Scan barcode
A review by elenajohansen
Buzz by E. Davies
1.0
This is a plot that never had the potential to be more than okay, made worse by poor construction.
The quick and easy complaints: Leading with a sex scene as prologue when the characters haven't been introduced is not going to get me interested. A character spending most of a chapter doing absolutely mundane things that don't advance or even relate to the plot is not going to get me interested. Randomly diverting to one of the lead's brothers for a POV is going to irritate me, especially when the lead just had a chapter he spent doing absolutely mundane things that I don't understand why I had to read about. So why didn't the plot point in his brother's chapter happen then instead? Why did we constantly have to see important things through a side character's perspective when nothing much happens during the lead's POVs?
A slightly more complex complaint: Did we spend so much time with the minutiae of Noah's work as an art curator so that he didn't feel less developed than Cameron and his almost-hockey career? Because Noah's job at any given point was either boring or explained poorly--I never got a sense of what he did or why it was causing him so much stress. He would say he was stressed but then a single phone call would clear up the problem; or he would whine that he wasn't going to have space for everything he wanted because the big, bad (I don't really know how to describe his antagonists here--building owners? angry stupid rich people? who did he answer to, anyway?) didn't give him enough space. But then later he'd turn around and need to commission something new from a different artist...why do you need more art if you're already worried about space for what you have?
Finally, as a romance this story fails the "why aren't they together now?" question at nearly every stage, because the couple is together for most of the book, and there's nothing really to keep them apart. There's no real tension in their relationship, because they're so open and honest with each other about nearly everything. Don't get me wrong, I like to see men talking about their feelings, whether it's m/m romance or not--but the only "obstacle" they encounter late in the story is Cam hiding his almost-hockey-career. From Cam's perspective, it's not even framed as a lie, just as an "I haven't told you this yet" because a) they're not serious yet, and b) he's enjoying the relative anonymity. Noah finds out accidentally from Cam's brother, sits on that knowledge for a chapter or two, then immediately forgives Cam without any fuss when he confesses. So, again, no tension. Cam's ex is a total piece of trash who obviously isn't going to storm back into his life, no matter how the brother worries Cam would take him back--obvious, pointless red herring. And there's never any reason to suspect Cam is going to return to hockey and leave Noah behind, so the ultimate question of relationship success is merely "are they compatible or not?"
Which the narrative made it clear very early that they are. Their happy ending was inevitable--this is a romance, after all--but it was never once truly threatened, so I never had a reason to get invested.
The quick and easy complaints: Leading with a sex scene as prologue when the characters haven't been introduced is not going to get me interested. A character spending most of a chapter doing absolutely mundane things that don't advance or even relate to the plot is not going to get me interested. Randomly diverting to one of the lead's brothers for a POV is going to irritate me, especially when the lead just had a chapter he spent doing absolutely mundane things that I don't understand why I had to read about. So why didn't the plot point in his brother's chapter happen then instead? Why did we constantly have to see important things through a side character's perspective when nothing much happens during the lead's POVs?
A slightly more complex complaint: Did we spend so much time with the minutiae of Noah's work as an art curator so that he didn't feel less developed than Cameron and his almost-hockey career? Because Noah's job at any given point was either boring or explained poorly--I never got a sense of what he did or why it was causing him so much stress. He would say he was stressed but then a single phone call would clear up the problem; or he would whine that he wasn't going to have space for everything he wanted because the big, bad (I don't really know how to describe his antagonists here--building owners? angry stupid rich people? who did he answer to, anyway?) didn't give him enough space. But then later he'd turn around and need to commission something new from a different artist...why do you need more art if you're already worried about space for what you have?
Finally, as a romance this story fails the "why aren't they together now?" question at nearly every stage, because the couple is together for most of the book, and there's nothing really to keep them apart. There's no real tension in their relationship, because they're so open and honest with each other about nearly everything. Don't get me wrong, I like to see men talking about their feelings, whether it's m/m romance or not--but the only "obstacle" they encounter late in the story is Cam hiding his almost-hockey-career. From Cam's perspective, it's not even framed as a lie, just as an "I haven't told you this yet" because a) they're not serious yet, and b) he's enjoying the relative anonymity. Noah finds out accidentally from Cam's brother, sits on that knowledge for a chapter or two, then immediately forgives Cam without any fuss when he confesses. So, again, no tension. Cam's ex is a total piece of trash who obviously isn't going to storm back into his life, no matter how the brother worries Cam would take him back--obvious, pointless red herring. And there's never any reason to suspect Cam is going to return to hockey and leave Noah behind, so the ultimate question of relationship success is merely "are they compatible or not?"
Which the narrative made it clear very early that they are. Their happy ending was inevitable--this is a romance, after all--but it was never once truly threatened, so I never had a reason to get invested.