Review by brekkerlun - Hopeless

brekkerlun 's review for:

Hopeless by Elsie Silver

1.0

lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Little disclaimer, I'm not the target audience for these books and they're not my usual genre, just reading them for the fun of it.

I hate the way

ptsd was handled

, hate the

romanticization of the concept of virginity

, hate how a supposedly

abusive family was turned into goofy cartoon characters that would run away as soon as the mmc gave them a stern look

, and also hate how the author threw away all she had built about Bailey in the other books to turn her into a silly, sarcastic, horny boss babe like every other fmc in this series (but who's also

a virgin who looooves to ask sexual questions to a man she barely knows

, because she's quirky like that). Why even try to give these characters depth if in the end they'll all read exactly the same? (same thing for the mmcs).

There's a specific scene in this that gave me such a gigantic ick that I almost dnfed (chapter 26). I've said this in my reviews for the other books in the series, but there's no coherent plot (besides them wanting to have sex with each other at all times and bringing up their age gap), the writing is mid at best and the characters feel like shallow copies of each other. Overall, I'm glad I'm finally done with the series, and I'm definitely taking a long break from smutty romances.

Content Warnings