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mirandyli's review
lighthearted
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Cancer, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Classism
bzliz's review
emotional
hopeful
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
This was much tougher to get through than Rosaline’s story. Paris has severe undiagnosed anxiety and panic disorders and it was challenging to keep going. There’s a lot of spiraling in fits of anxiety that was minorly triggering for me and I don’t typically find that’s something I experience.
Not only does Paris have real issues he needs to see a medical professional about but Tariq is trying to fix him without realizing it and without being equipped to help. On top of that, Paris keeps reaching out to his parents and gets nothing in return in a way that really hurt my heart. Honestly, my favorite character was the cat.
The structure also suffered in my opinion, because there was so much to cover post-filming. There were relatively few mid-week scenes which made everything feel like a rinse and repeat of Paris buried so deeply in his own head that he can scarcely function. Over all, I didn’t hate it but I certainly wouldn’t read it again.
Not only does Paris have real issues he needs to see a medical professional about but Tariq is trying to fix him without realizing it and without being equipped to help. On top of that, Paris keeps reaching out to his parents and gets nothing in return in a way that really hurt my heart. Honestly, my favorite character was the cat.
The structure also suffered in my opinion, because there was so much to cover post-filming. There were relatively few mid-week scenes which made everything feel like a rinse and repeat of Paris buried so deeply in his own head that he can scarcely function. Over all, I didn’t hate it but I certainly wouldn’t read it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Cursing and Abandonment
Minor: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Xenophobia, and Islamophobia
All the phobias and isms are from a particular contestant and from discussion surrounding the show on social media. Otherwise they are merely mentioned in the same way someone would say “I’m from X place, nothing can scare me.”piecesofamber's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Bullying, Homophobia, Racism, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Medical content, and Alcohol
a_win_in_clear_rain's review
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
It was cute... Not my favorite though.
I went into this expecting an adorable baking show romantic comedy, and it definitely was not that.
It was a good book, but it was much more focused on the main character and his struggles.
I did appreciate the huge character growth,especially near the end, and that they verbally recognized that they both made mistakes!
Overall, wouldn't recommend if you're looking for a cute, lighthearted romance, but if you like contemporary books in general you'll probably enjoy this one!
I went into this expecting an adorable baking show romantic comedy, and it definitely was not that.
It was a good book, but it was much more focused on the main character and his struggles.
I did appreciate the huge character growth,
Overall, wouldn't recommend if you're looking for a cute, lighthearted romance, but if you like contemporary books in general you'll probably enjoy this one!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Islamophobia, and Abandonment
readingthroughinfinity's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, and Abandonment
Minor: Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Classism
displacedcactus's review against another edition
emotional
funny
fast-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
This book has a lot going for it. It's a gay baking show romance! There's a cat! It starts off with a really funny scene and the writing sparkles throughout! Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that stopped it from being a perfect read for me.
The biggest problem is that we only get Paris's POV for the entire book. This makes Tariq, who is wonderful, feel more like an object for Paris to win rather than his own fully realized character. I would have liked more insight into how he's feeling when Paris puts his foot in his mouth, and how he personally processes the stress of being in Bake Expectations.
The other thing is, Paris's POV is *exhausting*. As somebody who has low-key anxiety, I find it really stressful reading MCs with anxiety. It makes me anxious for them, and anxious for myself. Like what if my anxiety ever gets this bad?
The other other thing is Paris is kind of a jerk sometimes. Yes, some of it can be blamed on his anxiety but I really do think he comes across as a self-centered rich boy who isn't fully aware of his privilege, even when he's trying to be.
Two other things to note: This book does contain spoilers for the previous book in the series, but much like the seasons of your favorite baking competition, it largely stands well on its own. Also, there's zero sex in this book. Tariq doesn't believe in having sex before marriage. This isn't personally a choice I agree with but I thought it was nice to see how Tariq navigates his Muslim faith and sexuality.
