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ladyanjulka's review against another edition
3.0
This was a bit of a emotionally challenging book for me for reasons I'm not clear on, which is why I didn't rate it higher. BUT, I really liked that a Latino man, and specifically one with disability was introduced. I'm a fan of how the series as a whole is looking at the full spectrum of people available. (Well, full spectrum of beautiful people at least. ;) )
teresab78's review against another edition
1.0
1.5 stars. Ugh, I was so bored with this book. Reading it was a chore I finally gave up on. I didn’t really like Diego and couldn’t see what Healey saw in him. I get that he was that way because of his past. It seemed like their connection was all superficial.
I appreciate the author for trying to make the sex realistic with Diego’s SCI. It’s just that that many awkward sex scenes were difficult to read.
It seemed the same issues just got rehashed over and over and there was no progress made on them.
I realized I didn’t care at all about these characters and even though I really try hard to not dnf, my time is worth more than this book.
I appreciate the author for trying to make the sex realistic with Diego’s SCI. It’s just that that many awkward sex scenes were difficult to read.
It seemed the same issues just got rehashed over and over and there was no progress made on them.
I realized I didn’t care at all about these characters and even though I really try hard to not dnf, my time is worth more than this book.
the_novel_approach's review against another edition
2.0
~ 2.5 Stars ~
I’m going to come right out of the gate and say that All Wheel Drive was more miss than hit for me. Which, being a fan of so much of this author’s other work, made it all the more disappointing. My expectations were skewed higher going in—even more so, in all probability, since I liked Hell on Wheels so much and was looking forward to Healey Holly’s story. As Nash Holly’s twin, we met Healey—along with their dad, Ace, and their little sister, Shelby—in Hell on Wheels, and knew him as the genius Stanford student for whom Nash had sacrificed so much in order that Healey could reach his fullest potential. We also met Healey’s boyfriend, Ford, in Nash’s book. This book might be best described as the apocalypse and fallout of their relationship.
When All Wheel Drive begins, the Holly family are scattered to the four corners of the earth, and Healey has come home to Bluewater Bay to nurse his battered body, troubled mind and shattered heart. Where do you go when you need a safe place to land? Healey goes home. The only problem is that his childhood home doesn’t belong to the Holly family anymore. It belongs to Diego Luz, a guy we’re told works postproduction on Wolf’s Landing, the hit TV show that’s filmed there. Diego isn’t at all happy to see Healey’s bruised face and broken arm on his doorstep, but all Healey wants is to rent Nash’s old room above the garage, offering to throw an exorbitant amount of cash into the deal for the trouble, which Diego isn’t at all down with; he’s also insulted by the offer. He does give Healey one night on the floor of the apartment, though, and then makes him move on.
All Wheel Drive is set up as a sort of one-sided enemy-to-lovers story, with a hurt/comfort chaser. I tend to love both of these tropes when done well. Unfortunately, I can’t say it succeeds here; at least, it didn’t for me. When Healey is introduced, he’s in such dire straits that I wanted to put him in bubble wrap and set him on a shelf until he was well enough physically to deal with what he was struggling with emotionally—the aftermath of Ford’s complete psychological meltdown, which led to a road rage incident during which Healey was injured and, now, is possibly in need of an attorney. Healey suffered the consequences of his own denial and poor choices, and of loving a guy who needed more than just love to help him cope (I did like the message that love can make even the smartest people do stupid things). Healey was so pitiful when he showed up at Diego’s house, which was a jarring contrast to the stranger who answered the door. With absolutely no setup to prepare readers for Diego’s unprompted disdain (or, what felt a lot like it), it was as if I’d been dropped into the middle of a relationship that’d ended badly—there was zero context for Diego’s pissiness towards a guy who looked like the walking dead. I don’t know if I wasn’t supposed to like Diego right then, but he didn’t make a great first impression, and it took a long time before I was able to feel even tepid towards him. Points awarded to Healey for tripping my savior complex trigger, though.
