Scan barcode
A review by eila
We Could Be Heroes by PJ Ellis
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
A bookseller who moonlights as a drag queen meets a closeted actor who's in town filming a superhero movie.
This could/should have been a sweetly predictable meetcute, but it unfortunately fell flat at every turn. I was so excited by the comfort-blankie-esque premise and instead I got whatever this is.
Reader, I really hated this book. I'm giving it two stars purely because of the queer representation and because it lacked grammatical errors. But like a character quotes, the bar is so low, it's in He'll.
So what went wrong?
What didn't.
Firstly, this is ostensibly set in Birmingham, but it could have been set on the moon or in your back yard: you'd never know the difference. That's because the author manages to miraculously avoid any actual descriptions of just about anything. Whatever happened to show, don't tell? This is all tell, no show. There's zero atmosphere, zero local anything. They walk down A Street to A Bookstore and then go to A Club and/or The Hotel. ... actually, that might be more descriptive than this book.
Secondly, the characters are utterly unlikeable and downright stereotypical. Will and Patrick are both utterly vapid and not just boring but so boring as to be forgettable. There's zero chemistry. They're not even actually into each other, but at least there's some chemsex to ease the way, I guess?
Thirdly, there's no plot. Normally the meetcute or the closeted character coming out are the climactic events, but here even those are so watered down they have no impact.
Fourthly, there's an attempt to shoehorn a side story, set in the past, about the authors of the superhero franchise. This is just jarring and smacks of filler.
And lastly, the insistence on using apostrophes instead of quotation marks for all the dialogue - and this book is nothing but pages of pointless, shallow dialogue strung together.
I'm really sorry, but I can't recommend this book, as I don't even know who the target audience would be. It's so many words, and yet no plot, character growth, or even a scenic backdrop to patch them together. The author needed an outline and to focus on depth, and a good editor to wrangle this into any semblance of storytelling.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
This could/should have been a sweetly predictable meetcute, but it unfortunately fell flat at every turn. I was so excited by the comfort-blankie-esque premise and instead I got whatever this is.
Reader, I really hated this book. I'm giving it two stars purely because of the queer representation and because it lacked grammatical errors. But like a character quotes, the bar is so low, it's in He'll.
So what went wrong?
What didn't.
Firstly, this is ostensibly set in Birmingham, but it could have been set on the moon or in your back yard: you'd never know the difference. That's because the author manages to miraculously avoid any actual descriptions of just about anything. Whatever happened to show, don't tell? This is all tell, no show. There's zero atmosphere, zero local anything. They walk down A Street to A Bookstore and then go to A Club and/or The Hotel. ... actually, that might be more descriptive than this book.
Secondly, the characters are utterly unlikeable and downright stereotypical. Will and Patrick are both utterly vapid and not just boring but so boring as to be forgettable. There's zero chemistry. They're not even actually into each other, but at least there's some chemsex to ease the way, I guess?
Thirdly, there's no plot. Normally the meetcute or the closeted character coming out are the climactic events, but here even those are so watered down they have no impact.
Fourthly, there's an attempt to shoehorn a side story, set in the past, about the authors of the superhero franchise. This is just jarring and smacks of filler.
And lastly, the insistence on using apostrophes instead of quotation marks for all the dialogue - and this book is nothing but pages of pointless, shallow dialogue strung together.
I'm really sorry, but I can't recommend this book, as I don't even know who the target audience would be. It's so many words, and yet no plot, character growth, or even a scenic backdrop to patch them together. The author needed an outline and to focus on depth, and a good editor to wrangle this into any semblance of storytelling.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.