Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble

Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall

22 reviews

anika222's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

3.5

This was a pretty heavy book for a romance. It heavily features Paris' undiagnosed/untreated anxiety including many indepth, on page descriptions.

Because Paris is an unreliable narrator for the first 3/4, the romance is really in the background and hard to see/feel the chemistry between him and Tariq.

Everyone in Paris' life is focused on what they perceive to be his shortcomings/flaws and Tariq and his best friend both handle supporting him really poorly. Both relationships get addressed, apologies are made, but we don't really get to see either of them change. It was honestly hard to read in a romance where we usually get to live out more idealistic relationships, but it was realistic.

Paris really deserves a lot of love and I would have liked to see him get just a whole ton more of it.

I did really enjoy Tariq's character outside of his treatment of Paris. Hall writes queer characters so well and representative of queer culture which I find absent in so many queer books where the characters are just being plunked into straight stories but with two men/women/nonbinary people.

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historic_wince's review

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

I think the overall format of the "Winner Bakes All" series works really well. It’s this perfect situation in which unlikely people are grouped together (forced proximity) with one common interest/goal, but since they only compete on the weekends, for a set number of weeks, there’s a delicious slice of life quality to both books. But Hall also really gets to play with his characters. While while the main characters of Rosaline Palmer were in their late 20s and early 30s, Paris and Tariq are university students, still figuring themselves out, and that gives Paris Daillencourt a distinctly ‘new adult’ feel than the previous book.

That being said, I think some readers won’t enjoy this ‘season’ of Bake Expectations, both because the protagonists are younger and due to the nature of their character arcs. While there are some humorous scenes sprinkled throughout, I agree with other reviewers that this book is not a romcom. It does, however fit the bill of being a romance novel by having

HFN/hopeful

ending.

Our titular character Paris is suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, and, I would argue, severe depression. He is severely lacking a support system and has developed unhealthy coping mechanisms over the past several years. Within the very stressful situation of being on Bake Expectations, his condition understandably worsens. Readers get trapped with Paris in his anxiety, excessive worries, and catastrophizing. He’s hitting all the standard distorted thinking tropes. For readers with anxiety and/or depression, these scenes (which are numerous) may be very difficult to read, may be triggering, may seem all too relatable. As clear in other reviews, many readers might find Paris irritating and annoying—mirroring exactly in universe social media users who label Paris a twat.

And while at times Paris is selfish and hurtful to those close to him, he’s also a young kid, with a still-developing prefrontal cortex in a brain that has trained itself to sabotage all of his positive experiences.

The relationship at the center of this novel is also a bit of a disaster, but that seems fitting for the context and ages of Paris and Tariq. Is it a good idea to start dating your co-star/competition within the narrow context of a reality tv show? No, absolutely not, but they’re fucking 20 years olds. We’re not making our best choices at that age.

The many comments about Paris’s temperament and whether or not Tariq was too forgiving or not patient and understanding enough of Paris’s condition are marginally understandable. But also make me empathize with anyone in their lives that might be suffering with a mental illness. Because we both need to give Tariq and Paris some grace. Tariq thought he could fix his boyfriend, but severely underestimated the extent of Paris’ distorted thinking. Paris Daillencourt is that scene in Rosaline Palmer when Rosaline suggests to Harry that he might have anxiety, but with less mature main characters. Characters who are still growing and in different stages of defining their values, and that’s okay!

While it wasn't my favorite Alexis Hall reading experience, I'll still be picking up the next book in this series.

Other things:

Paris’ parents are completely absent from the story despite Paris texting them weekly. They are negligent and emotionally abusive. And probably huge narcissists.

I loved the dynamic between Tariq and his family.

I also really enjoyed that Tariq was both firm and proud of his many identities. Many, many people view religion and homosexuality as incompatible. It is a spot of contention in both religious and queer communities. So, it was nice to see a queer man with a positive relationship with his faith, even though I am not a particularly religious person.

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daughterofthesungod's review

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-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

2.5

Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble... and after reading this book so am I.

