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zoesallbooked 's review for:
A Love Hate Thing
by Whitney D. Grandison
Started this in July of 2020, put it down and forgot to pick it up (we can thank the lovely combo of mom brain and ADHD for that one). Finally finished it now, at the end of September 2021. The first time I read it I got 100 or so pages in and was hella annoyed with a few things. This time around, I was annoyed by the same things, but I'm happy to say they were (almost) all resolved by the end. The main thing I was annoyed about was what an absolute stuck-up bitch Nandy was. For no fucking reason. Thankfully, she came to her senses and turned that shit around.
What wasn't resolved by the end of the book had nothing to do with the characters or plot, but with the writing style. It's unfortunate, but I've gotten used to books by white authors only describing someone's skin colour if they're not white, painting white skin as the default. It sucks, but like I said, I've gotten used to it. It sucks extra when that happens in a book by an author who isn't white. I can't think of a single time a white person's skin tone was described, it was only their hair or their eyes. It's something small that pulls me out of the story, and something that will usually prevent me from giving a full five stars. (Also nearly every character only listens to music from like pre-2010 and spoke the way a 40-something person would if they were trying to sound like a teen. Idk, maybe I'm just getting old and out of touch myself, but it didn't sound like any teens I know.)
What wasn't resolved by the end of the book had nothing to do with the characters or plot, but with the writing style. It's unfortunate, but I've gotten used to books by white authors only describing someone's skin colour if they're not white, painting white skin as the default. It sucks, but like I said, I've gotten used to it. It sucks extra when that happens in a book by an author who isn't white. I can't think of a single time a white person's skin tone was described, it was only their hair or their eyes. It's something small that pulls me out of the story, and something that will usually prevent me from giving a full five stars. (Also nearly every character only listens to music from like pre-2010 and spoke the way a 40-something person would if they were trying to sound like a teen. Idk, maybe I'm just getting old and out of touch myself, but it didn't sound like any teens I know.)