Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall

53 reviews

morganish's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Alexis Hall continues to be one of my favorite authors. I'm not sure I can even explain it; just that I feel pretty confident that I can pick up one of his books, get sucked in, and ultimately have a really good time and miss it once it's over. That being said, I do think there's some stuff to critique here - ways that this book is potentially exclusionary in its audience, ways that hearken back to some issues that continue to be problematic across Hall's work imho.

What Worked For Me

The Pacing and Premise: I'm easy. I love the Great British Baking Show, I love queer stories, and I love Alexis Hall's writing. And I can't really explain it, but the Winner Takes All series feels like a spiritual successor to Bridget Jones's Diary (the film, haven't read the book), which I had a brief obsession with in high school. Yes, in the obvious British-ness. But also the way each protagonist enters the story carrying a bunch of self-conscious baggage, the competition giving them hope they can remake themselves into a someone they have more confidence in. The structure of the work is also helpful in providing an expectation for how the story will go, a nice cozy framework while the characters get to know each other and work through their issues.

The Representation of Extreme Low Self-Esteem and Anxiety: Paris's anxiety is absolutely out of control for the bulk of the book, in a way that has him totally removed from reality. To me, this felt really grounded and relatable, since anxiety that revolves around self-esteem issues are so often like that in real life. The fact that Paris is struggling with this specifically as a young adult in university adds an additional level of realism, too. That's typically when anxiety issues can suddenly manifest or rear up, and is often when young people are forced to confront how to deal with it + the fallout. There were times Paris's anxiety frankly made him a dick because he was so centered on himself. Or he was incapable of treating minor problems he'd essentially made up in his head with the same level of catastrophization as issues that cause real harm. But the book is ultimately about him slowly learning to deal with that and to realize that the people around him deserve better. However much it makes him frustrating sometimes, this feels like a real coming-of-age book in that way, where growing up means becoming a better version of yourself than the coping mechanisms embraced during youth.

What I'm on the Fence About

The Humor: I really enjoy Alexis Hall's humor. It's oftentimes irreverent, poking fun at powerful figures or the absurdity of social conventions. This usually works well when writing about how absurd cishet norms and homophobia are. Add in his unabashed Britishness in tone and how good he is at effortlessly inserting banter, and I'm pretty much sold. However, the downside to his sense of humor is that he often seems to feel this need to poke at all sorts of power structures and systemic ills, even when he's not an insider and doesn't have a full understanding of whether or not those jokes are challenging things like racism... or are actually just racist jokes. As a result, Hall's writing can sometimes echo Paris's self-conscious egocentrism with how he writes about rich white characters, unsure where exactly he's supposed to fall and what exactly his role is supposed to be. Because I love Alexis Hall's writing so much, I would really like to see him spend more time delving into other perspectives and doing more research - not so that he can center other types of people, but so that his stories expand beyond his discomfort and actually become more inclusive. Including in his humor.

What Wasn't My Thing

Representation: That all leads me into this point, which is that, while I'm not a Bangladeshi-British person, I would not be at all surprised if moments in this book come across as cringy, tone-deaf, or flat-out racist. The humor, for one, but a lot of other little stuff, too. It's not that every moment is bad, but there are enough that made me go "hmmmm, okay." Granted, Paris is a privileged white person who's learning that his anxiety is actually self-centering, and therefore unfair and harmful to all sorts of other people. But Tariq puts up with a lot from him, for some reason. All the while Hall's class consciousness, where his rich protagonists catch crap from the other "normal" people for being rich, hits an all-time high of discomfort in how it all blends together. Like, why is Tariq offended that Paris wanted to make him a nice meal full of good ingredients? Is this a British thing? I've never heard of a person with less money rejecting "fancy" food and... blaming the person with more money for splurging on them to show them they care? Not unless it's an intentional manipulative power move on the part of the richer person, or there's something unethical about the harvesting of the food. This just makes it seem like everything that could possibly be associated with rich people (middle class people in Britain, I guess) is automatically evil by association. In Alexis Hall's world, having enough money to be financially stable is something you should always feel embarrassed and bad about if you want to be perceived as a good rich person, rather than looking at individual purchases/actions as part of a larger system, requiring personal responsibility and new approaches when some aspect of wealth is actually harmful.

