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A review by nior
My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
(stoped at 23 mins.)
stopped it because i was reading too many books at the same time, will def get back to it tho!
UPDATE: I did get back to it, and I wish I hadn’t.
I did not know that this was smut when I bought it (didn’t notice it’s a Tessa Bailey) nonetheless, I didn’t mind when I figured it out; I might’ve never read full-on smut book, but I’ve come across sex scenes in books before, and always found them wholesome or exciting.
This book, however, was not it for me. The last 1.5~2 hours of it were really good, but throughout the book I was cringing and rolling my eyes.
I LOVED the mystery and murder investigation aspects of the book, but I hoped they were more prominent, especially since this book wasn’t even categorised as erotica. It felt like the murder mystery was more of a filler between the sex scenes instead of vice versa. As a result, the investigation didn’t feel whole, like it was missing a lot of elements rather than details.
There were a lot of lovable characters here, maybe even all of them were, but the writer didn’t seem to build depth for them. Again, it felt like the focus was on the sex and how to build half-as*ed backgrounds for the main characters in order to justify their needs in sex. Also there were a lot of fun side characters that the writer could’ve made more use of to entertain the reader but, alas, that wasn’t the case. Not just that, but there were plot-holes; some plot lines of side characters were never concluded.
Lastly, I don’t know if the problem was with the writing style, the character itself, or with the male narrator, but his chapters sucked. I was so iffy whenever his chapters started playing. He’s like a ‘dignified’ version of the patriarchy; a bit misogynistic inside his head but still respects her to her face. It felt like his character was a ‘pass’ for misogyny and I hated it. His thoughts of her were disgusting at times and corny at others. Even his voicing/narrating of the female lead’s lines in his chapters was totally different from the portrayal by the voice actresses in her chapters; he infantised her too much. It maybe could’ve been saved, in my opinion, had it been written in 3rd person pov instead of 1st.
Overall, maybe it’s a good book, maybe it’s not, but I definitely didn’t like it. Maybe smut is fun, this one definitely made me feel hot at times, but not enough for me to actually enjoy it, but maybe smut in general isn’t for me. Also the male lead’s misogyny rubbed me the wrong way, so maybe that affected my overall comfort and enjoyment of the novel.
Would I recommend this book to others? Probably only if they like smut because it’s the only smut book I know so far, but definitely not because I enjoyed it or think it to be particularly ‘good.’
stopped it because i was reading too many books at the same time, will def get back to it tho!
UPDATE: I did get back to it, and I wish I hadn’t.
I did not know that this was smut when I bought it (didn’t notice it’s a Tessa Bailey) nonetheless, I didn’t mind when I figured it out; I might’ve never read full-on smut book, but I’ve come across sex scenes in books before, and always found them wholesome or exciting.
This book, however, was not it for me. The last 1.5~2 hours of it were really good, but throughout the book I was cringing and rolling my eyes.
I LOVED the mystery and murder investigation aspects of the book, but I hoped they were more prominent, especially since this book wasn’t even categorised as erotica. It felt like the murder mystery was more of a filler between the sex scenes instead of vice versa. As a result, the investigation didn’t feel whole, like it was missing a lot of elements rather than details.
There were a lot of lovable characters here, maybe even all of them were, but the writer didn’t seem to build depth for them. Again, it felt like the focus was on the sex and how to build half-as*ed backgrounds for the main characters in order to justify their needs in sex. Also there were a lot of fun side characters that the writer could’ve made more use of to entertain the reader but, alas, that wasn’t the case. Not just that, but there were plot-holes; some plot lines of side characters were never concluded.
Lastly, I don’t know if the problem was with the writing style, the character itself, or with the male narrator, but his chapters sucked. I was so iffy whenever his chapters started playing. He’s like a ‘dignified’ version of the patriarchy; a bit misogynistic inside his head but still respects her to her face. It felt like his character was a ‘pass’ for misogyny and I hated it. His thoughts of her were disgusting at times and corny at others. Even his voicing/narrating of the female lead’s lines in his chapters was totally different from the portrayal by the voice actresses in her chapters; he infantised her too much. It maybe could’ve been saved, in my opinion, had it been written in 3rd person pov instead of 1st.
Overall, maybe it’s a good book, maybe it’s not, but I definitely didn’t like it. Maybe smut is fun, this one definitely made me feel hot at times, but not enough for me to actually enjoy it, but maybe smut in general isn’t for me. Also the male lead’s misogyny rubbed me the wrong way, so maybe that affected my overall comfort and enjoyment of the novel.
Would I recommend this book to others? Probably only if they like smut because it’s the only smut book I know so far, but definitely not because I enjoyed it or think it to be particularly ‘good.’