Diego is paralyzed from the waist down after suffering a spinal cord injury. He’s still adjusting to all the ways he’s had to adapt since his accident, coping with the loss of his mom (more on her in a minute), and, in so, so many ways, is mourning the loss of the life he led before his accident. Kudos to Maxfield for the care she took in detailing some of Diego’s day-to-day challenges, and for the research she did to show readers how he could still have sex despite his paralysis. The hand he’s been dealt is, without a doubt, enough to make anyone angry, bitter and standoffish, and I developed a great amount of respect for his strength as the story continued. This made Healey Diego’s perfect romantic foil, in many ways, because of Healey’s scientific pragmatism as well as his own experience with a little sister who’d suffered from her own spinal injury.
The problem, however—the one issue I had difficulty overcoming, in the end—is that Diego came off as a one-note character to me for most of the book. Wolf’s Landing is on hiatus when All Wheel Drive begins, so it stands to reason we wouldn’t get to see him on the job, but I needed to see him interacting earlier in the story with a wider range of people, in a way that showed more layers to his personality and who he was as an everyday guy—that he was more than the ire he consistently directed at Healey. The side-effect of his monotone characterization is that I didn’t buy into Healey’s attraction to Diego, not beyond the fact that Diego is hot and ‘swole’, and that sex was the end goal. I get that people don’t have to be best friends before they have sex, or even like each other, for that matter, but I just didn’t get why Healey was so persistent. It was like watching a kicked puppy coming back, again and again, hoping for a tiny crumb of kindness. These guys had sex, there was more anger and some misunderstandings, all because there was no foundation for them to talk about the heavy stuff. They were too broken individually to “fix” each other with something as simple as sexual chemistry, and I just wasn’t sold on their relationship. In fact, some of the things that happened later in the book likely could’ve happened a bit earlier and addressed some of my issues—before they became issues—without it ruining the overall story. But, I can’t prove that.
Also weighing heavily against a believable beginning to any sort of relationship between Healey and Diego is the unresolved issues between Healey and Ford—which is what left Healey a physical and emotional and psychological wreck. Let’s talk about unfinished business and simplistic resolutions… For as damaged as Healey was by the events that happened between him and Ford, the end of that crisis was too abrupt and over simplified, and the narrative skimmed over too much of the emotional detritus to get to the HEA with Diego. This was a BIG deal in the story, it completely informed who Healey was for almost the entirety of the book, so a few pages of conversation with Ford to get him past that felt disingenuous and too tidy to me.
Getting back to Diego’s mom, I loved the little glimpses we got of her and her backstory, and I liked that she was the catalyst that brought Diego and Healey together, even if in only a peripheral and figurative way. There were some interesting tidbits parsed out that made her an intriguing and provocative addition to Diego’s narrative, and I loved the portrayal of her as such a free and rebellious spirit. Sadly, however, her story wasn’t wrapped up. I’d have loved to know more about the outcome of the research into her stealth artwork.
While I ended up liking Healey and Diego together well enough by the end, All Wheel Drive started slow and didn’t pick up quickly enough to hook me. I have an intense passion for characters who aren’t afraid to have those tough conversations that give a story substance and realism—something that I felt was important especially because these guys were both so broken, but it relies too much on sex as a foundation for a relationship that brings an excess of emotional baggage to it, some of which needed unloaded first for me to buy into it.
But, as always, your mileage with All Wheel Drive may vary.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach
I’m going to come right out of the gate and say that All Wheel Drive was more miss than hit for me. Which, being a fan of so much of this author’s other work, made it all the more disappointing. My expectations were skewed higher going in—even more so, in all probability, since I liked Hell on Wheels so much and was looking forward to Healey Holly’s story. As Nash Holly’s twin, we met Healey—along with their dad, Ace, and their little sister, Shelby—in Hell on Wheels, and knew him as the genius Stanford student for whom Nash had sacrificed so much in order that Healey could reach his fullest potential. We also met Healey’s boyfriend, Ford, in Nash’s book. This book might be best described as the apocalypse and fallout of their relationship.
When All Wheel Drive begins, the Holly family are scattered to the four corners of the earth, and Healey has come home to Bluewater Bay to nurse his battered body, troubled mind and shattered heart. Where do you go when you need a safe place to land? Healey goes home. The only problem is that his childhood home doesn’t belong to the Holly family anymore. It belongs to Diego Luz, a guy we’re told works postproduction on Wolf’s Landing, the hit TV show that’s filmed there. Diego isn’t at all happy to see Healey’s bruised face and broken arm on his doorstep, but all Healey wants is to rent Nash’s old room above the garage, offering to throw an exorbitant amount of cash into the deal for the trouble, which Diego isn’t at all down with; he’s also insulted by the offer. He does give Healey one night on the floor of the apartment, though, and then makes him move on.
