ragnelle 's review for:

Enlightened by Joanna Chambers

3.0

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I really wanted to write a review of these three novels and I am unsure if I wanted to rate them as 3 or 4, or to rate this one specifically as 3.5 or 4. In general I enjoyed the romance, I really loved Murdo, and I loved the ending. For all three novels the plot is much smaller than I expected reading the blurbs, it is almost a quiet slice of life with some extra events related to a friend of David's and (in the third novel) to Murdo's family. There are really no big encompassing political debates, betrayals - and even the differences in life between David and Murdo quickly end up in the background.

The third novel was my favorite, overall, as I felt like the plot was a bit more involved in the actual romance (Murdo's family and a way for him to reach his happy ending). My one and only criticism was David. David felt so much like a non character for most of these novels, he was so passive that I was starting to feel bad for Murdo. In the third one Murdo addresses David's attitude a bit, of which I was really grateful, and the novel aknowledged that David's behaviour hurt Murdo, but still there was not much change in David as a character. I treasured those small scenes of David realizing he was loving Murdo because they felt like he was finally alive and not passively describing the events around him. Still, I loved Murdo so much, and I adored seeing another pov of his character and how much he has changed through the books.
Another small criticism: the novel was excellent in leaving interesting things out of it. I am not sure why, but there were a few events that I think would have been important to read or see, but the novel simply bypassed them. One example would be

Spoiler

the first time David try to top Murdo, which was clearly a very difficult experience for both of them, and was deeply connected with Murdo's traumatic past. The novel skipped it, to be able to instead tell of the second time, which ended up great and Murdo loved. It felt a bit cheap, like the book wanted to add the element of SA, but then wanted to skip on how this affected Murdo.

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