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A review by hannahbanana
Brick by Daphne Loveling
2.0
This is the 3rd book in the Lords of Carnage series, and I am getting less impressed with them as they go on. I am finding myself more interested in the biker gang plot lines than the romances of each novel, but not a lot of time is spent on that aspect.
The romance in this book is similar to the others - Brick is the alpha male who doesn't believe in love but falls for the girl anyway. We are told over and over again that Sydney is a tough and fiesty independent woman, but actually turns out to be the same cookie cutter female lead who actually isn't tough, fiesty or independent and needs saving the majority of the time. Although the circumstances are all different, each book in the series so far has had a female lead who we are told is independent but actually isn't, and needs saving by their respective male lead counterpart. From the blurb on book four, it looks like the same thing will happen there.
One thing that really frustrated me was the lack of smarts and self awareness Sydney has. She divulges important security details about how she runs her coffee shop when she first meets Brick and still has no idea who he is (i.e. how much cash is left overnight, do you close by yourself, do you have security cameras etc) - which is just asking for the joint to be robbed. She later lets him buy and install security cameras without any verification, and he then sets up the cameras to feed directly to his smartphone (not hers!!). I know this is so that Brick can view the feed and rush to save the day at the end of the book, but all it does is add one more thing to the 'Sydney's an idiot' list.
Overall, I'm not very impressed with the lack of character for the women in this series, and I'm not impressed by the same macho alpha male story line too. I get that they are bikers that need to be manly, but there isn't much to differentiate them and that is dull.
I feel the author could do a lot to pad the book out with more of the biker club plot and giving the women a real character arc.
2/5 stars (would give 2.5 if that was possible).
The romance in this book is similar to the others - Brick is the alpha male who doesn't believe in love but falls for the girl anyway. We are told over and over again that Sydney is a tough and fiesty independent woman, but actually turns out to be the same cookie cutter female lead who actually isn't tough, fiesty or independent and needs saving the majority of the time. Although the circumstances are all different, each book in the series so far has had a female lead who we are told is independent but actually isn't, and needs saving by their respective male lead counterpart. From the blurb on book four, it looks like the same thing will happen there.
One thing that really frustrated me was the lack of smarts and self awareness Sydney has. She divulges important security details about how she runs her coffee shop when she first meets Brick and still has no idea who he is (i.e. how much cash is left overnight, do you close by yourself, do you have security cameras etc) - which is just asking for the joint to be robbed. She later lets him buy and install security cameras without any verification, and he then sets up the cameras to feed directly to his smartphone (not hers!!). I know this is so that Brick can view the feed and rush to save the day at the end of the book, but all it does is add one more thing to the 'Sydney's an idiot' list.
Overall, I'm not very impressed with the lack of character for the women in this series, and I'm not impressed by the same macho alpha male story line too. I get that they are bikers that need to be manly, but there isn't much to differentiate them and that is dull.
I feel the author could do a lot to pad the book out with more of the biker club plot and giving the women a real character arc.
2/5 stars (would give 2.5 if that was possible).