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A review by endemictoearth
Overtime by Marina Vivancos
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-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
3.25
This book . . . it was so close to being what I hoped for.
I love Marina Vivancos's writing and especially her characters and how they interact/approach each other. This book had some of what I like most, but was not my favorite.
I felt a lot with this book. It is full of longing and pining and yearning and fear and hope. That part is wonderful, and it is magical that the author can evoke all of that with words on a page. But while I could understand/tolerate the miscommunication, (nay, refusal to communicate or gain insight/understanding) to a certain point, eventually, it just wore me down.
The connection Zee and Ishir have is potent and palpable. Ishir willfully misconstrues Zane's possessiveness while Zane makes a laughable attempt to suppress his obsession and in the EPILOGUE we finally get to understand what he was feeling about the situation. I often really like a single POV with a chaser from the other MC's side, but it wasn't enough for this one. The supercharged feelings and intensity feels out of control and overblown without the grounding of where Zane's head is at and how helpless he feels. Getting it in a 'here's what you missed last week on Zane's obsessive crush' superspeed wrap up at the end just didn't cut it for me.
While I would never want it in my own life, I do occasionally enjoy reading about a good ol' fashioned unhealthy co-dependent relationship, and this one could have made my list, but it needed more balance (either occasionally hearing from Zee's POV throughout, or finding some device to get that info), or flipping the whole thing on its head and having it all from his POV, maybe with Ishir giving us an epilogue. Because, as noted above, the epilogue feels like half retread, half apologizing for what happened.
I totally bought their connection. I totally found their sexual dynamic and the edging really well done. I totally wanted them to figure it out and get together and stop being dummies about each other. But I just think the last 25% or so was rushed and I would have rather had them wait to mate because they needed to talk to each other about all the feelings they were afraid to scare each other away with. When Ishir was running all over town talking to everyone else, I was like, "coolcoolcool, but the guy you love is blowing up your phone, could you maybe . . ." Possibly there's a way to pace this version of the plot that would have satisfied me, but it would have made the book a lot longer.
Okay, enough. Some other positives (because I did say some nice stuff up there, too):
* The ruts - I always say we need more of these in this kind of book; they're fascinating.
* Seeing the couples from the previous two books thriving - these cameos are refreshing and don't take away anything from the main narrative.
* The team dynamics - I feel like this is getting stronger book to book in this series.
It does pain me to not give this a higher rating, but as I've said it before, at this point I'm just judging this author against her other books. I'll always read whatever she puts out and love most of it, I believe, but this one just didn't quite work the way I hoped it would.
I love Marina Vivancos's writing and especially her characters and how they interact/approach each other. This book had some of what I like most, but was not my favorite.
I felt a lot with this book. It is full of longing and pining and yearning and fear and hope. That part is wonderful, and it is magical that the author can evoke all of that with words on a page. But while I could understand/tolerate the miscommunication, (nay, refusal to communicate or gain insight/understanding) to a certain point, eventually, it just wore me down.
The connection Zee and Ishir have is potent and palpable. Ishir willfully misconstrues Zane's possessiveness while Zane makes a laughable attempt to suppress his obsession and in the EPILOGUE we finally get to understand what he was feeling about the situation. I often really like a single POV with a chaser from the other MC's side, but it wasn't enough for this one. The supercharged feelings and intensity feels out of control and overblown without the grounding of where Zane's head is at and how helpless he feels. Getting it in a 'here's what you missed last week on Zane's obsessive crush' superspeed wrap up at the end just didn't cut it for me.
While I would never want it in my own life, I do occasionally enjoy reading about a good ol' fashioned unhealthy co-dependent relationship, and this one could have made my list, but it needed more balance (either occasionally hearing from Zee's POV throughout, or finding some device to get that info), or flipping the whole thing on its head and having it all from his POV, maybe with Ishir giving us an epilogue. Because, as noted above, the epilogue feels like half retread, half apologizing for what happened.
I totally bought their connection. I totally found their sexual dynamic and the edging really well done. I totally wanted them to figure it out and get together and stop being dummies about each other. But I just think the last 25% or so was rushed and I would have rather had them wait to mate because they needed to talk to each other about all the feelings they were afraid to scare each other away with. When Ishir was running all over town talking to everyone else, I was like, "coolcoolcool, but the guy you love is blowing up your phone, could you maybe . . ." Possibly there's a way to pace this version of the plot that would have satisfied me, but it would have made the book a lot longer.
Okay, enough. Some other positives (because I did say some nice stuff up there, too):
* The ruts - I always say we need more of these in this kind of book; they're fascinating.
* Seeing the couples from the previous two books thriving - these cameos are refreshing and don't take away anything from the main narrative.
* The team dynamics - I feel like this is getting stronger book to book in this series.
It does pain me to not give this a higher rating, but as I've said it before, at this point I'm just judging this author against her other books. I'll always read whatever she puts out and love most of it, I believe, but this one just didn't quite work the way I hoped it would.