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bookish_kristina 's review for:
Code of Conduct
by Smartypants Romance, April White
This was a good suspense book with a small side of romance.
I really got into this book at the beginning, the action started right away and the female lead character, Shane, was very compelling. I loved how she was portrayed and loved the meet cute between her and Gabriel, the male lead.
This author really knows how to write strong and vulnerable characters and you could tell that diversity and originality were important to her. Her characters were also very authentic and their backgrounds seemed well researched.
The suspense plot itself was good at the get go but then kind of lost its momentum. The middle of the book seemed to be more of an opportunity for the author to feature her political ideologies instead of focusing on driving the plot forward. Though I do agree with her viewpoint, mostly, it was a little more social commentary on American society than I care for as a Canadian who avoids listening to the messy and angry arguments of my neighbours. I think a little would have been ok and fit with the characters and their situation, but it wasn’t a little bit, and it took away from the story for me. This is a romance after all and mainly I read them for escape.
A couple other things that prevented me from fully enjoying this book were:
> Shane’s reasons for abandoning her whole life, family and identity were a bit weak. Who does that? I thought it was something seriously terrible and kinda made me lose respect for her as a bad ass Jane Bond. Yes it was sad and her mother and ex were terrible, but I thought she was running for her life the way she acted.
>Also I didn’t love the whole automatic gal pal acceptance that many series books tend to do with previous characters. As this was the first in a series I was annoyed by all the existing characters whom I’d never heard of but apparently live in the ‘Smarty Pants’ world. It was a bit ham-fisted and obvious. Also I hate when authors cross-over into each others’ worlds, it feels gimmicky. Create a new world all your own and don’t use others’ set ups as crutches. So many side characters were perfectly perfect couples living their epilogues, and since I didn’t know them, I didn’t care, so I skimmed.
> The spice levels were very low and the author spent a lot of time edging us but then cock blocking the mains when they’d get close to sealing the deal. I don’t like the sex interruptis ploy to delay gratification, it’s annoying. Have your slow burns all you want, but don’t tease us with almost doing it over and over.
> Some of the suspense plot line was slow moving towards the end, I would have liked more action. Lots of withholding info that went on too long. You can tell it’s not moving fast enough when I turn the playback speed to 2.5x.
However overall this is a good read and a decent audiobook. I enjoyed this author quite a bit and I always love a good dog character and Oscar was a good boy.
I really got into this book at the beginning, the action started right away and the female lead character, Shane, was very compelling. I loved how she was portrayed and loved the meet cute between her and Gabriel, the male lead.
This author really knows how to write strong and vulnerable characters and you could tell that diversity and originality were important to her. Her characters were also very authentic and their backgrounds seemed well researched.
The suspense plot itself was good at the get go but then kind of lost its momentum. The middle of the book seemed to be more of an opportunity for the author to feature her political ideologies instead of focusing on driving the plot forward. Though I do agree with her viewpoint, mostly, it was a little more social commentary on American society than I care for as a Canadian who avoids listening to the messy and angry arguments of my neighbours. I think a little would have been ok and fit with the characters and their situation, but it wasn’t a little bit, and it took away from the story for me. This is a romance after all and mainly I read them for escape.
A couple other things that prevented me from fully enjoying this book were:
> Shane’s reasons for abandoning her whole life, family and identity were a bit weak. Who does that? I thought it was something seriously terrible and kinda made me lose respect for her as a bad ass Jane Bond. Yes it was sad and her mother and ex were terrible, but I thought she was running for her life the way she acted.
>Also I didn’t love the whole automatic gal pal acceptance that many series books tend to do with previous characters. As this was the first in a series I was annoyed by all the existing characters whom I’d never heard of but apparently live in the ‘Smarty Pants’ world. It was a bit ham-fisted and obvious. Also I hate when authors cross-over into each others’ worlds, it feels gimmicky. Create a new world all your own and don’t use others’ set ups as crutches. So many side characters were perfectly perfect couples living their epilogues, and since I didn’t know them, I didn’t care, so I skimmed.
> The spice levels were very low and the author spent a lot of time edging us but then cock blocking the mains when they’d get close to sealing the deal. I don’t like the sex interruptis ploy to delay gratification, it’s annoying. Have your slow burns all you want, but don’t tease us with almost doing it over and over.
> Some of the suspense plot line was slow moving towards the end, I would have liked more action. Lots of withholding info that went on too long. You can tell it’s not moving fast enough when I turn the playback speed to 2.5x.
However overall this is a good read and a decent audiobook. I enjoyed this author quite a bit and I always love a good dog character and Oscar was a good boy.