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A review by samanthamorffi
Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan
2.0
I am in the minority here.. this book was super problematic for me… I don’t normally write long reviews about books I rate so low, but I think this book warrants it as it’s recommended to many as a romantic story, but is actually a very heavy one instead. I started and stopped this book twice before finishing it the 3rd time. By the 60% mark I knew it wasn’t going to be a top read for me, but I continued it to finish the whole story before I finalized my feelings on it.
The book starts with Iris and August meeting in a bar and having a soul moving conversation that left them both wanting to get to know each other more. We find out Iris is in an unhappy relationship with Caleb (a long time bball rival of August). The book then takes a hard left when Iris becomes unexpectedly pregnant which “traps” her deeper into a relationship she no longer wants, but didn’t feel like she could leave. This was understandable for me. As time goes on Caleb becomes increasingly possessive, jealous, controlling and ultimately severely violent towards Iris after she has their baby. And then another hard turn, August shows up back on the scene a year later still infatuated with Iris every time he sees her. He has no problem letting her know how he feels and the love triangle/cluster fuc* begins. This is really where the problems started for me.
The abuse starts pretty quickly in the story. In a few instances, Iris is viciously, relentlessly beaten black and blue until she is left unconscious. Not only that, she is violently rap*d at gunpoint, assaulted sexually with a gun and sodomized by Caleb. And if that’s not enough, she is then left under the watch of two men (a bodyguard and the brother of Caleb) to keep her from leaving and to treat her injuries, which they willingly do even though she’s been beat to a pulp and has a 1 year old baby in her care (even unconscious?).
Look, I 100% believe abuse survivors have and do lose in court. I believe many, if not most of them are terrified enough of losing their children to their abuser that they don’t seek help from a legal aspect. What I don’t believe is that a women who was beaten so badly that she had broken bones, a face that was disproportionately shaped from injuries, was covered in marks from being hit with a belt buckle and brutally raped and bleeding from her privates wouldn’t be believed (and honestly able to actually leave). After calling her cousin to help her, she undergoes a full medical assessment to document and photograph all her injuries, new and old to use as leverage to get custody of her daughter. When the evidence is shown in a private meeting she sets up, her abusers lawyer fired him as a client and offered to HELP her, the father of her abuser was willing to give her whatever she wanted because he knew that his son wouldn’t win if the evidence got out. But still, regardless of this, she signs an NDA and went back to her hometown (which Caleb could easily have found) and hoped and prayed that a seriously violent man wouldn’t come after her. He was a basketball star with a growing bad reputation after a dirty play that broke another players leg, she knew enough that sharing that evidence would ruin his career. By refusing to try and seek justice and agreeing to silence, it felt like she was letting him win and left her and her young daughter’s life to chance. I just didn’t buy it and it became too much to be believable to me. It felt exploitative to real abuse survivors who have been through violence to the extent in this book and are standing up trying to change our system to better serve and protect those who need it.
There is no doubt, she was a survivor and I don’t blame her for the fears she had. What I wished would have been touched on was the trauma she had and work she did after she got away. Her healing was not shown and was hardly talked about before she jumps into a relationship with August a year later while still being unable to be honest with him or anyone else because of the NDA. I just couldn’t buy into the second romance in this book without honesty between them that was only shared with him after evidence was leaked to the press later in the book. We didn’t even get to see the conversation of her sharing her story with August or anyone else once she could!!
This book had all the elements of a complex story of trauma, pain, love and second romances. But there wasn’t enough pages in one book to do it well. I wish this book would have been split into two, one being Iris’s story before/during Caleb, and the second being after Caleb. The way it was done made me dislike Iris and August as there wasn’t enough depth revealed with their characters. Iris didn’t come across as strong, she came across as scared (understandably) and weak. We never really saw her take the initiative in her life afterwards without August being the main reason, rather than her own needs or her daughters. And then August, who had no idea about her past, bulldozes his way into her life and starts inserting himself in it how he wants and without her input or her truth. Once they were together, their story and the inner thoughts of August started to revolve heavily around sex in a way that was more uncomfortable than sexy after we just read detailed scenes of her horrific SA.
