A review by amyjoy
Infamous by Lex Croucher

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I really love a queer historical romance, and I like that Croucher showed us a diverse London society. It took me about half of the book to really get sucked into the story and the characters, and I almost quit early on because it was almost reading like a straight romance. 

Eddie is SO dense throughout the whole book, and it was kind of frustrating to read! She willfully ignored her feelings and her friend/love interest's feelings and put so much faith in someone who was clearly a conman. She's young and sheltered, but still, I wanted her to have a TINY amount of self-awareness. 

Also, Nash doesn't really face any consequences for his behavior. I was FURIOUS when Eddie gave him the second half of her manuscript. I really wanted her to throw it in the lake and let him suffer when he couldn't finish the book. And that still would have been the mildest consequence for his serial sexual assault! I was really disappointed that not a single person had a conversation with Eddie about how, even though it may have felt like her fault and she did have an obvious crush on him, the power dynamics between her and Nash meant that he was taking advantage of her, NEVER MIND that she was intoxicated when he first kissed her! Everyone was just like "yeah, you should have known better, Eddie, you knew he was married!" It was so flipping frustrating because he was taking advantage of his position of power as a published author, her obvious crush, her youth and naïveté, and got her drunk before the first time he kissed her! All of that really put me off the end of the book; even Rose, who loved and supported Eddie blamed her. Also, I knew from the second they arrived at his estate that he was going to steal her book. He's the worst.
 

I did really love the relationship between Eddie and Rose, though. 
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