Spoilers ahead.

Well, this book was a ride, just not a good one.

Let me be straight: this book is not for everyone. If you struggle with your mental health or, like me, suffer from anxiety this probably isn't for you because it can be really *super* triggering. As a person who has also worked very hard to get better when it comes to anxiety I can tell you this book was too exhausting and it triggered me to many times. — And yes I know it had a trigger warning at the beginning, yet I don't think that was even enough —. Moreover of you are looking for a cute romance book THIS IS NOT IT. The romance is barely there and I'm not gonna lie I wish there wasn't any.
To be honest I'm not so sure how I didn't DNFed it. I guess I just really needed to know if there was going to be some progress at the end. Spoiler alert: there was, I just think that happened a bit too late.

Now there are some things that I can't ignore. First of all, Paris is a crap person. I know he has crippling anxiety and I know how horrible and exhausting that is, but I'm sorry, not everything can be excused on that. He has a lot of awful behaviors, he's cultural insensitive and snobbish. He just hurts people and a lot of the time it cannot be excused. Moreover his development (like I said) just happened too late for me, if that would've happened a lot earlier then this book could've been better. It would've been so good to read more about him dealing with getting better. I do have to say that I felt sad and bad for him at times and I even wanted to protect him from the world when it came to his personal life. And a lot of times his anxiety (which was really well portrayed l, so props for that) made me want to be there for him and help him.

Still there are things he should be more aware of. Specially when it comes to religion, beliefs and race.

That is another thing: THE AMOUNT OF RACISM THIS BOOK HAS! And I know it has a warning about it too but there are times in which there seemed to be racism written just to fill in. Like somebody said 'oh this is just a blank space where we could add more Islamophobia *that will not contribute to the story* it's fine.' I think some of that didn't do much to the story. It would've added to it if maybe there would've been a dual POV and that was more focused from Tariq's view.

Now, there were some things I liked tho.

I will start saying that the first thing I loved about this book was the cover. It's just too beautiful and of course it caught my eye.

Secondly, I loved Tariq and I can say he deserved better. He's not perfect, he made his mistakes too but he tried a lot too and owned everything he did, he also stood for himself too and God I wish I had as much self love as him.

Thirdly, I really loved the format of the book. The whole bakimg show and the book divided in weeks and days and then in episodes it was just really good. I did not read Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake and I don’t know if it has the same format but I'm definitely curious about it. The whole baking show was my favorite thing.

And talking about the show I have to say that the people involved in it were EVERYTHING. They gave me the best moments in the book and were just pure comedy. Marianne, Wilfred, Colin, Jennifer were just so good, but Grace Forsythe was my absolute favorite, she had me laughing hysterically at times.

Overall it's not a book I'd reread or recommend but if you read it I really hope you have a better experience than me reading it.

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lindsayerin's review

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emotional lighthearted reflective 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

3.5

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town_scar's review

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emotional funny reflective sad 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

Content Warnings

just_one_more_paige's review

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

I think I'm just basically at the point where I'll read whatever new thing Alexis Hall writes. I mean I know I'm behind by a couple, but the point it, everything has been amazinggggg. Now, my clear favorite so far is A Lady for a Duke, but I haven't read anything I haven't liked. I wasn't sure about the first one in this series (Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake), tbh, because I just don't get the baking show hype. But it turned out that I loved it - at least in part but definitely not as the only reason - because the MC felt super relatable to me. Anyways, between that surprise interest and the stunning cover on this second one, I grabbed it as my recent Holiday weekend relaxing romance read.

The book brings us into the next season of Bake Expectations. Paris Daillencourt was entered by his roommate to push him out of his box (and maybe into making friends and actually believing in himself a bit). Tariq Hassan is, confidence-wise and stylistically, the exact opposite of Paris, hoping to use his time on the show to start a B-list celebrity career. Despite an inauspicious first interaction, the two start dating. However, Paris' anxieties over everything (the baking and the dating) ending in failure may, in fact, cause them to end in failure. Plus, Tariq is perhaps expecting things that Paris is not (yet) able to provide, no matter how much he thinks otherwise. And then, of course, there is the stress and pressure of Bake Expectations itself...and the social media storm that inevitably begins once the episodes begin airing. The question is, can Paris figure out how to quiet his brain and find his confidence in time to realize that he really does deserve the good things in his life, and save them?

