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A review by banrions
At Your Most Beautiful by Harper Bliss
3.0
This was… fine. Mostly good. I didn’t love it the way some other reviewers seemed to. I think my disconnect was with the character, Quinn, and not… totally buying into the romance, because of that.
I have a complicated, almost love/hate thing with the age gap trope in romances. I straight up hate them 9 times outta 10 in hetero romances, especially if the man is the older one in the dynamic and especially once they get over 20 years difference. (When Quinn is asking if Maya thinks older men who date women are pervs, trying to get her to be into the idea, I snorted and said “yeah” out loud.) I’m much more susceptible to them in sapphic stories, but when they do get to be such large gaps of like 20+ years, sometimes I’m not as into it. I spent a lot of this book being like, “no Maya, your instincts that this is weird are right lol” and I think I figured out where this one slightly rubbed me the wrong way. Quinn being so into older women, like only going for romantic prospects that are like 20+ years older than her, it being like, her Whole Thing, alllllllllmost felt fetishistic? juuuust slightly, to me. Maybe not quite that, but it was enough to rub me the wrong way, just the slightest bit, and I never quite got over that, especially in the initial impression of her when she was 24 and seducing Maya in the beginning. I didn’t like her, much. Her cockiness wasn’t charming, to me, and while she mellowed out at 34 when we spend most of the story with her, i never connected with her as much. I also thought she got over both her breakups with Rachel and (especially) Morgan really fast.
Maya, however, was lovely and I really liked her. The voice that narrator, Angela Dawe have her was absolutely intoxicating to listen to, though it surprised me almost that Maya’s voices and Quinn’s weren’t switched, initially. I kept thinking in the first few chapters that they were, and it took me a sec to realize that.
This was a perfectly serviceable and mostly fun time, and I think others will likely enjoy it more than I did.
I have a complicated, almost love/hate thing with the age gap trope in romances. I straight up hate them 9 times outta 10 in hetero romances, especially if the man is the older one in the dynamic and especially once they get over 20 years difference. (When Quinn is asking if Maya thinks older men who date women are pervs, trying to get her to be into the idea, I snorted and said “yeah” out loud.) I’m much more susceptible to them in sapphic stories, but when they do get to be such large gaps of like 20+ years, sometimes I’m not as into it. I spent a lot of this book being like, “no Maya, your instincts that this is weird are right lol” and I think I figured out where this one slightly rubbed me the wrong way. Quinn being so into older women, like only going for romantic prospects that are like 20+ years older than her, it being like, her Whole Thing, alllllllllmost felt fetishistic? juuuust slightly, to me. Maybe not quite that, but it was enough to rub me the wrong way, just the slightest bit, and I never quite got over that, especially in the initial impression of her when she was 24 and seducing Maya in the beginning. I didn’t like her, much. Her cockiness wasn’t charming, to me, and while she mellowed out at 34 when we spend most of the story with her, i never connected with her as much. I also thought she got over both her breakups with Rachel and (especially) Morgan really fast.
Maya, however, was lovely and I really liked her. The voice that narrator, Angela Dawe have her was absolutely intoxicating to listen to, though it surprised me almost that Maya’s voices and Quinn’s weren’t switched, initially. I kept thinking in the first few chapters that they were, and it took me a sec to realize that.
This was a perfectly serviceable and mostly fun time, and I think others will likely enjoy it more than I did.