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incunabula_and_intercourse 's review for:
7th Circle
by Tate James
medium-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
(Puts face in hands)
Buddy-read with my darling girlfriend, who always seems to know exactly which books are gonna give me a conniption. She thought it would be trashy fun, and wouldn't you know it, it's quite awful!
To start off lightly: The prose is dogshit. Tate James took "said is dead" way too closely to heart, and now every character has to reply, bark, snap, and mutter their dialogue. It's worse when she tries to get creative, and now they lie, announce, observe, and agree, all in cases where either it's not appropriate or it's painfully obvious what the context is. I actually kept count, and "said" was only used 37 times in a 279-page novel with 33 chapters. That's not even 1.5 "said"s per chapter. There's a reason why "said" is fine, and it's because it makes unique dialogue tags stand out when they're used; otherwise, you get word soup like this.
The narration repeats certain baffling sentences over and over again, in a way that makes me question how much Tate James knows about creative writing. Characters frequently "just" roll their eyes/laugh/shrug, and then immediately do another action and have a line of dialogue, which isn't what "just" means. "[name] snickered/snorted/scoffed a laugh" is a redundant frequent occurrence, right alongside "jerked a nod." Repeatedly, Hades states that "even in my high heels [insert love interest here] towered over me," and she's constantly "fold[ing] my arms under my breasts." Like, verbatim, that's how it's stated at least three times.
The pacing is also atrocious. The 3 sex scenes don't help (and we'll get to the sex scenes, oh man), nor does the author not understanding that books in a series need to also work on their own. The beginning is way too slow, and the end is rushed to the point of absurdity. The entire third act is maybe 30 pages, and it ends on a cliffhanger that's failed to hook me in any way, shape, or form. Hades, the supposed tough-girl mob boss who keeps telling us she's such a bad bitch and a stone-cold killer, only shoots her first man on page 87. I'm realizing that Bloom books is an imprint of Sourcebooks, and if you've seen my DNF review of both The Poisons We Drink and Monsters Born and Made (both Sourcebooks Fire), you'll understand why I'm singling out the company; one must ask where the editors went if this makes it to print.
And here's the thing: I'm pretty forgiving with prose. As long as you tell a compelling story with compelling characters, I'll rarely dip below 3 stars. I was promised a female mob boss with three men at her beck and call, all with different ages and backgrounds, and so I expected just that. In her early interactions with Lucas, I was praying for femdom.
But nooooooo, we couldn't even have that. Which brings me to this book's worst sins: telling vs showing, and shitty characterization.
Instead of showing us a character's facial expressions and body language, the narration tells us what they're feeling or what emotion they "look." Instead of showing us Hades being a bad bitch, we're told she is as she capitulates to every man in her life. The supposed genius mob boss (who, by the way, is 23 and already a billionaire, lol) makes several bad decisions and puts herself in danger way too often. My girlfriend knows a lot about mob history, and it was so much fun seeing her lose her shit over Hades' shitty management.
All her love interests, too, are exactly the same. Yes, ingenue Lucas, best friend Zed, and old rival Cass are all super assertive and physically domineering, despite the differences in age, personality, and sexual history. I get having a type, but isn't the appeal of multiple love interests the fact that they're all kind of different? Like, imagine if Cass was the older macho dom, Zed the snarky yet gently loving best friend, and Lucas the naive yet bratty sub who gets pegged. Now that would have been an interesting story with push and pull, instead of variations on a "bighugelarge dark-haired abs macho dom" theme.
All these combined easily make this the worst book I've read this year. At least Lightlark had a semblance of a non-romance plot. This one doesn't even pretend it's not about the dick. If this is where M/F romance has gone, well, consider me turned off on the genre forever.
PS The first sex scene takes place in a supply closet at a bar where cleaning supplies are kept next to beer kegs and liquor bottles. I'll give everyone with a food handler's permit time to scream.
PPS The wine snob MC describes Sangiovese as a "light, fruity" wine. Sangiovese is the grape used in the famously full and tannic Chianti, for the record.
