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A review by iam
Matchmaking Beyond the Veil by Mara Townsend
Did not finish book.
DNF @ 43%
This one sounded like so much fun but ended up infuriating me. I already know I will rant, but before I go into my main reason for not finishing, let's talk about the rest of the book.
Content warnings for the first 43% include: destruction of private property including heirlooms, almost getting hit by a bus, absolutely horrible protagonist who treats everyone he meets like shit.
The writing was mostly okay, but there were some issues around the timeline. I couldn't always tell what was supposed to be a flashback and what was happening presently. The books opens with what seems to be a flashback, just for it to.... not be one?
The beginning is also sort of aimless - it hints at things that have already happened/will happen soon, except then... noting really happens. The part that I read lacked any sort of structure or goal and didn't really seem to lead anywhere, taking several turns, introducing characters I thought would become important, just for them to never be mentioned again.
I can deal with slow plots, but one thing made me frown: WHERE WERE THE GHOSTS??? I expected there to be ghosts, or at least one ghost. And yeah, there is one - doing some creepy stuff in the background. Except.... it's totally ignored??? Emery, the protagonist, just sees these creepy things happen and then shrugs it away and then his life goes on without a second thought. There were so many little hints and it was SO frustrating because Emery just didn't react at all!!
The characterization was mostly okay, but inconsistent in small details. One moments it's "I dont keep old things out of nostalgia, I just throw stuff away" and the next "I still have an old hat from a costume party in college."
----------(After this it gets a bit spoiler-y.)----------
All that isn't ideal, but it wouldn't have been a real issue for me if not for my main reason for not finishing the book. Because in comparison to that, those other things pale completely.
That reason is Emery.
In short, Emery is an asshole.
To elaborate: He's not a lovable grump with a sharp tongue and offending snark hiding a heart of gold like the blurb would want to make you believe. Nope. Emery is an egocentric, judgemental, obnoxious and mean asshole. He treats every single character he meets horribly, with maybe the exception of his one friend. Everyone else is apparently fair game to him and my jaw dropped several times because... holy shit.
What. An. Absolute. PRICK.
This starts at the very beginning when someone saves him from being rolled over by a bus and then asks him out for a drink. Granted, maybe not the best time to pick someone up, and the way Emery acts towards the guy is tame in comparison, but his thoughts there already made me uncomfortable because of how truly nasty (as in, evil) they were. And that was just the start.
Later Emery wants to pick up a guy at a bar and goes to flirt with him. Shortly into the conversation he sees that the guy seems to have a habit of biting his nails and has an unfortunate hair implant. That's where it goes downhill. He immediately starts being disgusted (!), thinks that the guy is unhygienic, then proceeds to be disappointed the guy isn't as smooth or bulky as he assumed from afar. Instead of telling the guy he isn't interested or stopping the conversation, he lets him buy him a drink, stays seated, and rudely ignores him for the rest of the evening. The guy proceeds to show interest and flirt, to which Emery still doesn't respond with any sort of verbal rebuffal, just sneering internally and keeps insulting his appearance in the shallowest and most snobbish way possible, not to mention mean. This entire thing is made out to be the other guy's fault, and later Emery's friend joins him and commiserates about how "annoying" the guy was for not getting the hint that Emery was no longer interested... after Emery was the one to approach the guy in the first place.
All of that pales in comparison to when Paxton shows up.
Paxton is mentioned frequently even before he appears. Emery, self-proclaimed mature adult who has accomplished everything valuable in life, keeps going on about his "high school rival", who had a scholarship instead of being born rich (Emery is seriously upset by that!!!), was nice to everyone so everyone liked him (because how dare he not want to manipulate everyone!!), and on top of that DARED to be better at Lacrosse than Emery, thus "stealing" the captain position from him. (The nerve!)
It felt like every few pages Emery was thinking about this supposed rivalry that happened over a decade ago, with frequent flashbacks that very quickly bring up the question if this rivalry existed anywhere but inside Emery's own head. Paxton himself seems to think the two of them were friends (!!) Every single flashback that's supposed to show Paxton's "evilness" only made Emery seem even more petty and horrible.