The biggest problem is that we only get Paris's POV for the entire book. This makes Tariq, who is wonderful, feel more like an object for Paris to win rather than his own fully realized character. I would have liked more insight into how he's feeling when Paris puts his foot in his mouth, and how he personally processes the stress of being in Bake Expectations.
The other thing is, Paris's POV is *exhausting*. As somebody who has low-key anxiety, I find it really stressful reading MCs with anxiety. It makes me anxious for them, and anxious for myself. Like what if my anxiety ever gets this bad?
The other other thing is Paris is kind of a jerk sometimes. Yes, some of it can be blamed on his anxiety but I really do think he comes across as a self-centered rich boy who isn't fully aware of his privilege, even when he's trying to be.
Two other things to note: This book does contain spoilers for the previous book in the series, but much like the seasons of your favorite baking competition, it largely stands well on its own. Also, there's zero sex in this book. Tariq doesn't believe in having sex before marriage. This isn't personally a choice I agree with but I thought it was nice to see how Tariq navigates his Muslim faith and sexuality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Cursing, Homophobia, and Islamophobia
aromarrie's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
5.0
"Change is part of growing up. You don't want to stay a kid forever. That's Peter Pan, and he is not the hero of the story. . . The hero of Peter Pan is Wendy. Peter is trapped in a weird fantasy world constructed of his own fears. Wendy goes there, learns what she has to from it, then comes back and gets on with her life."
Paris thought about this. It made a terrible kind of sense. "Oh."
"Come on, you wouldn't want to live in Neverland."
"You say that. But when I left, I grew up into . . . me."
"And I like you."
this story was...so absurdly funny, as promised in all of alexis hall's works. and it has a lot of heart. i also can painfully relate to paris and perhaps felt overwhelmed at how seen i felt, so...that was a welcome surprise. there is a romance, but as seen in other reviews, someone cleverly noted it as a bildungsroman because it is.
this entire book is about paris' journey with his debilitating anxiety that grows increasingly worse & worse over time, all set in the backdrop of a british baking show that is all action & cameras but all paris can do is cry. there's a lot of really good moments to speak of, though, and i personally really enjoyed what the author did in paris' relationship with tariq; i liked how we saw tariq stand in his own spotlight as he's given a lot of space to explore his own complicated feelings and just be able to shine as a main character. the rest of the cast for this season were such an absolute delight, and i love how even as disconnected paris might have felt with the rest of them, they weren't simply shoved into the background for the sake of the plot. some returning characters add their own wit and sly british humor, which i found really funny being an american.
the star of this entire series being the baked treats that we get to see our contestants create was certainly one of the highlights of this book, and so it made me sad how paris kind of derailed and beat himself up over creating something that should be fun & comforting but instead just gets him further stuck inside his head. i'm glad he eventually gets the help he needs, just as equally glad to the author for not holding back on how seriously isolating living with a mental illness can be, especially when you're undiagnosed. a real deciding factor in a reader's enjoyment for this story, i feel, is in how one might react to everything that paris says & does because it has as much to do with his character as it also does the mental roadblocks that is his brain. his fears are riddled with the most tiniest of details that it sometimes felt like too much, but it's like he had no control in it and every thing he beat himself up for or was worried about just grew larger & larger to the point where he was screaming inside. his parents being off the radar didn't help, and other characters might've factored into the equation, but the way the author explored how low you can fall when stuck inside your head and how you can try to fight your way out of it was one of the most incredible things i've ever seen in any of his works.
it meant a lot to me.
paris' mental health journey meant a lot to me, and everyone else just added a lot of color to what is really a bright story, to me. the writing was amazing, and while the majority of penis jokes were very questionable (these characters have really crude humor but i wasn't turned off by it), it didn't disengage me from the story at all, it was just yet another strange but real part of these weird cast of characters and i loved them more for it. i loved all the little details i got to grasp about paris , who isn't defined by his anxiety and is actually really good with baking (even if he couldn't see it in himself, i hope he can have fun with it again one day) and cooking, and he's a classics major, too, would you look at that?
really curious what more mayhem will ensue in the next book and what new main characters i'll get to meet who'll charm me a bunch, i hope. i'll be 23 once it publishes, which is just....great :')
Paris thought about this. It made a terrible kind of sense. "Oh."