PPPS 3 Grumpy Cat references in a book published in 2020 should be illegal, right?
Buddy-read with my darling girlfriend, who always seems to know exactly which books are gonna give me a conniption. She thought it would be trashy fun, and wouldn't you know it, it's quite awful!
To start off lightly: The prose is dogshit. Tate James took "said is dead" way too closely to heart, and now every character has to reply, bark, snap, and mutter their dialogue. It's worse when she tries to get creative, and now they lie, announce, observe, and agree, all in cases where either it's not appropriate or it's painfully obvious what the context is. I actually kept count, and "said" was only used 37 times in a 279-page novel with 33 chapters. That's not even 1.5 "said"s per chapter. There's a reason why "said" is fine, and it's because it makes unique dialogue tags stand out when they're used; otherwise, you get word soup like this.
The narration repeats certain baffling sentences over and over again, in a way that makes me question how much Tate James knows about creative writing. Characters frequently "just" roll their eyes/laugh/shrug, and then immediately do another action and have a line of dialogue, which isn't what "just" means. "[name] snickered/snorted/scoffed a laugh" is a redundant frequent occurrence, right alongside "jerked a nod." Repeatedly, Hades states that "even in my high heels [insert love interest here] towered over me," and she's constantly "fold[ing] my arms under my breasts." Like, verbatim, that's how it's stated at least three times.
The pacing is also atrocious. The 3 sex scenes don't help (and we'll get to the sex scenes, oh man), nor does the author not understanding that books in a series need to also work on their own. The beginning is way too slow, and the end is rushed to the point of absurdity. The entire third act is maybe 30 pages, and it ends on a cliffhanger that's failed to hook me in any way, shape, or form. Hades, the supposed tough-girl mob boss who keeps telling us she's such a bad bitch and a stone-cold killer, only shoots her first man on page 87. I'm realizing that Bloom books is an imprint of Sourcebooks, and if you've seen my DNF review of both The Poisons We Drink and Monsters Born and Made (both Sourcebooks Fire), you'll understand why I'm singling out the company; one must ask where the editors went if this makes it to print.
And here's the thing: I'm pretty forgiving with prose. As long as you tell a compelling story with compelling characters, I'll rarely dip below 3 stars. I was promised a female mob boss with three men at her beck and call, all with different ages and backgrounds, and so I expected just that. In her early interactions with Lucas, I was praying for femdom.
But nooooooo, we couldn't even have that. Which brings me to this book's worst sins: telling vs showing, and shitty characterization.
Instead of showing us a character's facial expressions and body language, the narration tells us what they're feeling or what emotion they "look." Instead of showing us Hades being a bad bitch, we're told she is as she capitulates to every man in her life. The supposed genius mob boss (who, by the way, is 23 and already a billionaire, lol) makes several bad decisions and puts herself in danger way too often. My girlfriend knows a lot about mob history, and it was so much fun seeing her lose her shit over Hades' shitty management.
All her love interests, too, are exactly the same. Yes, ingenue Lucas, best friend Zed, and old rival Cass are all super assertive and physically domineering, despite the differences in age, personality, and sexual history. I get having a type, but isn't the appeal of multiple love interests the fact that they're all kind of different? Like, imagine if Cass was the older macho dom, Zed the snarky yet gently loving best friend, and Lucas the naive yet bratty sub who gets pegged. Now that would have been an interesting story with push and pull, instead of variations on a "bighugelarge dark-haired abs macho dom" theme.
All these combined easily make this the worst book I've read this year. At least Lightlark had a semblance of a non-romance plot. This one doesn't even pretend it's not about the dick. If this is where M/F romance has gone, well, consider me turned off on the genre forever.
PS The first sex scene takes place in a supply closet at a bar where cleaning supplies are kept next to beer kegs and liquor bottles. I'll give everyone with a food handler's permit time to scream.
PPS The wine snob MC describes Sangiovese as a "light, fruity" wine. Sangiovese is the grape used in the famously full and tannic Chianti, for the record.
PPPS 3 Grumpy Cat references in a book published in 2020 should be illegal, right?