All Wheel Drive is set up as a sort of one-sided enemy-to-lovers story, with a hurt/comfort chaser. I tend to love both of these tropes when done well. Unfortunately, I can’t say it succeeds here; at least, it didn’t for me. When Healey is introduced, he’s in such dire straits that I wanted to put him in bubble wrap and set him on a shelf until he was well enough physically to deal with what he was struggling with emotionally—the aftermath of Ford’s complete psychological meltdown, which led to a road rage incident during which Healey was injured and, now, is possibly in need of an attorney. Healey suffered the consequences of his own denial and poor choices, and of loving a guy who needed more than just love to help him cope (I did like the message that love can make even the smartest people do stupid things). Healey was so pitiful when he showed up at Diego’s house, which was a jarring contrast to the stranger who answered the door. With absolutely no setup to prepare readers for Diego’s unprompted disdain (or, what felt a lot like it), it was as if I’d been dropped into the middle of a relationship that’d ended badly—there was zero context for Diego’s pissiness towards a guy who looked like the walking dead. I don’t know if I wasn’t supposed to like Diego right then, but he didn’t make a great first impression, and it took a long time before I was able to feel even tepid towards him. Points awarded to Healey for tripping my savior complex trigger, though.
Diego is paralyzed from the waist down after suffering a spinal cord injury. He’s still adjusting to all the ways he’s had to adapt since his accident, coping with the loss of his mom (more on her in a minute), and, in so, so many ways, is mourning the loss of the life he led before his accident. Kudos to Maxfield for the care she took in detailing some of Diego’s day-to-day challenges, and for the research she did to show readers how he could still have sex despite his paralysis. The hand he’s been dealt is, without a doubt, enough to make anyone angry, bitter and standoffish, and I developed a great amount of respect for his strength as the story continued. This made Healey Diego’s perfect romantic foil, in many ways, because of Healey’s scientific pragmatism as well as his own experience with a little sister who’d suffered from her own spinal injury.
The problem, however—the one issue I had difficulty overcoming, in the end—is that Diego came off as a one-note character to me for most of the book. Wolf’s Landing is on hiatus when All Wheel Drive begins, so it stands to reason we wouldn’t get to see him on the job, but I needed to see him interacting earlier in the story with a wider range of people, in a way that showed more layers to his personality and who he was as an everyday guy—that he was more than the ire he consistently directed at Healey. The side-effect of his monotone characterization is that I didn’t buy into Healey’s attraction to Diego, not beyond the fact that Diego is hot and ‘swole’, and that sex was the end goal. I get that people don’t have to be best friends before they have sex, or even like each other, for that matter, but I just didn’t get why Healey was so persistent. It was like watching a kicked puppy coming back, again and again, hoping for a tiny crumb of kindness. These guys had sex, there was more anger and some misunderstandings, all because there was no foundation for them to talk about the heavy stuff. They were too broken individually to “fix” each other with something as simple as sexual chemistry, and I just wasn’t sold on their relationship. In fact, some of the things that happened later in the book likely could’ve happened a bit earlier and addressed some of my issues—before they became issues—without it ruining the overall story. But, I can’t prove that.
Also weighing heavily against a believable beginning to any sort of relationship between Healey and Diego is the unresolved issues between Healey and Ford—which is what left Healey a physical and emotional and psychological wreck. Let’s talk about unfinished business and simplistic resolutions… For as damaged as Healey was by the events that happened between him and Ford, the end of that crisis was too abrupt and over simplified, and the narrative skimmed over too much of the emotional detritus to get to the HEA with Diego. This was a BIG deal in the story, it completely informed who Healey was for almost the entirety of the book, so a few pages of conversation with Ford to get him past that felt disingenuous and too tidy to me.
Getting back to Diego’s mom, I loved the little glimpses we got of her and her backstory, and I liked that she was the catalyst that brought Diego and Healey together, even if in only a peripheral and figurative way. There were some interesting tidbits parsed out that made her an intriguing and provocative addition to Diego’s narrative, and I loved the portrayal of her as such a free and rebellious spirit. Sadly, however, her story wasn’t wrapped up. I’d have loved to know more about the outcome of the research into her stealth artwork.
