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A review by opalmars
All Hail the Underdogs by E.L. Massey
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is why you don’t give authors 2nd chances. 🙁 I didn’t hate “Like Real People Do” (if I did, I wouldn’t have touched any of her work ever again lol). I thought her 1st book had potential, and I liked some things about it, but unfortunately the *telling instead of showing* and the *underdeveloped relationships* made that book underwhelming. And this book has the exact same problems.
My first issue with the book (and the reason I wanted to quickly DNF) was the instant hate + instant attraction. The moment Damien and Rome meet for the 1st time they instantly find each other hot and both think “Oh no”, and it left me wondering… why? Why are both of you already worried about the other? Or are you worried you might fall in love? 🤨 Either way, thinking that *the moment* you meet someone is strange to me.
Rome immediately says that Damien is “irritatingly well-groomed” (okay… forced hatred despite the attraction, sure…), and Damien thinks about how he wants to TOUCH Rome! A STRANGER!!!! 🤨🤨🤨 (Side note: Damien spends A LOT of the book thinking about how much he wants to touch Rome, even BEFORE they become friends. He has some weird obsession with touching this boy, literally from the moment they meet. It’s WEIRD!).
Their “rivalry” was absurd. They instantly hate each other, and it’s all just super forced. Like, sure, they both ended up showing reasons for the other to hate them (like Rome being dismissive of his white privilege and being standoffish and cold, and Damien going through Rome’s phone without permission and ignoring the fact that Rome is not rich). HOWEVER!!!!!!! They both start disliking each other BEFORE they have justifiable reasons to (especially Rome)! I just… didn’t get it. I genuinely feel like they were “rivals” just so this could be advertised as an enemies-to-lovers. There was no reason for them to be immediately antagonistic. Their rivalry just wasn’t properly developed.
Speaking of not being properly developed: a lot of this story happened off-page. 🫠🫠🫠 This was also a problem for me in E.L. Massey’s 1st book. This author has never heard of “show, don’t tell”. All she does is tell, and she rarely shows anything. We don’t get to experience the things that are happening, because the author just keeps making their moments happen off-page, only mentioning them as if they’re irrelevant little things, and like…… They’re NOT! These moments are IMPORTANT! They’re RELEVANT! If you don’t show Damien and Rome’s relationship develop, how can we believe that they went from (forced) enemies to friends to lovers?????
I had hope that the author had grown from her 1st book, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Weeks go by, and we only see like 3 moments between them. 🙃 MONTHS pass and we barely see any of what happened during that time. 🙃 We’re told Rome is an incredible hockey player, and that he and Damien have an insanely good chemistry when they play together, but we never get to see that. 🙃 They realize their rivalry might be unfounded and start noticing nice things about each other (and by that I mean that we get paragraphs and paragraphs LISTING these things instead of, you know, getting to SEE them notice these things about each other?). 🙃 All of this just in the first 11% of the book, by the way. The rest of the book is similar, though. Just soooo much telling instead of showing… it was infuriating, and it made it hard for me to care about their relationship.
At 16% Rome mentions that he enjoyed Damien touching him “a little bit too much”… And, as I already mentioned, Damien was wanting to touch Rome from the moment they met… Ughhhhhhhhhhh. It was not surprising that this was lowkey insta-lovey, since they were instantly attracted to each other, but it was still disappointing to see them be so into each other only 16% in. We need to abolish this type of stuff fr. Give me slow burns or give me NOTHING.
At some point I just accepted that they were both super into each other and went along with it. There were still a lot of little moments that were furthering their relationship happening off-page, which certainly didn’t help, but whatever. They started sleeping next to each other for some reason, which also felt unwarranted, but sure. They kissed for the 1st time and Rome immediately wanted sex… okay. Overall, I just didn’t care at all about their relationship.
However, I did find them cute, once they got together! This author is really good at writing wholesome relationships, and sweet moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy and give you butterflies. Damien and Rome had a fun bickering dynamic, but they also really cared about each other, talked through their feelings and were really sweet overall.
Still, though, I couldn’t fully jive with their relationship. Not only did I find their instant attraction too… *instant*, but I also thought their relationship moved waaaay too quickly! Like, what do you MEAN y’all 17-18 y/o high schoolers are thinking aboutADOPTING A CHILD TOGETHER after dating only for like **3 MONTHS**????? 😨😨😨 And then 5 months in you’re joking about marriage??? 😶😶😶 The whole situation was A LOT and there’s definitely nuance here, and I totally understand Rome’s position. But I just feel like Rome and Damien being soooooo ready for all that after only dating for a couple of months, especially as TEENAGERS, was a bit much. If the characters were older, a life decision like that would be more understandable (though I still think their relationship was too new for all that lmao). But as HIGH SCHOOLERS?????? Insanity 😭.
Regarding the characters: I thought they were fine. I don’t have much to say about them, individually, though I think they both had interesting stories. I will say that, once again, a lot of things happen off-page that make it harder to care about them. Like, we never see them doing anything for school, or practice hockey. We don’t see Damien’s poetry recitals. We don’t see Rome bonding with the rest of the team, even though the author for sure wanted this to be a “found family”. In the end, both Rome and Damien win very important prizes (literally making history) in their respective fields despite being 19-20, and I was like 🙄. Whateverrrr. At that point I was so detached from this story that I didn’t care anymore.