Oh well it was fun to get back into the host/judge/director characters of Bake Expectations. I had forgotten how real they were. I mean, I know I said I don't really "get" the cooking show craze, but it's almost impossible to not have seen at least parts of episodes, so I know what they're structured like, and Hall really brings this "cast" to life. Their personalities came back quickly as a started reading this and it was a fun "oh yea!" reader feeling. It was also wonderful to slip back into Hall's writing. His hilarious and smart sarcasm, phenomenal dialogue, and overall quick and witty writing continues to be an absolute favorite.

On this note, the way he writes specifically, in this case, Paris' internal anxiety monologue feels, in my experience, like a very honest representation. I do not have a diagnosed anxiety disorder, but the thought patterns Paris deals with do show themselves, in a slightly less intrusive-to-real-life-interactions but no less recognizable way, for me. All that to say that, on top of the rest of the familiarly fantastic Hall writing, this is a very viscerally real experience reading about anxiety (and panic attacks. Please note the many trigger warnings that come with that viscerality. I also want to note the fully dimensional way anxiety is addressed: internally (and externally) by the person dealing with it, with friends trying to help (thinking they can help) and maybe not always doing the right thing, coming to the point where not getting help becomes more damaging to relationships than having the mental illness in the first place, and the fight against internalized negative mental health stigma and the need to get past the voice in your head saying you deserve to always feel this shitty, versus accepting that it doesn’t have to be that way and finally getting help. Plus, the recognition that it's not a quick fix, and that it takes a lot of work, but that it is worth it - you are worth it and your future is worth it - was lovely.

One thing about this book that was particularly different from any of Hall's others (that I've read so far) is the lack of explicit, on-page, steamy scenes. This is not because he suddenly changed to writing "fade to black" romance, but rather because Tariq is very open in talking about, in accordance with his faith, he does not believe in sex before marriage. There are some wonderful kissing scenes, of course, but for the most part, this is a very emotional-growth-and-connection type romance. I didn't know that going it, so it was not what I expected, which is too bad because that's an expectations versus reality that doesn't at all reflect on the actual story/writing, but did affect how much I was into the story. Basically, it wasn't less quintessentially "romance" because of that, but I wish I had known going in. I do want to note though, that Hall's head-on addressing of the conflicts of religion and the queer community, the either/or reality that they're come to represent, was great conversation. Tariq's conviction in the fact that being Muslim and being gay are both key aspects of who he is, and absolutely can exist in harmony within himself, is beautiful. And an open-mindedness about identity that would be lovely to see in a more widespread way.

Interestingly, because this was told from Paris' POV, which was (naturally) very self-focused and centralized due to his anxiety, the way his brain twists and takes things over, this felt like the most underdeveloped set of characters that I've read in one of Hall's books. There was still an array of other characters (Tariq's family and roomies, the other contestants, Paris' roommate), they just felt much more like props in this book. However, in thinking about it more, and considering the perspective of the MC, it actually does make sense that they'd feel less real, since it wasn't until the end that Paris was able to step outside his own thought spirals at all.

Overall, Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble felt, to me, very different than Hall's previous works, yet in many ways it was just the same and I fell comfortably back into it. A strange combination of feelings to be left with, but in the end, a very affecting and engrossing romance. I definitely appreciate Hall's writing through this one, and I think, with a more clear set of expectations going in (which hopefully this review will give you), right up there with the rest of his books.

“Because how could you tell whether you wanted something or just thought someone else would want you to want it?”