Rivalry aside, Emery treats Paxton like shit. He finds out Paxton works as a contractor and immediately looks down on him, because not only was this guy not born rich and needed a scholarship to go to Emery's fancy school no, he then didn't even finish college and took over his dad's family business!!! How dare he!!! Emery is upset!!!!
I'm not even kidding, he keeps going on about this scholarship business and how Paxton is a contractor now, because Emery isn't just a regular asshole, he is also an elitist, classist snob.
Everything is always other peoples' fault, not Emery's. He keeps telling people how to feel, and whenever someone has a different opinion about something, or just likes something that Emery dislikes, he does his HUGE spiel about how the other person's is inferior to him because of that.
He is judging everything and everyone, constantly, his internal monologue is spiteful and constantly disgusted by the smallest things, and outwards he is mean and treats everyone horribly yet is never called out on that.
There is a scene where he discusses consent with an old fuck buddy, and even such an important conversation was made uncomfortable by how horribly Emery treats the other guy, who immediately apologizes just to have Emery accuse him of being a rapist, once again after he doesn't bother showing his disinterest when the other guy makes advances.
Also funny how most of the people he treats horribly and looks down upon seem to be neither rich, nor white, nor thin, just to add an every worse taste in my mouth.
And none of this gets better at ANY POINT.
Even when he gets over the rivalry - when he suddenly decides that he won't be upset about it anymore (and remember, he is a 30 year old successful businessman), he considers that maybe it was all in his head... just to never bring up that thought again, never change his behaviour and proceeds to treat Paxton horribly.
Now before you say, "But iam, you didn't even read the whole book, how do you know it won't get better later on?".... It doesn't get better.
And even if it did, there was zero character development for over 40% of this book, and quite frankly, I couldn't stand reading about this elitist, egocentric, classist, judgemental, shallow, childish, snobbish, narzissistic piece of shit anymore. It's too late - nothing he does or says could make up for this anymore.
I received an ARC & reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
This one sounded like so much fun but ended up infuriating me. I already know I will rant, but before I go into my main reason for not finishing, let's talk about the rest of the book.
Content warnings for the first 43% include: destruction of private property including heirlooms, almost getting hit by a bus, absolutely horrible protagonist who treats everyone he meets like shit.
The writing was mostly okay, but there were some issues around the timeline. I couldn't always tell what was supposed to be a flashback and what was happening presently. The books opens with what seems to be a flashback, just for it to.... not be one?
The beginning is also sort of aimless - it hints at things that have already happened/will happen soon, except then... noting really happens. The part that I read lacked any sort of structure or goal and didn't really seem to lead anywhere, taking several turns, introducing characters I thought would become important, just for them to never be mentioned again.
I can deal with slow plots, but one thing made me frown: WHERE WERE THE GHOSTS??? I expected there to be ghosts, or at least one ghost. And yeah, there is one - doing some creepy stuff in the background. Except.... it's totally ignored??? Emery, the protagonist, just sees these creepy things happen and then shrugs it away and then his life goes on without a second thought. There were so many little hints and it was SO frustrating because Emery just didn't react at all!!
The characterization was mostly okay, but inconsistent in small details. One moments it's "I dont keep old things out of nostalgia, I just throw stuff away" and the next "I still have an old hat from a costume party in college."
----------(After this it gets a bit spoiler-y.)----------
All that isn't ideal, but it wouldn't have been a real issue for me if not for my main reason for not finishing the book. Because in comparison to that, those other things pale completely.
That reason is Emery.
In short, Emery is an asshole.
To elaborate: He's not a lovable grump with a sharp tongue and offending snark hiding a heart of gold like the blurb would want to make you believe. Nope. Emery is an egocentric, judgemental, obnoxious and mean asshole. He treats every single character he meets horribly, with maybe the exception of his one friend. Everyone else is apparently fair game to him and my jaw dropped several times because... holy shit.
What. An. Absolute. PRICK.
