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A review by maryjayka
One Bossy Proposal by Nicole Snow
2.0
I normally love this author's books but this one is not her usual caliber for so many reasons.
1. Too many tropes: enemies/lovers, boss/employee, wounded by love (both of them), ex-military/tragic friend, rich guy can't love poor little me, etc. etc. There was just too much going on here.
2. The Poe metaphor was waaaaaaaaaay overdone. I was over it by about 25%, when I got to 65% I could hardly take it, and it just kept going. It's too much. I also am not a fan of Poe, so a lot of the jokes they made in this regard just kind of went past me and I couldn't be bothered to look them up.
3. The relationship: they were so venomous to each other at the beginning. I get it was an insta-hate situation but it was also way overdone. The insults, the arguments, the name-calling - all of it was totally inappropriate in a "someone should have called the cops" way. It wasn't cute, it was bordering on mean-spirited. Then they were suddenly confiding in each other with minimal transition from the "hate you" phase. The big blow-up at ~ 70% was over the top. The intimate scenes were so overdone they were almost a little cringy to read.
4. The dialogue and writing were not what I expect with this author. It was frequently awkward, stilted and self-conscious. The story itself felt rather simplistic and the same ideas/discussions/plot points were re-hashed repeatedly. The characters were flat and uni-dimensional: they loved their jobs and hated each other, they were both burned by past relationships, then they fell in love. We learn precious little else about them as people. This felt like a book that needed another round of beta-reading and then another round of edits to get it to this author's typical writing style, character development, flowing dialogue, and overall quality. The prior "Bossy" book also had issues with the writing and characters, but in a very different way (see my review for details). This felt more like the author's writing style, but an insufficiently edited version of a manuscript.
I read to the end because I wanted to see how this ended and I kept hoping it would improve, as I really like this author. But this book was a slow read because it's hard to stay engaged.
1. Too many tropes: enemies/lovers, boss/employee, wounded by love (both of them), ex-military/tragic friend, rich guy can't love poor little me, etc. etc. There was just too much going on here.
2. The Poe metaphor was waaaaaaaaaay overdone. I was over it by about 25%, when I got to 65% I could hardly take it, and it just kept going. It's too much. I also am not a fan of Poe, so a lot of the jokes they made in this regard just kind of went past me and I couldn't be bothered to look them up.
3. The relationship: they were so venomous to each other at the beginning. I get it was an insta-hate situation but it was also way overdone. The insults, the arguments, the name-calling - all of it was totally inappropriate in a "someone should have called the cops" way. It wasn't cute, it was bordering on mean-spirited. Then they were suddenly confiding in each other with minimal transition from the "hate you" phase. The big blow-up at ~ 70% was over the top. The intimate scenes were so overdone they were almost a little cringy to read.
4. The dialogue and writing were not what I expect with this author. It was frequently awkward, stilted and self-conscious. The story itself felt rather simplistic and the same ideas/discussions/plot points were re-hashed repeatedly. The characters were flat and uni-dimensional: they loved their jobs and hated each other, they were both burned by past relationships, then they fell in love. We learn precious little else about them as people. This felt like a book that needed another round of beta-reading and then another round of edits to get it to this author's typical writing style, character development, flowing dialogue, and overall quality. The prior "Bossy" book also had issues with the writing and characters, but in a very different way (see my review for details). This felt more like the author's writing style, but an insufficiently edited version of a manuscript.
I read to the end because I wanted to see how this ended and I kept hoping it would improve, as I really like this author. But this book was a slow read because it's hard to stay engaged.