“Because he could just about imagine a world in which Tariq was right and whatever had turned Paris into the useless sack of shit he was today was a medical thing he couldn’t control. But it also felt like a massive cop-out: like he was appropriating a serious condition that other people had to justify his crappy behaviour.”

“And right then, for as long as it lasted, for as long as they were touching, Paris, too, felt loved and free, and part of something beautiful.”

“…but in baking, as in life, sometimes not enough felt like too much, and sometimes too much didn’t feel like enough.”

“Trying something until it was perfect was the same as not doing it at all, because perfection was just a ghost he conjured up to scare himself with.”

“It felt like a moment to bask in, but it also felt like a moment not to be complacent. And a moment to be reflecting and regretting and hoping because apparently, it was possible to do all those things at once when fear wasn’t flooding your body with the useless kind of adrenaline.”

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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review

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emotional funny reflective sad 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

You don’t have to have read the first book in the series to enjoy this one. But you’ll find the whole setting so enchanting you’ll want to go back and read the first one, which I am doing now!

The beginning was so cute and laugh out loud funny, but it progressively got darker and harder to read as I went on.

Everything in this story was filtered through the lens of anxiety, and as someone who also has anxiety, this was hard to read. The obsessive thoughts and shame spirals are described effectively in an all encompassing way, which can make for a stressful read.

That being said, I did appreciate that anxiety was not glamorized and thought the portrayal was relatively realistic as how it hinders almost every aspect of your life.

Unfortunately though, the romance didn’t really do it for me. I found the couple hard to root for, as the main character Paris said and did some things that were completely out of pocket, regarding Tariq’s boundaries and religious beliefs.

Overall, the writing style was goofy and fun, but the drawbacks from this storyline prevented me from loving it as much as I thought I would.

Thanks so much to Forever Publishing, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, for providing us with a copy of this book!

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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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emotional funny 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

Let me just start by saying if you're looking for a cute rom-com, this book is not it. It's billed as a lighthearted romance, but it is definitely not that. And that is not a bad thing! I love Alexis Hall's writing, and I love that he often goes outside the box when writing romance. Because of that, I almost think this book feels more realistic. It felt more like real-life to me.

The strongest aspect of this book is the way that Hall portrays Paris's anxiety. Paris has a pretty severe anxiety disorder, and it is exhausting being in his head for a good majority of the book. He is constantly second guessing himself, doesn't believe he's good enough, and torpedoes a lot of his relationships. Even though I don't struggle with severe anxiety like Paris does, Paris's voice felt authentic and realistic. And I think it will turn a lot of people away from this book.

Another aspect that makes this standout from other romance is Tariq's view on sex before marriage. It's another thing that you don't see a lot in romance, but I appreciated the focus on the fact that you can have romantic relationships without sex. More of this kind of romance, please!

Of course, the baking aspects were all lovely and wonderful, especially if you're a fan of Bake Off. I do hope Hall continues this series, because I think it's a really fun idea for a romance series and both books in it so far have been reallyl strong!

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unsuccessfulbookclub's review against another edition

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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.

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

duckyreads's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

In Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble Alexis Hall takes us back to the Baked Expectations universe for the second round of showtime. Once again Alexis Hall creates a baking show universe that is very easy to fall into with a bright collection of supportive characters.

There is an abundant portrayal of Paris's severe anxiety that is present through his internal monologue and self-destructive decisions, especially in his initial interactions with Tariq. Paris continues to make these decisions throughout the story, and although it becomes repetitive, I think it's an accurate reflection of living with severe anxiety.

Hall's banter is still present in this story and is woven throughout several characters (namely Tariq's housemates). Hall also includes several important topics namely loneliness, religion, and identity. I really admired how Tariq set firm boundaries and reminded Paris that he can also set boundaries to ensure that he's comfortable. Tariq is a sweetheart that exudes confidence, and I wished that his POV was more available in some chapters. Watching Paris and Tariq grow emotionally toward the end of the story felt very sweet and rewarding and I want the best for both of them!

Thank you to Netgalley and Forever Publishing for a copy of an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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