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megsreads32's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this. It was super hot and trashy in the best way and almost zero white characters for those looking for a diverse romance. Thanks to Edelweiss for the arc.
bookanonjeff's review against another edition
5.0
Interesting Dichotomies. This book, for me, was more about the interesting dichotomies than anything. You get a MM romance... with both an FF couple as side characters and set within the Asian community, which isn't overly common. (Maybe not as hyper-macho as wildfire firefighters, but seemingly near that level in rarity.) You get a hyper successful financial type... who isn't being his normal hyper successful self, and in fact is desperate for a win and who comes from... less successful... beginnings. You get a black sheep who feels he must prove himself apart from his ultra-successful family. And you get the particular blend of tech and finance that I could have felt was a bit too close to my own "real" world (where I work in IT for a Fortune 50 financial firm) that it could have been *too* real. And yet it all worked. And worked well in fact. On the actual romance side, you get a fairly standard will they/ won't they / this is a freaking romance novel so you know they do. You get the whole "best friend's sibling" dynamic, with its usual problems and resolutions. And you get a *crap ton* of angst. If you want your romance novels bright and breezy... this aint it. But if you want a romance novel unlike most you've ever seen before... this one is probably *exactly* that. Very much recommended.
the_vegan_bookworm's review
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The premise was cute, but it was hard to root for Danny or Tobin when they both seemed like kind of unlikable people. As well, the finance plot is a little boring if you aren't especially interested in that type of work.
The repeated mentions of Tobin as a kid and of Tobin "always trying to keep up with the big boys", even when Danny and Tobin are in an adult relationship, was deeply creepy for me.
Also, Ayan's criticisms of Danny's work are ABSOLUTELY correct (the guy blackmails people into selling their shares to investors - whether or not Cyrus is a bad person, that is not great). But it's addressed so lightly and then never circled back to.
As well, are we supposed to feel bad for Danny running over a cyclist? I honestly don't know why that section was included (to show how stressed Danny is? To let Tobin care for him? To show he's a nice guy who pays the cost of the lawsuit?). Either way, it did not make me feel positively about Danny at all.
The repeated mentions of Tobin as a kid and of Tobin "always trying to keep up with the big boys", even when Danny and Tobin are in an adult relationship, was deeply creepy for me.
As well, are we supposed to feel bad for Danny running over a cyclist? I honestly don't know why that section was included (to show how stressed Danny is? To let Tobin care for him? To show he's a nice guy who pays the cost of the lawsuit?). Either way, it did not make me feel positively about Danny at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Car accident, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death of parent and Grief
Minor: Pedophilia and Trafficking
mooswandern's review against another edition
4.0
Ich habe gemischte Gefühle. Das Buch las sich gut und ich mochte den Romance-Plot grundsätzlich, aber es gab auch ein paar Dinge, die ich sehr fragwürdig finde bzw. die mir einfach zu beiläufig passiert sind. 3.5 Sterne
An ein paar Stellen hatte das Buch gute Ansätze für gesellschafts-/kapitalismuskritische Themen, z. B. hinterfragen die Figuren teilweise ihre Rolle im Kapitalismus, aber es ändert letzten Endes wenig an ihrer Situation. Dazu kommt, dass ein paar Formulierungen über die Partnerin der Mitbewohnerin des einen Protas irgendwie abwertend klangen, weil sie eben sehr links ist und das fand ich sehr schade. Andererseits: Wohl auch nur realistisch, wenn man bedenkt, wer die Figuren sind. Da wäre auf jeden Fall Potential für mehr Charakterentwicklung und vielleicht muss ich mir einfach vorstellen, dass das off-page passiert.
Insgesamt: Nette Romance (age-gap-romance, childhood friends to lovers) für zwischendurch mit ein paar Schwächen.