This starts at the very beginning when someone saves him from being rolled over by a bus and then asks him out for a drink. Granted, maybe not the best time to pick someone up, and the way Emery acts towards the guy is tame in comparison, but his thoughts there already made me uncomfortable because of how truly nasty (as in, evil) they were. And that was just the start.
Later Emery wants to pick up a guy at a bar and goes to flirt with him. Shortly into the conversation he sees that the guy seems to have a habit of biting his nails and has an unfortunate hair implant. That's where it goes downhill. He immediately starts being disgusted (!), thinks that the guy is unhygienic, then proceeds to be disappointed the guy isn't as smooth or bulky as he assumed from afar. Instead of telling the guy he isn't interested or stopping the conversation, he lets him buy him a drink, stays seated, and rudely ignores him for the rest of the evening. The guy proceeds to show interest and flirt, to which Emery still doesn't respond with any sort of verbal rebuffal, just sneering internally and keeps insulting his appearance in the shallowest and most snobbish way possible, not to mention mean. This entire thing is made out to be the other guy's fault, and later Emery's friend joins him and commiserates about how "annoying" the guy was for not getting the hint that Emery was no longer interested... after Emery was the one to approach the guy in the first place.
All of that pales in comparison to when Paxton shows up.
Paxton is mentioned frequently even before he appears. Emery, self-proclaimed mature adult who has accomplished everything valuable in life, keeps going on about his "high school rival", who had a scholarship instead of being born rich (Emery is seriously upset by that!!!), was nice to everyone so everyone liked him (because how dare he not want to manipulate everyone!!), and on top of that DARED to be better at Lacrosse than Emery, thus "stealing" the captain position from him. (The nerve!)
It felt like every few pages Emery was thinking about this supposed rivalry that happened over a decade ago, with frequent flashbacks that very quickly bring up the question if this rivalry existed anywhere but inside Emery's own head. Paxton himself seems to think the two of them were friends (!!) Every single flashback that's supposed to show Paxton's "evilness" only made Emery seem even more petty and horrible.
Rivalry aside, Emery treats Paxton like shit. He finds out Paxton works as a contractor and immediately looks down on him, because not only was this guy not born rich and needed a scholarship to go to Emery's fancy school no, he then didn't even finish college and took over his dad's family business!!! How dare he!!! Emery is upset!!!!
I'm not even kidding, he keeps going on about this scholarship business and how Paxton is a contractor now, because Emery isn't just a regular asshole, he is also an elitist, classist snob.
Everything is always other peoples' fault, not Emery's. He keeps telling people how to feel, and whenever someone has a different opinion about something, or just likes something that Emery dislikes, he does his HUGE spiel about how the other person's is inferior to him because of that.
He is judging everything and everyone, constantly, his internal monologue is spiteful and constantly disgusted by the smallest things, and outwards he is mean and treats everyone horribly yet is never called out on that.
There is a scene where he discusses consent with an old fuck buddy, and even such an important conversation was made uncomfortable by how horribly Emery treats the other guy, who immediately apologizes just to have Emery accuse him of being a rapist, once again after he doesn't bother showing his disinterest when the other guy makes advances.
Also funny how most of the people he treats horribly and looks down upon seem to be neither rich, nor white, nor thin, just to add an every worse taste in my mouth.
And none of this gets better at ANY POINT.
Even when he gets over the rivalry - when he suddenly decides that he won't be upset about it anymore (and remember, he is a 30 year old successful businessman), he considers that maybe it was all in his head... just to never bring up that thought again, never change his behaviour and proceeds to treat Paxton horribly.
Now before you say, "But iam, you didn't even read the whole book, how do you know it won't get better later on?".... It doesn't get better.
And even if it did, there was zero character development for over 40% of this book, and quite frankly, I couldn't stand reading about this elitist, egocentric, classist, judgemental, shallow, childish, snobbish, narzissistic piece of shit anymore. It's too late - nothing he does or says could make up for this anymore.
I received an ARC & reviewed honestly and voluntarily.