Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble

Alexis Hall has written an exceptionally funny story where queer romance meets The Great British Bake Off, and added delightfully messy characters that you can't help but love.
When Paris's self professed fat Glaswegian sex goddess roommate, Morag, enters him into Bake Expectations, he doesn't expect do well at all. Except he does. He does really well. And then he meets fellow competitor sparkly Tariq, with his beautiful varnished nails and assured sense of style. If only Paris had any self esteem and could stop worrying himself in circles about well, everything.
Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble follows Paris's journey through competing on the nations favorite bake show, while he tries to push past his crippling anxiety.

Favorite Moments: The character banter, food descriptions, Grace Forsythe!
Least Favorite: All the baking talk made me so hungry! I would have loved some closure on Paris's parents. (Though I understand it is more realistic this way.)

I have seen so many mixed reviews in regards to Paris, his general personality, and mental health struggle. I must admit dear reader, that I do have biases towards his overall character and growth. I have struggled with what ifs and the paralyzing anxiety that comes with it. It is incredibly draining to be around someone who needs constant emotional support and reassurance, especially when they haven't gotten any help for them problems. I think that a lot of people are missing that Paris did get help. More important he is trying. Trying to do better, and quite honestly he is in a much better place mentally then at the beginning of the book. I really liked how Hall depicted Paris and Tariq's relationship and how Tariq established boundaries. I also thought the microaggressions that Tariq faced were masterfully well done, microaggressions are always so frustrating because it feels impossible to call people out on them.
This is the second book in the Winner Bakes All series and the second book of Alexis Hall's that I have read. Easily read as a standalone, I didn't read the first book and had no trouble following. Alexis Hall is an extremely talented writer, no matter the pov or character you always feel like you are experiencing what the character is, be it a regency era romance, or a light hearted baking story. He now stands as one of my current favorite authors(I love consistency), I can't wait to read more by him.

The Cover
I overall think that this is a good composition, and I do like it, though there are a few elements I don't love.
First the overall use of a rainbow sliced cake is a great nod to the fact that this is a queer book. (Sometimes I go to a bookstore and it's hard to tell if a book is apart of the LGBT or not!) I think it is really cute how Tariq and Paris are both leaning against it, each standing in a way that conveys their personality.
The polka dot background seems a bit messy, and I feel it could have easily been a solid color or less busy.
I adore how the font follows the cake lines and seems to be going in and out, it adds depth and great character.
With how many times Tariq's fashion and overall style is mentioned, it would have been nice to see that conveyed through his outfit. While he is dressed nicely, it is missing his flamboyant and colorful sense of style present in the book. ALSO! Tariq's nails are our first introduction to his character, and a defining point throughout the story. I can't believe his nails aren't painted his signature rainbow color, or another bold pattern.
Paris is taller then Tariq but his art seems less like he was drawn tall and more like he was enlarged to be bigger, with some of his proportions looking a bit off as a result.
Overall I think it is a very cute cover, and works so well with the story and theme.
Cover design and illustration by Elizabeth Turner Stokes

Content Warnings

anika222's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

This was a pretty heavy book for a romance. It heavily features Paris' undiagnosed/untreated anxiety including many indepth, on page descriptions.

Because Paris is an unreliable narrator for the first 3/4, the romance is really in the background and hard to see/feel the chemistry between him and Tariq.

Everyone in Paris' life is focused on what they perceive to be his shortcomings/flaws and Tariq and his best friend both handle supporting him really poorly. Both relationships get addressed, apologies are made, but we don't really get to see either of them change. It was honestly hard to read in a romance where we usually get to live out more idealistic relationships, but it was realistic.

Paris really deserves a lot of love and I would have liked to see him get just a whole ton more of it.

I did really enjoy Tariq's character outside of his treatment of Paris. Hall writes queer characters so well and representative of queer culture which I find absent in so many queer books where the characters are just being plunked into straight stories but with two men/women/nonbinary people.

Content Warnings

historic_wince's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

3.75

I think the overall format of the "Winner Bakes All" series works really well. It’s this perfect situation in which unlikely people are grouped together (forced proximity) with one common interest/goal, but since they only compete on the weekends, for a set number of weeks, there’s a delicious slice of life quality to both books. But Hall also really gets to play with his characters. While while the main characters of Rosaline Palmer were in their late 20s and early 30s, Paris and Tariq are university students, still figuring themselves out, and that gives Paris Daillencourt a distinctly ‘new adult’ feel than the previous book.

That being said, I think some readers won’t enjoy this ‘season’ of Bake Expectations, both because the protagonists are younger and due to the nature of their character arcs. While there are some humorous scenes sprinkled throughout, I agree with other reviewers that this book is not a romcom. It does, however fit the bill of being a romance novel by having

HFN/hopeful

ending.

Our titular character Paris is suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, and, I would argue, severe depression. He is severely lacking a support system and has developed unhealthy coping mechanisms over the past several years. Within the very stressful situation of being on Bake Expectations, his condition understandably worsens. Readers get trapped with Paris in his anxiety, excessive worries, and catastrophizing. He’s hitting all the standard distorted thinking tropes. For readers with anxiety and/or depression, these scenes (which are numerous) may be very difficult to read, may be triggering, may seem all too relatable. As clear in other reviews, many readers might find Paris irritating and annoying—mirroring exactly in universe social media users who label Paris a twat.

And while at times Paris is selfish and hurtful to those close to him, he’s also a young kid, with a still-developing prefrontal cortex in a brain that has trained itself to sabotage all of his positive experiences.

The relationship at the center of this novel is also a bit of a disaster, but that seems fitting for the context and ages of Paris and Tariq. Is it a good idea to start dating your co-star/competition within the narrow context of a reality tv show? No, absolutely not, but they’re fucking 20 years olds. We’re not making our best choices at that age.

The many comments about Paris’s temperament and whether or not Tariq was too forgiving or not patient and understanding enough of Paris’s condition are marginally understandable. But also make me empathize with anyone in their lives that might be suffering with a mental illness. Because we both need to give Tariq and Paris some grace. Tariq thought he could fix his boyfriend, but severely underestimated the extent of Paris’ distorted thinking. Paris Daillencourt is that scene in Rosaline Palmer when Rosaline suggests to Harry that he might have anxiety, but with less mature main characters. Characters who are still growing and in different stages of defining their values, and that’s okay!

While it wasn't my favorite Alexis Hall reading experience, I'll still be picking up the next book in this series.

Other things:

Paris’ parents are completely absent from the story despite Paris texting them weekly. They are negligent and emotionally abusive. And probably huge narcissists.

I loved the dynamic between Tariq and his family.

I also really enjoyed that Tariq was both firm and proud of his many identities. Many, many people view religion and homosexuality as incompatible. It is a spot of contention in both religious and queer communities. So, it was nice to see a queer man with a positive relationship with his faith, even though I am not a particularly religious person.

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

lindsayerin's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective 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

3.5

Content Warnings

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