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bookishblondegirl 's review for:
Sizzle Reel
by Carlyn Greenwald
The synopsis of this book made it seem like this should’ve really worked for me, but I was so underwhelmed. I’ll try to sum up my issues eloquently while remaining concise, so bear with me.
So, we spend the majority of the book (like, literally all but the last 20 pages) following and rooting (sort of) for the romance between Luna, our MC, and Val. However, it was pretty clear to me early on that there was going to be an attempt at a love triangle. Key word here being attempt. Rather than a love triangle where the heroine is ongoingly conflicted with her feelings for the two love interests (Val & Romy), this instead was essentially a romance book that tacked on a last second declaration of love. Luna was consistently like “I like Val” until the very last second, at which point she was like “actually I’ve been in love with Romy this whole time”. It just wasn’t very believable, because very little time and effort was put into Luna’s feelings for Romy, and so I was left being completely uninvested with the endgame romance.
Then there was the representation of virginity in this. Despite Luna being seemingly educated and ‘woke’, for lack of a better term, about LGBTQ+ issues, terminology, and bias, she has an incredibly rigid and heteronormative definition of virginity. It is insinuated in the synopsis that Luna has little to no sexual experience, when in reality she has experience, she just considers herself a virgin by her own, frankly ignorant, standards. I understand that Luna is supposed to be dealing with her own internalized biphobia and heteronormativity, but I just don’t get how she could’ve been so forward-thinking and educated on queer issues, yet remain insistent throughout the majority of the book that she had to have penetrative sex to lose her virginity. Not only that, Luna regards her virginity with disdain, bordering on disgust. Rather than featuring a positive, or at the very least neutral, outlook on virginity, this book had Luna continuously resenting and insulting the fact that she is a virgin, god forbid. I felt this was less of a romance book, and more of a book about a woman’s quest to not be a virgin. While she did seem to like Val, her motivations for pursuing her (or any other woman) lay in her desire to have sex and finally ‘lose’ her virginity (I don’t like referring to having sex as losing something, but such is the way we word it in our society).
Finally, and quickly, I didn’t really care for any of the characters in this. I found almost all of them, in some way or another, to be self-centered and whiny. ESPECIALLY Luna. This was also not particularly well-written, though I did enjoy the moments where Luna thought about how she’d film or frame a moment in terms of cinematography. I definitely didn’t cover all my thoughts in this review, but I don’t want to devote any more mental energy to typing more out tbh.
So, we spend the majority of the book (like, literally all but the last 20 pages) following and rooting (sort of) for the romance between Luna, our MC, and Val. However, it was pretty clear to me early on that there was going to be an attempt at a love triangle. Key word here being attempt. Rather than a love triangle where the heroine is ongoingly conflicted with her feelings for the two love interests (Val & Romy), this instead was essentially a romance book that tacked on a last second declaration of love. Luna was consistently like “I like Val” until the very last second, at which point she was like “actually I’ve been in love with Romy this whole time”. It just wasn’t very believable, because very little time and effort was put into Luna’s feelings for Romy, and so I was left being completely uninvested with the endgame romance.
Then there was the representation of virginity in this. Despite Luna being seemingly educated and ‘woke’, for lack of a better term, about LGBTQ+ issues, terminology, and bias, she has an incredibly rigid and heteronormative definition of virginity. It is insinuated in the synopsis that Luna has little to no sexual experience, when in reality she has experience, she just considers herself a virgin by her own, frankly ignorant, standards. I understand that Luna is supposed to be dealing with her own internalized biphobia and heteronormativity, but I just don’t get how she could’ve been so forward-thinking and educated on queer issues, yet remain insistent throughout the majority of the book that she had to have penetrative sex to lose her virginity. Not only that, Luna regards her virginity with disdain, bordering on disgust. Rather than featuring a positive, or at the very least neutral, outlook on virginity, this book had Luna continuously resenting and insulting the fact that she is a virgin, god forbid. I felt this was less of a romance book, and more of a book about a woman’s quest to not be a virgin. While she did seem to like Val, her motivations for pursuing her (or any other woman) lay in her desire to have sex and finally ‘lose’ her virginity (I don’t like referring to having sex as losing something, but such is the way we word it in our society).
Finally, and quickly, I didn’t really care for any of the characters in this. I found almost all of them, in some way or another, to be self-centered and whiny. ESPECIALLY Luna. This was also not particularly well-written, though I did enjoy the moments where Luna thought about how she’d film or frame a moment in terms of cinematography. I definitely didn’t cover all my thoughts in this review, but I don’t want to devote any more mental energy to typing more out tbh.