A review by hobbithopeful
They Ain't Proper by M.B. Guel

adventurous lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

An extremely disappointing read that would have benefited from characters that didn't need a side one to constantly fix their relationship and keep them together, as well as more stringent editing in the second half of the story.
The premise is a strong one, the wild west, Clementine has sold herself as a wife to get out of her family debt. Lou just wants to be left alone, but an accidental mix up leads to Clementine being delivered to Lou instead of the surly husband she was meant for.
Listen, dear reader. I was so pumped, ecstatic even, to read a non-binary romance. It is rare to get an AFAB romance, even rarer for it to be an adult one. (Which is why I bought this to take on vacation!) It started off fairly well, and I liked how it went, but the plot quickly became muddled in the second half, and it became clear without the side character Juanita, that Lou and Clementine wouldn't even be together in the first place. (The amount of fights and miscommunication and storming off felt out of place, and unnecessary.) Juanita had to keep intervening, and involving herself in the relationship to make them talk to each other, and also serve as a major plot device.
If you took Juanita out of the story, there would be no relationship between Clementine and Lou, and quite frankly Lou would probably be dead.
But on to the bigger fish I had an issue with.
The second half of the book. I don't even know where to begin with it.
The story could have, and honestly should have ended after
Lou was saved from being hung.
Instead we have people coming from the past, with no real purpose or plot point other than to disrupt the relationship and cause unnecessary fighting and distancing. I had absolutely checked out by this point and was struggling to get through. It was quite frankly, a slog. I briefly considered DNF'ing, but because I paid money, I was determined to finish in the hopes it might get better. I still see little to no point in having Inez pop up, as well as others. It was like the climax had already came and went, and so the story was just being dragged out for no reason. I don't understand how editing works, especially with smaller publishers, but this book NEEDED more editing.
By the end I found myself quite disliking several characters I had earlier loved, if only because of the way the plot went that nothing was making sense or felt necessary. I went from liking Clementine, to finding her immature and quite frankly more suited to a YA novel with her constant jumping to conclusions and jealousy. (It's giving toxic.)
Let me complain about one more thing. Breaking a horse does not take just a few days, or even a few weeks. Especially a grown and wild horse! This might be my horse training background from my past coming in, but that part of the book really broke me out of the reading and it just felt so unbelievable.
Oh, and lord only knows what is going on with the cover and the absolute interesting proportions, as well as the fact nothing about the composition makes sense. (Who has limbs going where, why is the horse shaped like that, what even is going on.) Somehow Clementine's arm is longer than Trigger's entire head and Lou's forearm is longer than Clementine's whole arm. Don't even get me started on the legs.)
Overall this book had me so excited, but ended up being a disappointing read, and a slog I almost didn't finish.
I rarely buy books before reading them, and this reminded me why, I do deeply regret having spent money on this book. I do NOT recommend this.
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