Who This Is For

At the end of the day, this is for me, because even with all the critiques, I still love Alexis Hall's writing, characterization, and benign humor. If you're someone who's really triggered or uncomfortable by reading about characters with intense anxiety, you absolutely should not read this - it's basically the entire book. Certain people with anxiety probably should read this as the wake-up call it very much provides, but I'm not sure how to single those people out from the people who genuinely don't need it. I'd also say BIPOC readers may want to take a pass unless it's affirming to you to see white MCs deal with aspects of their own racism, however imperfectly. Otherwise, if you like Bridget Jones and/or the Great British Baking Show and have a high tolerance following imperfect characters with intense anxiety, this could be a great book.

Content Warnings

Intense depiction of anxiety, racism and classism (including coming from the MC), Islamaphobia. There's probably other stuff, too, but those are what I recall really sticking out to me. Might want to check with other reviews, just in case.

Content Warnings

theallmightyme's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative 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

4.5

Content Warnings

daughterofthesungod's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings

hannahollihan's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

You did fine last week. You are going to do fine this week. You just need to get out of your own way and stop being such a titanic fucking prick to yourself.

Well... This was even less of a romcom than Rosaline's book had been. :D I have honestly no idea why these series is marketed the way it is.

Anyway, here's what I liked about this book:

- The cat with the name I won't mention for fear of messing it up with typos;
- All the baking;
- The supporting cast, although they were all far less realized than the contestants from the first book (but that makes sense—Rosaline paid a lot more attention to other people than Paris);
- The really accurate and detailed depiction of what extreme anxiety feels like. Because, yeah. All the catastrophizing and second-guessing and getting so caught up in trying to avert all the worst-case scenario that you create an even worse scenario? That's exactly what this shit is like.

It's worth noting, though, that while Paris initially seemed like the kind of person who tries to get to a good place but is constantly hindered by his undiagnosed, untreated anxiety, he is... not quite that. Anxiety makes him more self-absorbed, sure, because, well, all the endless exhausting fears *are* absorbing. But it doesn't seem to be the root cause at all. He's fortunate to have people in his life who both care for him and call him out on his bullshit, but it sure takes him a lot of time to start actually doing something about his problems.

And here's what I really didn't like about the book, by the way: most of the story depicts Paris sinking closer and closer to rock bottom, making two steps back for every step forward, coming very close to messing up even the parts of his life that were okay/his safe haven at the start. And then, um, there's a gap, and afterward, we see him already having started on the journey to getting better. I honestly keep feeling like my copy of the novel has a bunch of pages missing, because honestly, wtf? After spending so long accompanying Paris down to that botom, I felt like I deserved to witness some of his actual journey back up. As it was, I feel kind of cheated.

As for the romance, I really, really liked Tariq and would love to see more of his life, especially once he starts his own BBC show. I liked how ready he was to give Paris chances, and how ready he was nevertheless to set and protect his own borders, and how he took a step back when the relationship between them began harming him. I'm not sure I liked Tariq and Paris as a couple even for a hot minute, too, and it was almost funny how I found myself, even while witnessing the story through Paris's POV, rooting for Tariq against the relationship. Which ones gain brings me to the point I started with: this is so not a romcom. It's not even really an angsty romance. Why, marketing people, why? Why do you lie to me?

Content Warnings

leahisdudish's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

bake off but with anxious gays, good mental health rep. also there is a mention of frome!!

Content Warnings

emkplatts's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.0

I feel really bad about this, but I'm only giving it 3 ⭐ because of the

waiting for marriage to have sex thing

I almost exclusively read smut these days and I like to read for fun, so that was kind boring to me and also I'm not big into

religion

so it was just kind of a lame reason. If it had been a story with

ace spectrum rep

I think I would've enjoyed it more rather than

religious reasons

. It was also a bit tedious with all the anxiety, but I know that is good representation of people with GAD, so I do appreciate that. Paris is just like my husband, so I found that endearing.

Content Warnings

a_win_in_clear_rain's review against another edition

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emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

2.75

It was cute... Not my favorite though.
I went into this expecting an adorable baking show romantic comedy, and it definitely was not that.
It was a good book, but it was much more focused on the main character and his struggles.
I did appreciate the huge character growth,

especially near the end, and that they verbally recognized that they both made mistakes!

Overall, wouldn't recommend if you're looking for a cute, lighthearted romance, but if you like contemporary books in general you'll probably enjoy this one!

Content Warnings

northernzephyr's review against another edition

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challenging 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

4.5

Content Warnings

noeandnovels's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted medium-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? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

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