressively that people notice when they get back? To quote "if this had been one of those books there would have been 3 pages of head banging sex" -- this right after Max and Chief fall asleep after being almost killed. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. Literally gibberish.

6. Speaking of sex, Sussmans bizarre sexual assault scene and then never mentioned again. What was the narrative point of having Sussman stick his dick in Max face? To prove she can beat someone else? Already done many times by her inflating her own fighting skills. To reinforce how bad he is? Taylor is just using nonsensical, out of left field sexual assault to make a character as bad. Do better. This is Outlander levels of "plot is stale so lets add some rape to move it along."

7. She lost a baby? She was pregnant? She had a cold and went to the clinic? Literal word salad. I was laughing on the bus because I thought I was having a stroke trying to understand what the fuck the author was trying to do with this story.

8. Casual, constant alcoholism, but clearly Jodi Taylor has never had a sip in her entire life. Max would go from black out drunk to writing a 100 page proposal in the same night. She also clearly was written to have an alcohol dependency but literally no one brought it up. This did not age well and Taylors lack of even basic understanding of this instantly pulled me from the story

In short, what an obnoxious, self-important I-am-so-quirky story. Probably the worst book I read all year and I've read a lot of shitty ones. So. Fucking. Weird.

Content Warnings

ohyeah_karyn's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

accidentalspaceexplorer's review against another edition

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3.0

Didn't appeal to me much - mostly there was a lot of sexual trauma for the main character and I didn't buy the romance much. Some of the time travel was interesting though. Ultimately meh for me.

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eloise__'s review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

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iamsammie27's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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