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littlewishling's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Gun violence and Violence
Minor: Death and Torture
c0urtn3yy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Sexual assault
listette's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Sexual content
katiekeske's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
The villain was pretty one-dimensional and didn't add much. The main thrill of the journey is the chase and hope that they don't get caught, all while they have cute and sweet moments getting to know each other.
The heroine has had a rough life after her dad passed away when she was younger. Warning that there is fatphobia and body shaming in this, not from Rendash, but from the loser human boyfriend. I think Zoey is well developed, but I wish she was able to get self esteem on her own rather than from Rendash being attracted to her. Of course, it's wonderful that Rendash loves her completely and sees her beauty.
Out of everything, the main thing that bothered me was
If you like action, decent world-building, weird alien peens, and tropes like one bed and forced proximity, you'll enjoy this.
Trigger warning for
Graphic: Sexual content and Grief
Moderate: Body shaming, Gun violence, Infidelity, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Confinement, Sexual assault, Vomit, and Pregnancy
mx_manda's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This was one of my first Tiffany Roberts books, during 2019, the year I discovered PNR/SF/Alien romance and inhaled ~400 of them in a 9 month period of time. It was the summer we moved strangely enough, from the area of Upstate NY this books ends in, to South Korea. I could not stand the GR app, so all of my books went unrated, though I did track them. A time when I did not have dozens of shelves to more accurately categorize my reads. This is a long winded way of saying this is a nostalgic/sentimental re-read for me. My second time through was the Audible version, and my only note about that one is the reader sounds too much like Movie Announcer Guy, and he had really bizarre pronunciations of common words. I do not think I will revisit the audiobook, but I will at some point reread this one again.
Anywho. The actual review now—my impersonation of a food blogger is done.</i>
<i>CbaAW</i> is a class standalone TR work: it has lots of action and plot, healthy doses of smut, an instant marshmallow alpha (complete with special words in his own language to smatter throughout to avoid words like "mate" that can grate as one reads them), and a chubby heroine who is a sad sack and isn't able to love herself unless a man is loving her. In many ways, they're part of a very specific flavor of alien romance—and I would argue they're some of the best at this particular one. The writing and editing is genuinely solid, and there's a nice balance of elements. Their dialogue sounds like actual conversations (even if overly heavy on "little____" endearment trope usage), and they mostly manage to infuse information into the story without sounding like it's being wedged in to make sure it's in there. I find I most enjoy their standalone novels to their series, but ymmv on that one.
This is the story of Zoey, a 27 year old woman whose life is really not going well and has tucked tail to go back home to her bestie and lick her wounds for a bit. During a rest stop in Nevada, her junker of a car is commandeered as a transport for escaped alien detainee, Rendash, who has been imprisoned on Earth for 4 years after a crash, tortured and studied by some branch of the US gov't. He's the last survivor and desperate just to get home and have the retirement he was promised—if he ever survived to see it. Zoey ends up agreeing to help him and enmeshes her fate with his. They have a very long way to go, lots of car trouble, seemingly negative amounts of knowledge about how traceable literally every aspect of our lives are, very little cash, and bad weather to contend with. Oh, and the modern day issues of going viral and eyes on them everywhere thanks to America's surveillance state—courtesy of all of us and our need to record and upload everything, supplying all that data.
It's a trip, one I rather enjoyed both times around—even with all of the things that would make it a more rant than review subject, had I read this for the first time now. It's sweet, endearing, has some heart tugging moments, and a rather cheesy ending. It doesn't reinvent the wheel—there's no trope subversion or bold messaging—but it's solid and entertaining. I try to avoid changing star ratings from what my initial one was, but if I were to re-rate this today, it would be a smidge lower: a 3.5, likely entered as a 3 in the GR system, which is too cowardly to give us a half-star rating system and more accurately rate our reads. But when I was fresh and new to alien romance? I really, really liked this one, so it will always have a place in my bookish heart and be revisited every now and again.
Graphic: Sexual content and Violence
Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Death of parent
Minor: Infidelity and Sexual assault
bluebearywitchy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Well, I was going through and reading all of my sample titles to organize my kindle better when I *actually* looked at the cover and noticed dude has four arms.
So did I read through the sample and ended up buying this book for the simple fact it had a character with four arms? Sho did.
And I'm glad I did.
Aside from the aliens and the adventure aspects of the book, what makes this such a good read is how real, relatable, and *human* Zoey is.
We follow her busting her ass working and barely making ends meet, just to have her dipshit of a boyfriend sit around the house and cheat on her while living off *her* money. Zoey is a thicker gal and struggles with body image and insecurities, which I personally don't see a lot in books. Even her initial encounter with Rendash was very real and raw - she wasn't as shocked at some huge ass alien crawled into her car and threatened her life because at that point, there literally was nothing left to lose except the clothes on her back and whatever her car held.
It was a very fast paced read and I finished it in a night. The spicy scenes were quite a treat as well (but more so because I really love four armed beings) and we really need more bbw representation in books like this.
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Body shaming and Murder
Minor: Sexual assault