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A review by aklev13
See Me After Class by Meghan Quinn
2.0
Ranty review in 3, 2, 1…
Let me first preface this review by stating that i have tried Megan Quinn before and dnf’d after two chapters because i did not like her writing style. I persevered with this longer because i had it for free on my kindle and i was looking for steam over story. Tell me that cover doesn’t scream steam?
Her writing style is the same here. She does that thing where she’ll break the narrative to speak directly to the reader for a sentence like the character is sarcastic and then she says to us - did you catch the sarcasm there? I found it really jarring and it felt like a clumsy attempt at humour, as well as a heavy handed way of telling the story.
But then we get the cliche and frankly insulting side characters. Now i particularly took offence to Keiko’s presentation. I don’t think it’s outright mentioned but she’s clearly meant to be autistic, but the author has presented her like a robot and her lack of social skills are used as a comedic device. It was offensive and inaccurate. There may have been other terrible side characters but once i encountered that i started skimming and completely skipping conversations with side characters especially because they seemed incapable of having a conversation that didn’t involve sex. This book 100% fails the Bechdel test but they also specifically can’t stop talking about having sex, and not in a fun way like in a cringy who says that? Way. It was particularly noticeable when it didn’t make sense for their characterisation. There’s a section where the MMC’s sister is talking with him about his sexual history. First of all - weird that your sister even knows it, second of all our MMC has been built up to be an intensely private man with fears of intimacy but we’re expected to believe that he’s comfortable having a conversation with HIS SISTER where she’s going oh remember the girl you lost your virginity too? Why do i even need to know this information?
I stopped skim reading once i got to the part where our FMC - a brand new English teacher - shit on The Great Gatsby. Hell no. The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece - it’s the first and possibly only book that i really enjoyed studying at school. Like i dont expect everyone to enjoy the book but you can’t be an English teacher and not at least APPRECIATE IT! Lost all your credibility now, ugh.
Anyway let me get to the big reason why this book was awful - i hated the FMC. She’s a fresh out of uni, graduate teacher - this is her first proper teaching gig and she has the audacity in her job interview to talk smack about a certain type of teaching style that she considers elitist (you know with all her years of experience) and she clearly ruffles the feathers of our MMC because that’s his teaching style. Then she gets the job and is at a work function - that he is hosting by the way - where she finds out this teacher did not approve of her being hired and our fake autistic rep blurts it out to the host. FMC then proceeds to get drunk and basically accost him in his own home demanding to know why he doesn’t like her.
Later she and her friend refuse to leave when the party is over because they’re drunk and comfortable and he has to escort them forcibly out. At no point in this interaction is the MMC overly rude or belligerent. He’s not the kind of guy to pretend everything is fine when it’s not and he is firm about his boundaries but that is ok - and yet the whole book everyone - and i mean everyone - is talking about how he’s a stuck up asshole and should be nicer to the FMC and yet the whole time all i saw was her being inappropriate, unprofessional and an asshole, while he is just reacting to her bullshit with firm and unrelenting boundaries. He actually at one point tells her to leave him alone and she responds by touching him. This is harassment people - she should have been fired!
I felt gaslit. She’s the asshole!
And yet as i flicked through this i could see that he starts to think he should loosen his uptight teaching style. Why? His kids were getting the grades - what’s the issue? She hasn’t even done a year yet - we dont know if the kids would have responded and there’s no one correct style. Honestly i always hated teachers like this woman - you know those fresh out of uni grads who want to be friends with all the kids and be the cool teacher. Fuck off loser and get back to explaining chemical bonds. Like if you think you need to be friends with your students, you need more adult friends. It doesn’t make you cool , it makes you lame.
So anyway the steam was actually ok except i didnt feel like it matched the story. It was very stereotypical porno-esque scenes. You know a lot of desk stuff, but then i was like why not just make this the focus and only have minimal story then because clearly the point of this was the teacher role play and you wrecked it with not only too much story but a really really bad story that doesn’t even match the porn. And then i only got half the porn because he kept refusing to let her do anything to him until the 80% mark - where’s the fun in that
Let me first preface this review by stating that i have tried Megan Quinn before and dnf’d after two chapters because i did not like her writing style. I persevered with this longer because i had it for free on my kindle and i was looking for steam over story. Tell me that cover doesn’t scream steam?
