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A review by opalmars
Fortunate Misfortune by Miah Onsha
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
I’M FINALLY FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 😭🙏😭🙏😭🙏😭🙏😭🙏😭🙏. Listen!!! This book wasn’t terrible or offensive or anything. I don’t even think it was *bad*. BUUUUUT for some reason it took me *3 WEEKS* to get through!!! That is CRIMINAL!!! I can’t even fully point out why this happened; all I can say is that I was never fully invested in this book, and it never managed to make me care about the characters or story that much 🤕.
This is a “rivals to lovers” story, but Kenneth and Mallory’s reasons to become rivals were just plain dumb. Basically, he instantly found her cute and wanted to make her laugh, and proceeded to compare her colourful outfit to rainbow vomit, which she obviously didn’t appreciate. They then started doing little competitions and keeping score of who won what game. It was honestly not that engaging. Also, their “rivalry” never felt intense enough for random waitresses and bartenders to know them as enemies, but whatever.
I think the biggest reason the romance didn’t work for me was the fact that we never really saw much development. This is described as a slow burn, and, yeah, they only get together at like 60%, but Kenneth literally admits he liked Mallory from the moment they met, and throughout the whole book he’s obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED with her! And, listen: I enjoy a pathetically-in-love man as much as everyone else, but like… He was *insanely* down bad, but we never saw a concrete reason as to WHY his feelings were so intense. This was insta-love on his side, but it was *off-page insta-love*, because he already liked her before the book even began, and it seems like he only fell for her because she had a contagious laugh and he became fucking hellbent on being the reason she was happy. 😐
They are forced to work together on a group project and start spending more time together, and (supposedly) become friends. In my opinion, they got too close, too quickly. Like, Kenneth gives her a super intense speech thanking her for hanging out at a lake with him, they intertwine their fingers, she gets super happy when he smiles at her, they start hugging (he literally says at some point “I wanted nothing more than to hug you”), he pulls her into his lap and she cuddles him, they sleep next to each other… Just like, suuuper intense for people who were supposedly rivals for YEARS and have only been friends for like, 1 week or something. I just never really believed their friendship – it often felt too forced. 😐😐😐
Another thing: a LOT of lines in this book feel like they were written specifically for the tiktok girlies to swoon over. There’s just such an abundance of them, and his feelings seem too intense for the relationship we’ve seen. This makes me believe that the reason he’s so weirdly head-over-heels was specifically BECAUSE the author wanted those swoon-worthy lines, but unfortunately she never managed to make them make sense. 😕 Like, she was excited to get those tab-worthy quotes without doing the work to make them feel warranted, given Kenneth and Mallory’s relationship.
So. Yeah. They accept that they like each other at 50%, and then kind of drop their friends because they’re now mega close with each other somehow. They admit their feelings at 60%, and the rest of the book is just them being together. Not bad, but not really a slow-burn either (especially given the fact that Kenneth was obsessed with Mallory for years before the book starts). Deceptive marketing, in my opinion.
I did enjoy their relationship, though. I mean, their crush, friendship and romance never felt fully developed to me, because I couldn’t understand their reasons to feel so deeply for each other, but I did appreciate how much they cared about one another. They were sweet, they apologized for their wrongdoings, they communicated, they cared about each other… Overall a very sweet and healthy relationship!
The sex scenes were a bit much for me (especially with lines like “I unwrap her body like the gift it is” and “her perfect pussy” lol. The criiiinge 🥴), but that might just be because I’m too asexual for this 😵💫😵💫😵💫. Them having unprotected sex stressed me out, even though she was on birth control 😭. I do appreciate that he was a virgin and she was the more knowledgeable one when it came to sex; at least it’s different from what we usually see in these straight adult romances. This virgin ass dude being able to make her cum from penetration was funny, though lmaooo.
I enjoyed the MCs, individually. Kenneth has the very typical “It’s not MY dream, dad! It’s YOURS!” plotline, which I didn’t care about, but whatever. While I didn’t love or understand his intense obsession with Mallory, I did appreciate that at least he was kind and caring, instead of being one of those cocky and mean LIs. Mallory was also a cool character. I especially liked to learn about diabetes through her. It’s the type of thing we never see much representation for.
With that said, I honestly didn’t care about the SCs at all. I appreciate the healthy friendships, but I just didn’t care about them. Also, whenever the author tried to make the “quartet” thing happen with those random football girls, it just seemed silly to me. 😅 I also didn’t care about the MCs’ relationships with their parents. Just… whatever.
The writing wasn’t always great. Some conversations didn’t flow very well. And the passage of time was REEEALLY unclear. Like, the book starts in what I’m assuming is the Summer (they’re at a pool party), and not long after it’s snowing????? I’m guessing several months passed between chapters without mention. 🤨 Afterwards, it’s Valentine’s Day, and the following chapter it’s March, with no mention of a month passing. 🤨 Later, he fingers her and then asks her to be his girlfriend. The chapter ends. New chapter begins and she’s at his door because he’s sick. 🤨 It all just felt so disjointed, at times! And not only did this make the book feel very clunky, but it also made me question the plot. Like, you’re telling me they’ve been partners for a group project for MONTHS and only met up TWICE to talk about said project? Doesn’t make much sense…
There was also too much “telling instead of showing”. Soooo many times the characters would just *mention* things that had happened and we never got to actually *see*, and like…… why did so much stuff happen off-page? 😕 If we actually got to see these little moments between the characters, perhaps it would’ve been easier to *feel* their romance.