Content Notes:
Spoiler
Zum Beispiel, dass die Figuren im Laufe der Geschichte herausfinden, dass ein Typ möglicherweise Sex mit minderjährigen Frauen/Mädchen hatte. Sie haben zwar darüber geredet, dass sie die Infos an die Behörden übergeben, für den Fall, dass die Personen tatsächlich minderjährig waren und da irgendeine sex-trafficing-Sache passiert ist, aber das war mir zu sehr beiseite gewischt bzw. wurde halt nur am Rande thematisiert. Ähnlich lief es leider bei einer trans Person, die anscheinend wegen ihres transfeindlichen Chefs (selber Typ btw, ew) ihren Job verloren hat und die aber nur einmal als Plotinstrument vorkam, weil sie dem Protagonist neue Infos über den Chef geben konnte.An ein paar Stellen hatte das Buch gute Ansätze für gesellschafts-/kapitalismuskritische Themen, z. B. hinterfragen die Figuren teilweise ihre Rolle im Kapitalismus, aber es ändert letzten Endes wenig an ihrer Situation. Dazu kommt, dass ein paar Formulierungen über die Partnerin der Mitbewohnerin des einen Protas irgendwie abwertend klangen, weil sie eben sehr links ist und das fand ich sehr schade. Andererseits: Wohl auch nur realistisch, wenn man bedenkt, wer die Figuren sind. Da wäre auf jeden Fall Potential für mehr Charakterentwicklung und vielleicht muss ich mir einfach vorstellen, dass das off-page passiert.
Insgesamt: Nette Romance (age-gap-romance, childhood friends to lovers) für zwischendurch mit ein paar Schwächen.
Content Notes:
Spoiler
Autounfall, Homo- und Transfeindlichkeit, sex trafficking, Tod eines Elternteils (Krebs, vor dem Buch)book_loser's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
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
3.0
sarareadstoomuch's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book!
It's no secret I'm a huge fan of MM romances, they're some of my favourite books to read, and this book did it all for me. It had the grumpy/sunshine, childhood crush, I'm not good enough for you kind of tropes going and it was the best thing to read.
Daniel and Tobin are just the most amazing and heartfelt characters. You feel the connection while reading, you feel like you know them and are right there with them as the story progresses. Anyone who is an MM romance fan needs to read this book! I'll definitely be checking out more books from Hudson Lin.
Let's not forget it's based in Canada, Go Toronto!
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin - Carina Press for the earc in return for an honest review.
It's no secret I'm a huge fan of MM romances, they're some of my favourite books to read, and this book did it all for me. It had the grumpy/sunshine, childhood crush, I'm not good enough for you kind of tropes going and it was the best thing to read.
Daniel and Tobin are just the most amazing and heartfelt characters. You feel the connection while reading, you feel like you know them and are right there with them as the story progresses. Anyone who is an MM romance fan needs to read this book! I'll definitely be checking out more books from Hudson Lin.
Let's not forget it's based in Canada, Go Toronto!
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin - Carina Press for the earc in return for an honest review.
boomwormbrittany's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Trigger Warning: Pedophilia and pedophilia used for black mail, homophobia, death of a parent, accident involving car and cyclist
Hard Sell follows Danny Ip who has worked hard to become the top of his firm. When he goes to try to acquire a company, he runs into his childhood best friend's younger brother, Tobin, who he had a one night stand with years ago.
I wanted to like this book so much and the fact that it fell so flat for me was such a disappointment. I do want to start this off with saying that I am not a part of the LGBTQ+ community and am an Ally so I cannot speak to the representation in this book.
This book was trying to do too much with so little. First off, the characters were ones I did not like what so ever. I found them both to be very annoying both with their choices and they way they handled their relationship. They're both grown men who are acting like teenagers. In particular, Tobin drove me insane. He was always going on about wanting to be independent which is fine but the amount of times he said he wanted to be independent was driving me crazy. I also couldn't get a feel for either of their characters. They felt very one dimensional to me and not like there was much there beyond Tobin being Danny's best friend's brother. I did like that they were two Asian men who were in a relationship as I liked that diversity aspect of it.
I also just didn't believe their relationship. Every time they spoke about each other it was about wanting to have sex with each other and the amount of times it was about each other qualities was really limited. It seemed they liked each other for sex but the love wasn't as strongly built out in this.
I didn't like how Tobin spoke about his lesbian best friend and her girlfriend which is a sentiment I've seen other reviewers give. It felt like he put them in the very stereotypical box of what lesbians are and just assumed things about them because of their sexuality which was just so strange. I found it uncomfortable how he spoke about them as if them being lesbian's was all the aspects of themselves instead of them being complex human beings who happen to be lesbian.