This book was not it for me. It was a psychological/horror/thriller plot line that is sold as a romance. Their relationship and HEA didn’t seem genuinely happy, it felt sad and heavy with a lot of secrets and unresolved trauma instead. In the real world, I wouldn’t bet on them as a couple to make it and that was a big let down.
The book starts with Iris and August meeting in a bar and having a soul moving conversation that left them both wanting to get to know each other more. We find out Iris is in an unhappy relationship with Caleb (a long time bball rival of August). The book then takes a hard left when Iris becomes unexpectedly pregnant which “traps” her deeper into a relationship she no longer wants, but didn’t feel like she could leave. This was understandable for me. As time goes on Caleb becomes increasingly possessive, jealous, controlling and ultimately severely violent towards Iris after she has their baby. And then another hard turn, August shows up back on the scene a year later still infatuated with Iris every time he sees her. He has no problem letting her know how he feels and the love triangle/cluster fuc* begins. This is really where the problems started for me.
The abuse starts pretty quickly in the story. In a few instances, Iris is viciously, relentlessly beaten black and blue until she is left unconscious. Not only that, she is violently rap*d at gunpoint, assaulted sexually with a gun and sodomized by Caleb. And if that’s not enough, she is then left under the watch of two men (a bodyguard and the brother of Caleb) to keep her from leaving and to treat her injuries, which they willingly do even though she’s been beat to a pulp and has a 1 year old baby in her care (even unconscious?).
Look, I 100% believe abuse survivors have and do lose in court. I believe many, if not most of them are terrified enough of losing their children to their abuser that they don’t seek help from a legal aspect. What I don’t believe is that a women who was beaten so badly that she had broken bones, a face that was disproportionately shaped from injuries, was covered in marks from being hit with a belt buckle and brutally raped and bleeding from her privates wouldn’t be believed (and honestly able to actually leave). After calling her cousin to help her, she undergoes a full medical assessment to document and photograph all her injuries, new and old to use as leverage to get custody of her daughter. When the evidence is shown in a private meeting she sets up, her abusers lawyer fired him as a client and offered to HELP her, the father of her abuser was willing to give her whatever she wanted because he knew that his son wouldn’t win if the evidence got out. But still, regardless of this, she signs an NDA and went back to her hometown (which Caleb could easily have found) and hoped and prayed that a seriously violent man wouldn’t come after her. He was a basketball star with a growing bad reputation after a dirty play that broke another players leg, she knew enough that sharing that evidence would ruin his career. By refusing to try and seek justice and agreeing to silence, it felt like she was letting him win and left her and her young daughter’s life to chance. I just didn’t buy it and it became too much to be believable to me. It felt exploitative to real abuse survivors who have been through violence to the extent in this book and are standing up trying to change our system to better serve and protect those who need it.
There is no doubt, she was a survivor and I don’t blame her for the fears she had. What I wished would have been touched on was the trauma she had and work she did after she got away. Her healing was not shown and was hardly talked about before she jumps into a relationship with August a year later while still being unable to be honest with him or anyone else because of the NDA. I just couldn’t buy into the second romance in this book without honesty between them that was only shared with him after evidence was leaked to the press later in the book. We didn’t even get to see the conversation of her sharing her story with August or anyone else once she could!!
This book had all the elements of a complex story of trauma, pain, love and second romances. But there wasn’t enough pages in one book to do it well. I wish this book would have been split into two, one being Iris’s story before/during Caleb, and the second being after Caleb. The way it was done made me dislike Iris and August as there wasn’t enough depth revealed with their characters. Iris didn’t come across as strong, she came across as scared (understandably) and weak. We never really saw her take the initiative in her life afterwards without August being the main reason, rather than her own needs or her daughters. And then August, who had no idea about her past, bulldozes his way into her life and starts inserting himself in it how he wants and without her input or her truth. Once they were together, their story and the inner thoughts of August started to revolve heavily around sex in a way that was more uncomfortable than sexy after we just read detailed scenes of her horrific SA.
This book was not it for me. It was a psychological/horror/thriller plot line that is sold as a romance. Their relationship and HEA didn’t seem genuinely happy, it felt sad and heavy with a lot of secrets and unresolved trauma instead. In the real world, I wouldn’t bet on them as a couple to make it and that was a big let down.