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A review by pam_h
The Hate Project by Kris Ripper
4.0
3.5 stars
Kris Ripper writes self-aware characters who are flawed and real and constantly making mistakes while still trying to be better at the whole life/human being thing in a way that just really works for me.
Zir found families work well for me, too. Usually this type of group would feel too quirky to seem real, but here they just feel like people who know each other really well, flaws and all, who don't ignore the flaws, and sometimes argue quite heatedly about said flaws, but continue to support each other anyway. Her first book in this series was one of my favorite reads last year, and I love how ze made this same group of friends feel very different when viewed from a different character's perspective.
I did *not* think Oscar the grouch was going to work for me, but I was so, so wrong! I was very quickly all in on everything this book was doing.
And holy shit, the realism of those sex scenes was a revelation!!! I loved everything about them. I read a lot of romance, and the repetitive, manufactured, too picture-perfect formula of them often pulls me out of the story at the worst times. I don't know how ze managed to make clunky, fumbling, bumbling, awkward sex hot as hell, but ze definitely did.
There's about 20% in the middle of this that got a little draggy. Oscar is in a bit of a spiral, and while the portrayal of the circular thought patterns and abject frustration of knowing what you *should* be doing to get yourself out of this spiral without actually being able to get yourself to DO IT was done so well, I didn't necessarily want to experience so very much of it with him.
I was so relieved when he pulled out of that tailspin because it was starting to pull me down a little, too. The end of the book lost some of the magic for me, but not in a way that I have any real complaints about. (Although that is where it lost that half star.)
I'm not sure how much of that was due to the incredibly realistic and therefore frustrating-to-experience funk Oscar was in leading up to it, and how much of it was because Jack has drawn back into his shell after the events that led to the spiral, so he's just beginning to creep back out and show us his real personality again when it ends. (This is written as a single POV, so we're only experiencing Jack from Oscar's perspective.)
The epilogue was awesome, so I think I just wish we'd gotten a little more of Jack being more open again before the end.
I still loved these two, and now I'm super excited for Book 3 next month. Mason and polyamorous romances aren't even things that I necessarily find appealing at the moment, but this reminded me why Kris Ripper is on my list of favorite authors. This series is really working for me right now, and I will go wherever ze wants to take it.
(Also, I don't think you'd need to read the first book of the series to enjoy this one. The prominent characters are all fully drawn as if this was a standalone, and it's the opposite set from the characters who were more prominent in Book 1. There were maybe a handful of sentences that I got more enjoyment out of from knowing Sidney and Declan's relationship story.)
**This book was provided for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley**
Kris Ripper writes self-aware characters who are flawed and real and constantly making mistakes while still trying to be better at the whole life/human being thing in a way that just really works for me.
Zir found families work well for me, too. Usually this type of group would feel too quirky to seem real, but here they just feel like people who know each other really well, flaws and all, who don't ignore the flaws, and sometimes argue quite heatedly about said flaws, but continue to support each other anyway. Her first book in this series was one of my favorite reads last year, and I love how ze made this same group of friends feel very different when viewed from a different character's perspective.
I did *not* think Oscar the grouch was going to work for me, but I was so, so wrong! I was very quickly all in on everything this book was doing.
And holy shit, the realism of those sex scenes was a revelation!!! I loved everything about them. I read a lot of romance, and the repetitive, manufactured, too picture-perfect formula of them often pulls me out of the story at the worst times. I don't know how ze managed to make clunky, fumbling, bumbling, awkward sex hot as hell, but ze definitely did.
There's about 20% in the middle of this that got a little draggy. Oscar is in a bit of a spiral, and while the portrayal of the circular thought patterns and abject frustration of knowing what you *should* be doing to get yourself out of this spiral without actually being able to get yourself to DO IT was done so well, I didn't necessarily want to experience so very much of it with him.
I was so relieved when he pulled out of that tailspin because it was starting to pull me down a little, too. The end of the book lost some of the magic for me, but not in a way that I have any real complaints about. (Although that is where it lost that half star.)
I'm not sure how much of that was due to the incredibly realistic and therefore frustrating-to-experience funk Oscar was in leading up to it, and how much of it was because Jack has drawn back into his shell after the events that led to the spiral, so he's just beginning to creep back out and show us his real personality again when it ends. (This is written as a single POV, so we're only experiencing Jack from Oscar's perspective.)
The epilogue was awesome, so I think I just wish we'd gotten a little more of Jack being more open again before the end.
I still loved these two, and now I'm super excited for Book 3 next month. Mason and polyamorous romances aren't even things that I necessarily find appealing at the moment, but this reminded me why Kris Ripper is on my list of favorite authors. This series is really working for me right now, and I will go wherever ze wants to take it.
(Also, I don't think you'd need to read the first book of the series to enjoy this one. The prominent characters are all fully drawn as if this was a standalone, and it's the opposite set from the characters who were more prominent in Book 1. There were maybe a handful of sentences that I got more enjoyment out of from knowing Sidney and Declan's relationship story.)
**This book was provided for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley**