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A review by aimeesbookishlife
Love Again by Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm
2.0
I would have DNFed this before the halfway point if I wasn't reading it for a reading challenge. It got better, thankfully, but the rocky start made it less enjoyable for me.
My hackles went up in the very first chapter when the love interest, Ashley, (who, at the time, the MC isn't interested in) offers the MC, Honey, a lift home then proceeds to drive her around the city after she specifically said she wanted to go straight home. Ashley is very pushy, even when Honey has repeatedly said she's not interested - not exactly romantic in my book - but somehow, she says that she trusts him and wants to embark on a fake-dating arrangement with him. There's another scene where Honey is drunk and Ashley tells her he is taking her home to his place - she doesn't protest, but he should have asked for proper consent - and the next morning, Honey is "relieved to find she was still fully clothed" which says a lot.
Ashley's story makes him a more compelling character later on but it didn't remove the bad taste in my mouth from the first few chapters.
The MC's best friend is meant as comic relief but I found her storyline irritating too. For starters, her nickname is Fatty, which would be fine if she was a body-positive kind of person trying to reclaim the word, but it's clear she hates her size and constantly compares her body to her friends' in a way that makes the nickname seem like fatphobic bullying.
Fatty gets offered a job as deputy manager of a restaurant because the manager fancies her, even though she never actually applied for the job and admits to the manager's face that she doesn't have management or restaurant experience (if I had been a member of staff at that restaurant I would have been enraged!)
Her drama with her on-again-off-again cheating boyfriend is badly handled, with the 'other woman' taking the bulk of the best friend's wrath, with slut-shaming thrown in too. There's an interesting dynamic between Fatty and her mum, but this wasn't fully developed so Fatty's mum ended up being more of a collection of stereotypes than a character.
My hackles went up in the very first chapter when the love interest, Ashley, (who, at the time, the MC isn't interested in) offers the MC, Honey, a lift home then proceeds to drive her around the city after she specifically said she wanted to go straight home. Ashley is very pushy, even when Honey has repeatedly said she's not interested - not exactly romantic in my book - but somehow, she says that she trusts him and wants to embark on a fake-dating arrangement with him. There's another scene where Honey is drunk and Ashley tells her he is taking her home to his place - she doesn't protest, but he should have asked for proper consent - and the next morning, Honey is "relieved to find she was still fully clothed" which says a lot.
Ashley's story makes him a more compelling character later on but it didn't remove the bad taste in my mouth from the first few chapters.
The MC's best friend is meant as comic relief but I found her storyline irritating too. For starters, her nickname is Fatty, which would be fine if she was a body-positive kind of person trying to reclaim the word, but it's clear she hates her size and constantly compares her body to her friends' in a way that makes the nickname seem like fatphobic bullying.
Fatty gets offered a job as deputy manager of a restaurant because the manager fancies her, even though she never actually applied for the job and admits to the manager's face that she doesn't have management or restaurant experience (if I had been a member of staff at that restaurant I would have been enraged!)
Her drama with her on-again-off-again cheating boyfriend is badly handled, with the 'other woman' taking the bulk of the best friend's wrath, with slut-shaming thrown in too. There's an interesting dynamic between Fatty and her mum, but this wasn't fully developed so Fatty's mum ended up being more of a collection of stereotypes than a character.