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A review by yo_oying
Anyone But Her by Erica Lee
2.0
2 / 5
i had such high hopes! the premise sounded so entertaining. lesbian dates her gay best friend so he can seem straight and accomplished in front of his conservative family, but she ends up falling for her friend’s seemingly straight twin sister.
but it was executed horribly. this honestly felt like something i would’ve found on wattpad five years ago, except the main characters weren’t straight.
the first thing i noticed was how awkward the dialogue was. there was a lot of info-dumping, and it was done in a nonsensical way. the characters would either tell each other information they should already know, just so the reader could hear it, or they would straight-up spend paragraphs explaining something that seemed unnecessary for one reason or another.
the characters were my next issue. they didn’t feel like they had any personality besides being gay and having problems? the protagonist and her love interest might as well have been the same person. the twin’s parents were caricature-ish, even though i could sense some depth, but i don’t know. they were written so weirdly, especially the mother, that they made me cringe and it wasn’t just because of the homophobia.
the romance also bothered me. it wasn’t compelling to me, and it seemed like it was only built off of physical attraction, and i guess that’s all i have to say.
none of the emotional beats hit, although i sure they could have if the writing suited me more. i liked the conflict between the siblings and between the twins and their parents, but again, none of it seemed to land well for me. the way the information all ended up being revealed at the end was because of a really awkward reason, and i just couldn’t take it seriously.
overall, i’m really disappointed, because this could’ve had so much potential, and it was hard for me to finish at all :(
i had such high hopes! the premise sounded so entertaining. lesbian dates her gay best friend so he can seem straight and accomplished in front of his conservative family, but she ends up falling for her friend’s seemingly straight twin sister.
but it was executed horribly. this honestly felt like something i would’ve found on wattpad five years ago, except the main characters weren’t straight.
the first thing i noticed was how awkward the dialogue was. there was a lot of info-dumping, and it was done in a nonsensical way. the characters would either tell each other information they should already know, just so the reader could hear it, or they would straight-up spend paragraphs explaining something that seemed unnecessary for one reason or another.
the characters were my next issue. they didn’t feel like they had any personality besides being gay and having problems? the protagonist and her love interest might as well have been the same person. the twin’s parents were caricature-ish, even though i could sense some depth, but i don’t know. they were written so weirdly, especially the mother, that they made me cringe and it wasn’t just because of the homophobia.
the romance also bothered me. it wasn’t compelling to me, and it seemed like it was only built off of physical attraction, and i guess that’s all i have to say.
none of the emotional beats hit, although i sure they could have if the writing suited me more. i liked the conflict between the siblings and between the twins and their parents, but again, none of it seemed to land well for me. the way the information all ended up being revealed at the end was because of a really awkward reason, and i just couldn’t take it seriously.
overall, i’m really disappointed, because this could’ve had so much potential, and it was hard for me to finish at all :(