Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Nailed by K.M. Neuhold

1 review

galleytrot's review

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

4.25

READ: Jul 2023 
FORMAT: Digital 

BRIEF SUMMARY: 
In this contemporary romance, Stone has been living in his new fixer-upper for two months now, and his grumpy neighbour still won’t give him so much as the time of day, let alone his name. To Dare’s horror, Stone has taken it upon himself to annoy him as often and as inconveniently as possible. Sleeping in on weekends becomes an exercise in futility through the man’s obnoxious choices made purely to frustrate and inconvenience Dare. When things come to a head, and confrontations are made, and misunderstandings become clear, the backlash is explosive – and heated in a way that neither man was quite anticipating. 

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 4.5 / 5⭐ 
I’m going to do things a little differently for this portion of my review, and write it in the form of an r/AmItheAsshole post.

AITA for renting a petting zoo to irritate my neighbor?

Some context: I (42M) am a part-owner of a construction company, and I bought my first home a few months ago. It’s a real fixer upper and it gives me all kinds of projects to keep me busy, and I couldn’t be happier with the purchase. In the spirit of being neighborly, a few days after moving in I went over to introduce myself to my neighbor (40somethingM), but he just scowled at me, said he knows “guys like me,” told me to fuck off, and slammed the door in my face. I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve that, as I’d never spoken to the guy before. 

Since then, I may have been making a bit of a pest of myself, with my favorite thing being making too much noise on the weekends while he’s trying to sleep in. I’ve also started making friends with his dog, who is allowed to run loose without supervision. The dog figured out how to get into my house all on his own. I genuinely don’t mind. The little guy is cute, he’s good company, and I even bought some healthy treats for him that I keep in my pockets at all times. I think my neighbor hates him spending so much time with me, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it from happening. 

Recently, my friend and coworker’s daughter/my goddaughter had a birthday and I decided to invite them over to my place to celebrate. I wanted to go all out for her, so I did one of those rental petting zoo things. Nothing too crazy, just some sheep, some goats, and a donkey. Well after the animals were delivered, my neighbor's dog went absolutely nuts, and when he came outside in nothing but his underwear to see what was going on, one of the goats wandered into his yard and started eating his plants. I won’t get into details, but things got weird and, by no fault of mine, my neighbor wound up running back into his house
without his underwear.
I didn’t plan for it to happen, but admittedly I found the whole thing to be hilarious.

Am I the asshole?? 

TECHNICAL / PRODUCTION: 3.75 / 5⭐ 
Alright, I’m back into it. After the disappointment that was book one of the series (in essence: the characters bored me and I could not bring myself to care), this book got me right back to where I wanted to be from this author, who I am still fairly new to. It was all-around a fun time, and only mildly frustrating. Books that go for the Prank War tone just make me agitated, especially when it gets to the point where the characters are questioning good intentions and get paranoid about every action’s motives. This book does have a little bit of that, but it’s not a war (the bad behaviour is one-sided) and the paranoia phase doesn’t lead to excessively irrational accusations or backlash. 
 
Regarding the book itself, the quality of the writing is excellent, the characters are both compelling (Dare moreso than Stone), there are a lot of hilarious and memorable moments, and the spice is top notch. My biggest complaint is all about the portrayal of irresponsible pet ownership, plus the actions Stone has absolutely no right to take over a dog that does not belong to him. He doesn’t know if Rudy has food allergies or sensitivities. I would lose my entire mind if I found out someone was feeding my dog without my knowledge or consent. Then, Stone never even asked if Rudy already had a microchip in the first place; just assumed he didn’t, and brought the dog in for a procedure he might not have even needed. Very weird, very gross, and the subject of an entire AITA post of its own (where the answer is a resounding Everyone Sucks Here). 

PSA: Do NOT use food as lube. Doing so will create an environment for bacteria or yeast to flourish and will cause a very bad time for all involved. Practice safe sex. It’s not that serious. You can wait the time it takes to walk to another room and fetch something appropriate.
  
FINAL THOUGHTS - OVERALL: 4.25 / 5⭐ 
This book was funny and good fun, at the expense of the sanity of dog owners. It has some angst, but mild; it has some plot, but mild; I’m not completely convinced it does enough work to jump from “I can’t stand you” to “I care about you” territory, but I’m willing to let that slide from how much of a good time I was having. I had to share a page with a friend of mine with no context given just from how hard it made me laugh, and now she’s intrigued enough to give the book a try despite MM being a genre she hasn’t explored much. 
 
This book has representation for gays and bisexuals. There is otherwise not much in the way of diversity. 
 
The following elaborates on my content warnings. These may be interpreted as spoilers, but I do not go into deep detail. 
This book contains: reference to an unexpected death (heart attack); alcohol use; toxic masculinity, homophobia, biphobia; mention of bullying, jokes at the expense of gays; physical assault (punching); irresponsible pet ownership leading to pet endangerment; and, pet hit by car, injuries, veterinary hospitalization.
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