The writing wasn’t terrible. There were minimal typos/continuity errors, but I don’t mind that in a self-published book. My biggest problem was for sure the *telling instead of showing*. I just don’t think that’s a great way to write a story, personally.
I’m clearly in the minority, though. I read a 2nd book by this author because there were things I really liked about her 1st book, so, if you’re not bothered by the same things I’m bothered by, you might really enjoy this author! I wish I did, too, because I genuinely love the wholesomeness of her romances. Alas…
My first issue with the book (and the reason I wanted to quickly DNF) was the instant hate + instant attraction. The moment Damien and Rome meet for the 1st time they instantly find each other hot and both think “Oh no”, and it left me wondering… why? Why are both of you already worried about the other? Or are you worried you might fall in love? 🤨 Either way, thinking that *the moment* you meet someone is strange to me.
Rome immediately says that Damien is “irritatingly well-groomed” (okay… forced hatred despite the attraction, sure…), and Damien thinks about how he wants to TOUCH Rome! A STRANGER!!!! 🤨🤨🤨 (Side note: Damien spends A LOT of the book thinking about how much he wants to touch Rome, even BEFORE they become friends. He has some weird obsession with touching this boy, literally from the moment they meet. It’s WEIRD!).
Their “rivalry” was absurd. They instantly hate each other, and it’s all just super forced. Like, sure, they both ended up showing reasons for the other to hate them (like Rome being dismissive of his white privilege and being standoffish and cold, and Damien going through Rome’s phone without permission and ignoring the fact that Rome is not rich). HOWEVER!!!!!!! They both start disliking each other BEFORE they have justifiable reasons to (especially Rome)! I just… didn’t get it. I genuinely feel like they were “rivals” just so this could be advertised as an enemies-to-lovers. There was no reason for them to be immediately antagonistic. Their rivalry just wasn’t properly developed.
Speaking of not being properly developed: a lot of this story happened off-page. 🫠🫠🫠 This was also a problem for me in E.L. Massey’s 1st book. This author has never heard of “show, don’t tell”. All she does is tell, and she rarely shows anything. We don’t get to experience the things that are happening, because the author just keeps making their moments happen off-page, only mentioning them as if they’re irrelevant little things, and like…… They’re NOT! These moments are IMPORTANT! They’re RELEVANT! If you don’t show Damien and Rome’s relationship develop, how can we believe that they went from (forced) enemies to friends to lovers?????
I had hope that the author had grown from her 1st book, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Weeks go by, and we only see like 3 moments between them. 🙃 MONTHS pass and we barely see any of what happened during that time. 🙃 We’re told Rome is an incredible hockey player, and that he and Damien have an insanely good chemistry when they play together, but we never get to see that. 🙃 They realize their rivalry might be unfounded and start noticing nice things about each other (and by that I mean that we get paragraphs and paragraphs LISTING these things instead of, you know, getting to SEE them notice these things about each other?). 🙃 All of this just in the first 11% of the book, by the way. The rest of the book is similar, though. Just soooo much telling instead of showing… it was infuriating, and it made it hard for me to care about their relationship.
At 16% Rome mentions that he enjoyed Damien touching him “a little bit too much”… And, as I already mentioned, Damien was wanting to touch Rome from the moment they met… Ughhhhhhhhhhh. It was not surprising that this was lowkey insta-lovey, since they were instantly attracted to each other, but it was still disappointing to see them be so into each other only 16% in. We need to abolish this type of stuff fr. Give me slow burns or give me NOTHING.
At some point I just accepted that they were both super into each other and went along with it. There were still a lot of little moments that were furthering their relationship happening off-page, which certainly didn’t help, but whatever. They started sleeping next to each other for some reason, which also felt unwarranted, but sure. They kissed for the 1st time and Rome immediately wanted sex… okay. Overall, I just didn’t care at all about their relationship.
However, I did find them cute, once they got together! This author is really good at writing wholesome relationships, and sweet moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy and give you butterflies. Damien and Rome had a fun bickering dynamic, but they also really cared about each other, talked through their feelings and were really sweet overall.
Still, though, I couldn’t fully jive with their relationship. Not only did I find their instant attraction too… *instant*, but I also thought their relationship moved waaaay too quickly! Like, what do you MEAN y’all 17-18 y/o high schoolers are thinking about
Regarding the characters: I thought they were fine. I don’t have much to say about them, individually, though I think they both had interesting stories. I will say that, once again, a lot of things happen off-page that make it harder to care about them. Like, we never see them doing anything for school, or practice hockey. We don’t see Damien’s poetry recitals. We don’t see Rome bonding with the rest of the team, even though the author for sure wanted this to be a “found family”. In the end, both Rome and Damien win very important prizes (literally making history) in their respective fields despite being 19-20, and I was like 🙄. Whateverrrr. At that point I was so detached from this story that I didn’t care anymore.
The writing wasn’t terrible. There were minimal typos/continuity errors, but I don’t mind that in a self-published book. My biggest problem was for sure the *telling instead of showing*. I just don’t think that’s a great way to write a story, personally.
I’m clearly in the minority, though. I read a 2nd book by this author because there were things I really liked about her 1st book, so, if you’re not bothered by the same things I’m bothered by, you might really enjoy this author! I wish I did, too, because I genuinely love the wholesomeness of her romances. Alas…