Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Seven Days in June

The writing in this second chance romance is exquisite. I love reading about writers, and this romance is about two writers, so that was perfect. This was a 5 star prediction and I'm so happy that it turned out to be exactly what I wanted. THE CHEMISTRY between these two leads....it was everything. TO ADD ONTO THAT: i loved the representation in here for invisible disabilities / chronic pain. the main character is a migraine sufferer and it impacts her day to day so much and i found that extremely relatable.

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macknificent's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.0

Seven Days in June is a second chance romance that follows Eva and Shane as they reconnect 15 years after a seven day fling that took place in their teens. According to the girlies, it’s a must read black romance that would leave me swooning. As much as it pains me to say it, the girlies are wrong.

Before I get into my beef with the book, let me be clear that I was entertained by this story. It was filled with big emotions and wit, two of my favorite ingredients for a good time. I found Eva's relationship with her daughter incredibly endearing. It was very “of the moment,” what with the zeitgeist so focused on healing generational trauma. In that same healing vein, Shane's ownership of his shortcomings was refreshing; we don’t usually get a reformed bad boy visibly
doing the work.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with the gripes. Firstly, there seemed to be some Eurocentrism and possibly colorism at play. On the cover of the book, both Eva and Shane appear to have darker skin but the text describes them as having traits that would typically be associated with those of a fairer shade, i.e Eva’s loose curl pattern, Shane’s light eyes. Tia Williams is excellent with dialogue but seems to have some issues creating full and nuanced characters in this book. The majority of the adult characters felt like Black Excellence stereotypes, that was disappointing and gave the story a dated feel. The young characters weren’t much
better, especially the disadvantaged children Shane mentored. The only time we hear anything about them is when it’s useful for showing some sort of positive character trait for Shane.

My biggest issue is in making this a romance. For the romance to work, you have to be sold on Eva and Shane’s initial fling being real love so you can buy into the second chance of it all. I couldn’t.

The behavior of the characters during their original entanglement makes sense, they are teens with actions dominated by their hormones and their traumas. Stumbling upon somebody who didn’t immediately judge their coping mechanisms was a rare point of light in a dark and confusing life; it’s no surprise they squeezed every last endorphin out of it.

But this story isn’t about teenagers, not really. It is about two adults that are doing the work to heal themselves, we are told this explicitly and repeatedly. Why then are we expected to root for Shane and Eva as they fall back into their maladaptive, codependent habits? Because this is a romance and we need our HEA.

Overall the book was giving Tyler Perry Production; the experience was entertaining and filled with potential, but nobody trusted the audience to enjoy nuance so it relied on stereotypes to get a lesser message across. Had this story ended with the break up I think it could have been a much better book. After sharing so many big emotions with the characters, a bittersweet ending would have been cathartic and made more sense to the characters’ histories. Alas, that isn’t what we got.

I read this book as part of my #soblacklove2022 series on IG and Tiktok.

https://instagram.com/macknificentreads?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

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