A review by justmevictoria
Drippy by Stephanie Swann

3.0

It's sweet, awkward, and cringe all at the same time… 

 

At night, Agatha earns her living as an adult phone operator known as 'Angel', and by day she's just a regular awkward dork. One of her regulars is 'Adonis', who suggests after one of their sessions that they actually meet up IRL. Bookstore worker Arnold is nothing like the persona he uses, just like Agatha is nothing like hers. In fact, the pair have more in common as their regular dorky selves. There's certainly a spark, but they just have to get past all the awkward interactions, inexperience, and questionable body part descriptions if they want a shot at true love.  

 

The DNF series is a collection of standalone novellas where every book is written to make you cringe. The challenge? To make it through as many novellas before you finally give into the urge to DNF! 

 

Cringe? That I did! This was my first book in the DNF series and I don't know if it was necessarily the best place to start? As per the brief for the series, Stephanie filled the novella with ALL the cringy language and descriptions that definitely had me laughing out loud about just how terrible the descriptions were. Never have I seen so many variants on meat/beef, and quite frankly I never want to see those descriptions used ever again, so Stephanie certainly hit the nail on the head with how she injected cringe into the story! 

 

Agatha and Arnold were definitely cute and sweet, wrapped up in a dorky and awkward ribbon. Their relationship was definitely one that could be explored properly in a full-length novel where two nerdy, book-loving introverts fall in love. I don't know if it's just because it's a novella so Stephanie had to rush through the story a bit, or if that's part of the cringe charm, but the pacing was a bit off. Having never read anything by Stephanie before, I can't say whether it's her writing style or the nature of the series. 

 

I think I'm going to find it difficult to rate these novellas, because on the surface it's such terrible book and would therefore have a less than 3-star rating. But as a story that's designed to be cringe, it ticks all the boxes which would warrant like a 4-star rating. But it's definitely not on-par with other books I've rated 4-stars. So while I want to praise it for living up to the expectations it laid out, I simply cannot make myself rate it highly. Just know that it's a good read under the circumstances for which it was written. If you want a book that's so bad and cringe that it's good, then this is for you. 

 

If you're a romance reader looking for a bit of a challenge to spice up your reading, the DNF challenge is definitely one to take on! I don't know how far I'll make it through this series, but it's certainly going to be a wild ride trying!