There was also a line about audiobooks not being real reading that rubbed me wrong as it felt very ablest to say but that was a one off thing.
The plot was just okay. It didn't really play much into the story except to bring out truths about a homophobic character and to bring Tobin and Danny together. I'm not saying I wanted to be inundated with work things but it didn't feel like as big of an aspect of the story as it should have been. I think this was meant to be more focused on Danny and Tobin which it did but still fell a bit flat in the fact that they didn't seem to grow much.
Let's talk about the elephant in this review. The pedophilia. That came so far out of left field and then was treat so poorly. I hated the fact that they used the fact that a character (not either of our main characters) was pretty much grooming minors to get leverage on this buyout. It made me feel ill to see them use that instead of going straight to the police with it. The buyout be damned, there was real children and young people at risk because of this guy and instead they use it for leverage? That's what really dropped my rating because I could not, in good conscious, rate it higher with that in it.
Overall, I wanted to like this book so much but I was so let down. I am going to pass this along to someone else because I don't want it on my shelves. There are plenty of good male/male romance books out there and this just wasn't one of them for me. I feel horrible giving a bad review but these are my feelings. If you feel you want to read this book, please do not let me discourage you.
Hard Sell follows Danny Ip who has worked hard to become the top of his firm. When he goes to try to acquire a company, he runs into his childhood best friend's younger brother, Tobin, who he had a one night stand with years ago.
I wanted to like this book so much and the fact that it fell so flat for me was such a disappointment. I do want to start this off with saying that I am not a part of the LGBTQ+ community and am an Ally so I cannot speak to the representation in this book.
This book was trying to do too much with so little. First off, the characters were ones I did not like what so ever. I found them both to be very annoying both with their choices and they way they handled their relationship. They're both grown men who are acting like teenagers. In particular, Tobin drove me insane. He was always going on about wanting to be independent which is fine but the amount of times he said he wanted to be independent was driving me crazy. I also couldn't get a feel for either of their characters. They felt very one dimensional to me and not like there was much there beyond Tobin being Danny's best friend's brother. I did like that they were two Asian men who were in a relationship as I liked that diversity aspect of it.
I also just didn't believe their relationship. Every time they spoke about each other it was about wanting to have sex with each other and the amount of times it was about each other qualities was really limited. It seemed they liked each other for sex but the love wasn't as strongly built out in this.
I didn't like how Tobin spoke about his lesbian best friend and her girlfriend which is a sentiment I've seen other reviewers give. It felt like he put them in the very stereotypical box of what lesbians are and just assumed things about them because of their sexuality which was just so strange. I found it uncomfortable how he spoke about them as if them being lesbian's was all the aspects of themselves instead of them being complex human beings who happen to be lesbian.
There was also a line about audiobooks not being real reading that rubbed me wrong as it felt very ablest to say but that was a one off thing.
The plot was just okay. It didn't really play much into the story except to bring out truths about a homophobic character and to bring Tobin and Danny together. I'm not saying I wanted to be inundated with work things but it didn't feel like as big of an aspect of the story as it should have been. I think this was meant to be more focused on Danny and Tobin which it did but still fell a bit flat in the fact that they didn't seem to grow much.
Let's talk about the elephant in this review. The pedophilia. That came so far out of left field and then was treat so poorly. I hated the fact that they used the fact that a character (not either of our main characters) was pretty much grooming minors to get leverage on this buyout. It made me feel ill to see them use that instead of going straight to the police with it. The buyout be damned, there was real children and young people at risk because of this guy and instead they use it for leverage? That's what really dropped my rating because I could not, in good conscious, rate it higher with that in it.
Overall, I wanted to like this book so much but I was so let down. I am going to pass this along to someone else because I don't want it on my shelves. There are plenty of good male/male romance books out there and this just wasn't one of them for me. I feel horrible giving a bad review but these are my feelings. If you feel you want to read this book, please do not let me discourage you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident
Moderate: Homophobia and Pedophilia
Minor: Ableism
islandbookwyrm's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
tense
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
4.5
edunbar87's review against another edition
I'm not sure. This should be my catnip but I just keep putting it down and not picking it up. Maybe I'll try again some time but for right now I'm just not feeling it.