Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Just One Damned Thing After Another

Finished it out of spite because i have been DNFing quite frequently. Its all spoilers and rants I will not be tagging, proceed at own risk.

1. Fucking hate first person narratives that try to write purple prose. People do not have thoughts the way Taylor thinks her narrator does. Max also seems very smug and pleased with herself and her humor, its kinda icky. Especially when she rags on other characters hubris.

2. Characters are completely underdeveloped and replaceable. The entire book could have been written with a cast of 10 and instead it had 30. After awhile I stopped consulting the cast section at the beginning of the book because I realized not only did I not care but it truly did not matter which character did what because it was all just about moving the plot forward and centering Max at all times. Literally no other plot point was every made with another character, every single thing was directly tied to her. So obnoxious only seeing the story from one persons - very limited - point of view. She didn't even have an empathy or wondered about others experiences. Just all about her in her head and how the whole of St Marys revolves around her constantly. Main Character Syndrome and I mean that in the most derogatory way possible.

3. Completely out of character development. And not in a "he wouldnt say that" way but in a truly is this person secretly multiple personalities way. Chief barging into Max's room and accusing her of adultery? And then fine two pages later? Absolutely makes no sense narrative and makes their relationship seem weak and unstable (while Max clearly thinks they are soul mates)

4. Jodi Taylor claiming historical accuracy can eat my entire ass. I dont even like history and i know more about the time periods that some of this book took place in.

5. The sex scenes??? Literal wtf moment. Aggressive, harsh, fast, out of place, crass. This wasn't smut it wasn't erotica it wasnt even porn. Crashing the bosses car and then having sex on the hood so aggressively that people notice when they get back? To quote "if this had been one of those books there would have been 3 pages of head banging sex" -- this right after Max and Chief fall asleep after being almost killed. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. Literally gibberish.

6. Speaking of sex, Sussmans bizarre sexual assault scene and then never mentioned again. What was the narrative point of having Sussman stick his dick in Max face? To prove she can beat someone else? Already done many times by her inflating her own fighting skills. To reinforce how bad he is? Taylor is just using nonsensical, out of left field sexual assault to make a character as bad. Do better. This is Outlander levels of "plot is stale so lets add some rape to move it along."

7. She lost a baby? She was pregnant? She had a cold and went to the clinic? Literal word salad. I was laughing on the bus because I thought I was having a stroke trying to understand what the fuck the author was trying to do with this story.

8. Casual, constant alcoholism, but clearly Jodi Taylor has never had a sip in her entire life. Max would go from black out drunk to writing a 100 page proposal in the same night. She also clearly was written to have an alcohol dependency but literally no one brought it up. This did not age well and Taylors lack of even basic understanding of this instantly pulled me from the story

In short, what an obnoxious, self-important I-am-so-quirky story. Probably the worst book I read all year and I've read a lot of shitty ones. So. Fucking. Weird.

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ylba's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I hated it. Hated how they handled abuse. The main character is bland and shit.

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sassyshark's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Content Warnings

lucyselim's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

I am so confused. The premise of historians and time travel sounded right up my street, which is why I gave this a go. However, I spent the first half of the book in literal agony about how bad the writing was and that the plot was not being executed fully. Ironically, I could not keep up with the jumping of time. One moment she had been at the institute a week and the next it had been years.
One of my biggest problems was the terrible writing, but also the treatment of female characters. The main character is a classic Mary Sue who has all the men at her feet despite being average at best. She immediately clashes with the other female character who also has red hair for no real reason. One of her 'friends' leaves the institute during their training and she is really upset about it, despite having never been seen speaking to her before. In short, I was ready to give up on this book.

But sometime happened just after halfway through.

I believe it was when Leon reveals he is from the future

Suddenly the plot became interesting enough for me to want to continue. I actually even enjoyed the last 50 pages or so.

Overall, this book definitely needs some work, but having realised it is the authors first published novel, I can understand where the writing may fall down. I will be giving the next book a go, but only because my boyfriend already bought it for me. Otherwise, perhaps I would be giving this lengthy series a miss.

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