While I ended up liking Healey and Diego together well enough by the end, All Wheel Drive started slow and didn’t pick up quickly enough to hook me. I have an intense passion for characters who aren’t afraid to have those tough conversations that give a story substance and realism—something that I felt was important especially because these guys were both so broken, but it relies too much on sex as a foundation for a relationship that brings an excess of emotional baggage to it, some of which needed unloaded first for me to buy into it.
But, as always, your mileage with All Wheel Drive may vary.
Reviewed by Lisa for The Novel Approach
frothy's review
2.0
DNF at 48%. Reading this was Sisyphean.
Didn't hate it with the fire of 1000 firey suns, hence the two stars, but it was a clunking drag with characters I didn't warm to and didn't want to read any more about. It never seemed to get to the point, although there clearly was one?
Didn't hate it with the fire of 1000 firey suns, hence the two stars, but it was a clunking drag with characters I didn't warm to and didn't want to read any more about. It never seemed to get to the point, although there clearly was one?
allyourstars's review
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
The portrayal of mental illness (specifically bipolar disorder) in this book was very frustrating and made me angry. It's unfortunate, because the book is generally well-written and I've liked some of this author's other work. As far as I could tell, one MC's physical disabilities seemed to be well-researched and treated with care and compassion in the text - though I say this as someone with no personal experience. I do, however, have experience with bipolar disorder. I'm not sure if my thoughts on this would be considered spoilers, so you can find them behind the spoiler tag just in case.
It was hurtful to (once again) have the person with bipolar disorder be the bad guy. He was unstable, violent, and extremely emotionally volatile. His bipolar disorder is the thing that ruined the second MC's life and hurt him physically and psychologically. I felt like the author googled "bipolar disorder" and came up with a script from a bad thriller and used that as their source because it's a character I've seen over and over and over again in media. I was also completely unprepared for bipolar disorder to be the reason for his behavior. In fact, early on in the book, his mental illness is just referred to as "BPD" - another indicator that the author didn't do enough research. BPD is the abbreviation for borderline personality disorder, not bipolar disorder. So when it was revealed to actually be bipolar disorder, I was completely taken off guard. The character's behavior isn't reflective of BPD either (as far as I've ever seen), but it hit closer to home for me with it being bipolar disorder.
Portrayals like this one of people with bipolar disorder are part of the reason why few people in my life know about my diagnosis. Unless someone has known me for a long time, I won't tell them because they will assume that I'm like this character (or that I will have a "breakdown" and become like him). I've had relationships fall apart because people treated me differently after finding out. Obviously there are people with bipolar disorder who have erratic and violent behavior, as there are in any group. But that number is very low, and we're more likely to have violence committed against us than to every commit a violent act ourselves. I would be less inclined to rage and rant about this particular portrayal if there was more good representation of bipolar disorder out there, but there isn't, which makes this portrayal all the more harmful.
If you'd like to read a better portrayal of severe bipolar disorder that gives you the perspective of someone with the disorder, I'd recommend Kiss Me Again by Garrett Leigh or A Wealth of Unsaid Words by R. Cooper. A Lethal Love by Max Walker also does a pretty good job, if I remember correctly.
Portrayals like this one of people with bipolar disorder are part of the reason why few people in my life know about my diagnosis. Unless someone has known me for a long time, I won't tell them because they will assume that I'm like this character (or that I will have a "breakdown" and become like him). I've had relationships fall apart because people treated me differently after finding out. Obviously there are people with bipolar disorder who have erratic and violent behavior, as there are in any group. But that number is very low, and we're more likely to have violence committed against us than to every commit a violent act ourselves. I would be less inclined to rage and rant about this particular portrayal if there was more good representation of bipolar disorder out there, but there isn't, which makes this portrayal all the more harmful.
If you'd like to read a better portrayal of severe bipolar disorder that gives you the perspective of someone with the disorder, I'd recommend Kiss Me Again by Garrett Leigh or A Wealth of Unsaid Words by R. Cooper. A Lethal Love by Max Walker also does a pretty good job, if I remember correctly.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness
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