Her writing style is the same here. She does that thing where she’ll break the narrative to speak directly to the reader for a sentence like the character is sarcastic and then she says to us - did you catch the sarcasm there? I found it really jarring and it felt like a clumsy attempt at humour, as well as a heavy handed way of telling the story.
But then we get the cliche and frankly insulting side characters. Now i particularly took offence to Keiko’s presentation. I don’t think it’s outright mentioned but she’s clearly meant to be autistic, but the author has presented her like a robot and her lack of social skills are used as a comedic device. It was offensive and inaccurate. There may have been other terrible side characters but once i encountered that i started skimming and completely skipping conversations with side characters especially because they seemed incapable of having a conversation that didn’t involve sex. This book 100% fails the Bechdel test but they also specifically can’t stop talking about having sex, and not in a fun way like in a cringy who says that? Way. It was particularly noticeable when it didn’t make sense for their characterisation. There’s a section where the MMC’s sister is talking with him about his sexual history. First of all - weird that your sister even knows it, second of all our MMC has been built up to be an intensely private man with fears of intimacy but we’re expected to believe that he’s comfortable having a conversation with HIS SISTER where she’s going oh remember the girl you lost your virginity too? Why do i even need to know this information?
I stopped skim reading once i got to the part where our FMC - a brand new English teacher - shit on The Great Gatsby. Hell no. The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece - it’s the first and possibly only book that i really enjoyed studying at school. Like i dont expect everyone to enjoy the book but you can’t be an English teacher and not at least APPRECIATE IT! Lost all your credibility now, ugh.
Anyway let me get to the big reason why this book was awful - i hated the FMC. She’s a fresh out of uni, graduate teacher - this is her first proper teaching gig and she has the audacity in her job interview to talk smack about a certain type of teaching style that she considers elitist (you know with all her years of experience) and she clearly ruffles the feathers of our MMC because that’s his teaching style. Then she gets the job and is at a work function - that he is hosting by the way - where she finds out this teacher did not approve of her being hired and our fake autistic rep blurts it out to the host. FMC then proceeds to get drunk and basically accost him in his own home demanding to know why he doesn’t like her.
Later she and her friend refuse to leave when the party is over because they’re drunk and comfortable and he has to escort them forcibly out. At no point in this interaction is the MMC overly rude or belligerent. He’s not the kind of guy to pretend everything is fine when it’s not and he is firm about his boundaries but that is ok - and yet the whole book everyone - and i mean everyone - is talking about how he’s a stuck up asshole and should be nicer to the FMC and yet the whole time all i saw was her being inappropriate, unprofessional and an asshole, while he is just reacting to her bullshit with firm and unrelenting boundaries. He actually at one point tells her to leave him alone and she responds by touching him. This is harassment people - she should have been fired!
I felt gaslit. She’s the asshole!
And yet as i flicked through this i could see that he starts to think he should loosen his uptight teaching style. Why? His kids were getting the grades - what’s the issue? She hasn’t even done a year yet - we dont know if the kids would have responded and there’s no one correct style. Honestly i always hated teachers like this woman - you know those fresh out of uni grads who want to be friends with all the kids and be the cool teacher. Fuck off loser and get back to explaining chemical bonds. Like if you think you need to be friends with your students, you need more adult friends. It doesn’t make you cool , it makes you lame.
So anyway the steam was actually ok except i didnt feel like it matched the story. It was very stereotypical porno-esque scenes. You know a lot of desk stuff, but then i was like why not just make this the focus and only have minimal story then because clearly the point of this was the teacher role play and you wrecked it with not only too much story but a really really bad story that doesn’t even match the porn. And then i only got half the porn because he kept refusing to let her do anything to him until the 80% mark - where’s the fun in that