"Come on, you wouldn't want to live in Neverland."
"You say that. But when I left, I grew up into . . . me."
"And I like you."
this story was...so absurdly funny, as promised in all of alexis hall's works. and it has a lot of heart. i also can painfully relate to paris and perhaps felt overwhelmed at how seen i felt, so...that was a welcome surprise. there is a romance, but as seen in other reviews, someone cleverly noted it as a bildungsroman because it is.
this entire book is about paris' journey with his debilitating anxiety that grows increasingly worse & worse over time, all set in the backdrop of a british baking show that is all action & cameras but all paris can do is cry. there's a lot of really good moments to speak of, though, and i personally really enjoyed what the author did in paris' relationship with tariq; i liked how we saw tariq stand in his own spotlight as he's given a lot of space to explore his own complicated feelings and just be able to shine as a main character. the rest of the cast for this season were such an absolute delight, and i love how even as disconnected paris might have felt with the rest of them, they weren't simply shoved into the background for the sake of the plot. some returning characters add their own wit and sly british humor, which i found really funny being an american.
the star of this entire series being the baked treats that we get to see our contestants create was certainly one of the highlights of this book, and so it made me sad how paris kind of derailed and beat himself up over creating something that should be fun & comforting but instead just gets him further stuck inside his head. i'm glad he eventually gets the help he needs, just as equally glad to the author for not holding back on how seriously isolating living with a mental illness can be, especially when you're undiagnosed. a real deciding factor in a reader's enjoyment for this story, i feel, is in how one might react to everything that paris says & does because it has as much to do with his character as it also does the mental roadblocks that is his brain. his fears are riddled with the most tiniest of details that it sometimes felt like too much, but it's like he had no control in it and every thing he beat himself up for or was worried about just grew larger & larger to the point where he was screaming inside. his parents being off the radar didn't help, and other characters might've factored into the equation, but the way the author explored how low you can fall when stuck inside your head and how you can try to fight your way out of it was one of the most incredible things i've ever seen in any of his works.
it meant a lot to me.
paris' mental health journey meant a lot to me, and everyone else just added a lot of color to what is really a bright story, to me. the writing was amazing, and while the majority of penis jokes were very questionable (these characters have really crude humor but i wasn't turned off by it), it didn't disengage me from the story at all, it was just yet another strange but real part of these weird cast of characters and i loved them more for it. i loved all the little details i got to grasp about paris , who isn't defined by his anxiety and is actually really good with baking (even if he couldn't see it in himself, i hope he can have fun with it again one day) and cooking, and he's a classics major, too, would you look at that?
really curious what more mayhem will ensue in the next book and what new main characters i'll get to meet who'll charm me a bunch, i hope. i'll be 23 once it publishes, which is just....great :')
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Racism, and Islamophobia
meganpbennett's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I really really loved Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and was a little disappointed by Paris Daillencourt. But that seems to be the theme with Alexis Hall sequels. Parts of it were really really good, parts of it were really really funny, parts of it were really really touching, and parts of it were really really disappointing. So it averages out to three stars.
Alexis Hall doesn't write traditional romance, and PD, like RP and BfM, are very much relationship fiction, as opposed to romance novels. Knowing that going in makes the book better, as you don't spend half the book trying to figure out how, exactly, it's a romance novel.
Like RP, I found some of the sections very hard to read, because the person in charge of the filming is, frankly, an abusive bully to her charges. Which is not a good thing at all, but is an especially bad thing when the main character has an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. I also found the last section, the one with the tweets way way too over the top and very much unnecessarily harsh. I was also disappointed in the ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the eARC!
