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A review by mariahreadit
Hard Sell by Hudson Lin
2.0
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
What a beautiful find it was for me to come across an m/m romance book with two Asian leads - with a beautiful cover with models to boot!
This won me over in the premise alone - an age difference AND brother's best friend combo. Delicious!
Daniel "Danny" Ip walks into WestTec, a start up that's starting to crack hoping to swoop in and prove to his boss Joana, at Jade Harbour Capital, that he still has what it takes to run the equity investment game.
What Danny doesn't expect to find in Calgary is a very grown up Tobin Lok. Tobin. Tobin who wants to be called by his full name, and who bristles at any mention of being "baby Toby". Because that's who he use to be. Danny's best friend Wei's baby brother.. The baby brother Danny spent a long night seven years ago doing unspeakable things to after Wei's bachelor party when Tobin was 19.
Filled with starts and stops and conflicting emotions, this was a great beginning to what I can tell is going to be a fun series.
I confess I struggled a bit with the characterization of both Danny and Tobin. I felt like there was a lot of conflicting information about them, and not a lot of opportunities for the reader to pick up on their characteristics for ourselves.
There were also quite a few subplots in this that felt really out of place and tangential to the story.
From Tobin's life in Vancouver, his roommate and her girlfriend- including some unfortunate and unsavory wording and decriptors that I wish were caught in editing. At times it seemed like Tobin and Monica were good friends, and at others it seemed like they didn't really care about each other and that confused me.
To a completely unexpected trafficking subplot that came out of left field and never really panned out.
At some point Tobin's dad asks if his English is troubling him, though there isn't a single other mention of it throughout the story and up to that point it felt safe to assume that the Lok children had been raised in Canada from a very young age, if not born there.
I wish there were stronger secondary relationships in the book. Tobin talks about not wanting to leave his life behind, but he honestly doesn't have much of one? I understood Danny only having Wei in his life since he is very much married to his job, but I felt like I didn't have the full picture of what Tobin's life was like.
The biggest wasted opportunity in my opinion was understanding Tobin and Danny's relationship better when they were younger. Maybe a couple of well placed flashbacks or reminiscing could've shed some light on that area.
Tobin also mention's avoiding Toronto and Danny after their initial hook up, but we never got to see the emotional toll that took on both of them, and the idea of "it was always you" didn't sound all that convincing without the goods to back it up.
The epilogue moved me greatly, though I wished we could have explored how Tobin and Danny's relationship altered the Lok family dynamic, and how they were able to grow and evolve within that space for a greater sense of fulfillment.
I hope we get to check back in with these two in Ray's book, and I'm very excited to read his story..
What a beautiful find it was for me to come across an m/m romance book with two Asian leads - with a beautiful cover with models to boot!
This won me over in the premise alone - an age difference AND brother's best friend combo. Delicious!
Daniel "Danny" Ip walks into WestTec, a start up that's starting to crack hoping to swoop in and prove to his boss Joana, at Jade Harbour Capital, that he still has what it takes to run the equity investment game.
What Danny doesn't expect to find in Calgary is a very grown up Tobin Lok. Tobin. Tobin who wants to be called by his full name, and who bristles at any mention of being "baby Toby". Because that's who he use to be. Danny's best friend Wei's baby brother.. The baby brother Danny spent a long night seven years ago doing unspeakable things to after Wei's bachelor party when Tobin was 19.
Filled with starts and stops and conflicting emotions, this was a great beginning to what I can tell is going to be a fun series.
I confess I struggled a bit with the characterization of both Danny and Tobin. I felt like there was a lot of conflicting information about them, and not a lot of opportunities for the reader to pick up on their characteristics for ourselves.
There were also quite a few subplots in this that felt really out of place and tangential to the story.
From Tobin's life in Vancouver, his roommate and her girlfriend- including some unfortunate and unsavory wording and decriptors that I wish were caught in editing. At times it seemed like Tobin and Monica were good friends, and at others it seemed like they didn't really care about each other and that confused me.
To a completely unexpected trafficking subplot that came out of left field and never really panned out.
At some point Tobin's dad asks if his English is troubling him, though there isn't a single other mention of it throughout the story and up to that point it felt safe to assume that the Lok children had been raised in Canada from a very young age, if not born there.
I wish there were stronger secondary relationships in the book. Tobin talks about not wanting to leave his life behind, but he honestly doesn't have much of one? I understood Danny only having Wei in his life since he is very much married to his job, but I felt like I didn't have the full picture of what Tobin's life was like.
The biggest wasted opportunity in my opinion was understanding Tobin and Danny's relationship better when they were younger. Maybe a couple of well placed flashbacks or reminiscing could've shed some light on that area.
Tobin also mention's avoiding Toronto and Danny after their initial hook up, but we never got to see the emotional toll that took on both of them, and the idea of "it was always you" didn't sound all that convincing without the goods to back it up.
The epilogue moved me greatly, though I wished we could have explored how Tobin and Danny's relationship altered the Lok family dynamic, and how they were able to grow and evolve within that space for a greater sense of fulfillment.
I hope we get to check back in with these two in Ray's book, and I'm very excited to read his story..