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A review by iam
Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
Gay romance with a baking competition background, general anxiety disorder rep, and extremely unafraid to get messy!
Content warnings include: anxiety, cyberbullying, panic attack, racism, religious ignorance. Content warnings cal be found at the beginning of the book.
I truly do admire Alexis Hall for how unafraid of messyness they are. I don't think I've read such a terrible first date in, well, ever.
As such, the romance in this book is far from linear. With plenty of ups and downs. And it's not because either character is a bad person. They are just both not perfect, and make mistakes. I also really admire them for being able to talk about those mistakes, because my god that is so hard. I certainly couldn't have handled it in their shoes.
The baking competition was delightful, as in the first book in the series (which you don't have to read before this one!) but at the same time it was also totally different through Paris's eyes. I really appreciated that. I also enjoyed that this time around, we also got to see the reactions to all the aired episodes, even though the reality of social media reactions to reality TV was... ouch.
The anxiety rep really hit hard. I can't entirely speak for the accuracy, but it was certainly executed in a way that I truly felt for Paris.
Despite this, the humor was never far away, and plenty of scenes made me smile. The one thing I found incongruous at times was how Paris's anxiety and humor went together - or rather how they didn't go together. With how anxious Paris is, I wondered how he would be fine with making some of the jokes he makes, since he overthinks literally everything else. Maybe that was done for levity, maybe humor just works differently for him.
Overall a lovely book, and I can't wait to return to the series with the next book.
Content warnings include: anxiety, cyberbullying, panic attack, racism, religious ignorance. Content warnings cal be found at the beginning of the book.
I truly do admire Alexis Hall for how unafraid of messyness they are. I don't think I've read such a terrible first date in, well, ever.
As such, the romance in this book is far from linear. With plenty of ups and downs. And it's not because either character is a bad person. They are just both not perfect, and make mistakes. I also really admire them for being able to talk about those mistakes, because my god that is so hard. I certainly couldn't have handled it in their shoes.
The baking competition was delightful, as in the first book in the series (which you don't have to read before this one!) but at the same time it was also totally different through Paris's eyes. I really appreciated that. I also enjoyed that this time around, we also got to see the reactions to all the aired episodes, even though the reality of social media reactions to reality TV was... ouch.
The anxiety rep really hit hard. I can't entirely speak for the accuracy, but it was certainly executed in a way that I truly felt for Paris.
Despite this, the humor was never far away, and plenty of scenes made me smile. The one thing I found incongruous at times was how Paris's anxiety and humor went together - or rather how they didn't go together. With how anxious Paris is, I wondered how he would be fine with making some of the jokes he makes, since he overthinks literally everything else. Maybe that was done for levity, maybe humor just works differently for him.
Overall a lovely book, and I can't wait to return to the series with the next book.