Alexis Hall doesn't write traditional romance, and PD, like RP and BfM, are very much relationship fiction, as opposed to romance novels. Knowing that going in makes the book better, as you don't spend half the book trying to figure out how, exactly, it's a romance novel.
Like RP, I found some of the sections very hard to read, because the person in charge of the filming is, frankly, an abusive bully to her charges. Which is not a good thing at all, but is an especially bad thing when the main character has an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. I also found the last section, the one with the tweets way way too over the top and very much unnecessarily harsh. I was also disappointed in the ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the eARC!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Islamophobia, and Abandonment
unsuccessfulbookclub's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-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
ARC Review - pub date 11/1/22
The thing about Alexis Hall is that he writes RoNos that look like they’re gonna be super fluffy and then hit you with the sledgehammer of reality.
The thing about Alexis Hall is that he writes RoNos that look like they’re gonna be super fluffy and then hit you with the sledgehammer of reality.
To whit, the latest installment in the Bake Expectations series: Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble. This is a romance featuring Paris, a man with intense undiagnosed anxiety, and Tariq, a man who is an absolute ray of sunshine. The two MCs were basically heartbreakingly realistic. Paris’s anxiety is intense and graphic. He is incredibly deep in his head - everyone hates him, he’s going to mess up, he’s the worst, etc etc etc. Enter Tariq, a devout Muslim and very out gay man, who tries his very best to “help” Paris while also being kind of into him aka Tariq kinda takes Paris on as a project, which never ends well.
Although this book definitely has a love story in it and ends on an HEA, its focus really isn’t the romance. Paris has an incredibly hard time with his mental health and so that the book becomes more about his struggles. I was much more concerned about Paris getting help than I was about whether he and Tariq ended up together. On the one hand, I loved how realistic and relatable the conflicts in the book were, but on the other, if you are looking for a comforting read about a comforting reality show - this ain’t it.
All that said? There were scenes and moments in this book where I was laughing out loud and reading passages to my husband. I suppose just like real life, there are funny and sweet moments mixed up with the bad ones.
Oh, and Paris’s parents are *gone* like they simply don’t text him back…ever? Even when he repeatedly asks them to? That little detail alone was a gut punch, and added to Paris’s intensely bad time and my angst as a reader. In sum, this book feels a lot like Queenie by Candace Carty-Williams in that there is an MC who is struggling realistically and mightily with their mental health and the general state of the world and you’re simultaneously rooting for them and empathizing with them and also very frustrated by their circumstances. It can be a really emotionally taxing thing to read a book like that so I want to make sure other readers are ready.
👍🏻Recommended with a big dose of check the CW and make sure you have the emotional capacity for this. Lovable and very realistic characters as well as mental health are a huge focus in this book, the romance is sweet but I would not call it the focus.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Abandonment
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry
caseythereader's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-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
Thanks to Forever for the free advance copy of this book.
- Honestly, I'd read Alexis Hall's grocery list at this point. I adore his writing: the banter is top notch and the characters feel like real, flawed, lovely people.
- PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE was a bit tougher to read than other Hall books, though. Reading from Paris' point of view through his intense anxiety was often hard and frustrating, though possibly because I could see my past self in him.
- One of the best things about this particular series is that I'm never sure if the towns and the pastries Hall names are real or if they're satire, lol. Either way, they sound delicious.
- Honestly, I'd read Alexis Hall's grocery list at this point. I adore his writing: the banter is top notch and the characters feel like real, flawed, lovely people.
- PARIS DAILLENCOURT IS ABOUT TO CRUMBLE was a bit tougher to read than other Hall books, though. Reading from Paris' point of view through his intense anxiety was often hard and frustrating, though possibly because I could see my past self in him.
- One of the best things about this particular series is that I'm never sure if the towns and the pastries Hall names are real or if they're satire, lol. Either way, they sound delicious.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Islamophobia