Overall, this was just…… a book. 😐 Definitely not terrible, but not great either. For some reason, it took me 3 weeks to finish, but I never really wanted to DNF it (I did want it to be over, though, but that might be because I’d been reading it for what felt like a lifetime lol). Whatever. You might enjoy it more than I did. Idk.
This is a “rivals to lovers” story, but Kenneth and Mallory’s reasons to become rivals were just plain dumb. Basically, he instantly found her cute and wanted to make her laugh, and proceeded to compare her colourful outfit to rainbow vomit, which she obviously didn’t appreciate. They then started doing little competitions and keeping score of who won what game. It was honestly not that engaging. Also, their “rivalry” never felt intense enough for random waitresses and bartenders to know them as enemies, but whatever.
I think the biggest reason the romance didn’t work for me was the fact that we never really saw much development. This is described as a slow burn, and, yeah, they only get together at like 60%, but Kenneth literally admits he liked Mallory from the moment they met, and throughout the whole book he’s obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED with her! And, listen: I enjoy a pathetically-in-love man as much as everyone else, but like… He was *insanely* down bad, but we never saw a concrete reason as to WHY his feelings were so intense. This was insta-love on his side, but it was *off-page insta-love*, because he already liked her before the book even began, and it seems like he only fell for her because she had a contagious laugh and he became fucking hellbent on being the reason she was happy. 😐
They are forced to work together on a group project and start spending more time together, and (supposedly) become friends. In my opinion, they got too close, too quickly. Like, Kenneth gives her a super intense speech thanking her for hanging out at a lake with him, they intertwine their fingers, she gets super happy when he smiles at her, they start hugging (he literally says at some point “I wanted nothing more than to hug you”), he pulls her into his lap and she cuddles him, they sleep next to each other… Just like, suuuper intense for people who were supposedly rivals for YEARS and have only been friends for like, 1 week or something. I just never really believed their friendship – it often felt too forced. 😐😐😐
Another thing: a LOT of lines in this book feel like they were written specifically for the tiktok girlies to swoon over. There’s just such an abundance of them, and his feelings seem too intense for the relationship we’ve seen. This makes me believe that the reason he’s so weirdly head-over-heels was specifically BECAUSE the author wanted those swoon-worthy lines, but unfortunately she never managed to make them make sense. 😕 Like, she was excited to get those tab-worthy quotes without doing the work to make them feel warranted, given Kenneth and Mallory’s relationship.
So. Yeah. They accept that they like each other at 50%, and then kind of drop their friends because they’re now mega close with each other somehow. They admit their feelings at 60%, and the rest of the book is just them being together. Not bad, but not really a slow-burn either (especially given the fact that Kenneth was obsessed with Mallory for years before the book starts). Deceptive marketing, in my opinion.
I did enjoy their relationship, though. I mean, their crush, friendship and romance never felt fully developed to me, because I couldn’t understand their reasons to feel so deeply for each other, but I did appreciate how much they cared about one another. They were sweet, they apologized for their wrongdoings, they communicated, they cared about each other… Overall a very sweet and healthy relationship!
The sex scenes were a bit much for me (especially with lines like “I unwrap her body like the gift it is” and “her perfect pussy” lol. The criiiinge 🥴), but that might just be because I’m too asexual for this 😵💫😵💫😵💫. Them having unprotected sex stressed me out, even though she was on birth control 😭. I do appreciate that he was a virgin and she was the more knowledgeable one when it came to sex; at least it’s different from what we usually see in these straight adult romances. This virgin ass dude being able to make her cum from penetration was funny, though lmaooo.
I enjoyed the MCs, individually. Kenneth has the very typical “It’s not MY dream, dad! It’s YOURS!” plotline, which I didn’t care about, but whatever. While I didn’t love or understand his intense obsession with Mallory, I did appreciate that at least he was kind and caring, instead of being one of those cocky and mean LIs. Mallory was also a cool character. I especially liked to learn about diabetes through her. It’s the type of thing we never see much representation for.
With that said, I honestly didn’t care about the SCs at all. I appreciate the healthy friendships, but I just didn’t care about them. Also, whenever the author tried to make the “quartet” thing happen with those random football girls, it just seemed silly to me. 😅 I also didn’t care about the MCs’ relationships with their parents. Just… whatever.
The writing wasn’t always great. Some conversations didn’t flow very well. And the passage of time was REEEALLY unclear. Like, the book starts in what I’m assuming is the Summer (they’re at a pool party), and not long after it’s snowing????? I’m guessing several months passed between chapters without mention. 🤨 Afterwards, it’s Valentine’s Day, and the following chapter it’s March, with no mention of a month passing. 🤨 Later, he fingers her and then asks her to be his girlfriend. The chapter ends. New chapter begins and she’s at his door because he’s sick. 🤨 It all just felt so disjointed, at times! And not only did this make the book feel very clunky, but it also made me question the plot. Like, you’re telling me they’ve been partners for a group project for MONTHS and only met up TWICE to talk about said project? Doesn’t make much sense…
There was also too much “telling instead of showing”. Soooo many times the characters would just *mention* things that had happened and we never got to actually *see*, and like…… why did so much stuff happen off-page? 😕 If we actually got to see these little moments between the characters, perhaps it would’ve been easier to *feel* their romance.
Overall, this was just…… a book. 😐 Definitely not terrible, but not great either. For some reason, it took me 3 weeks to finish, but I never really wanted to DNF it (I did want it to be over, though, but that might be because I’d been reading it for what felt like a lifetime lol). Whatever. You might enjoy it more than I did. Idk.