howlinglibraries's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
By the end of this book, I rooting for Vanessa and Aiden (more or less), and MZ's writing is very engaging and quick, but none of that is enough to fully redeem this book from how shallow I found Aiden's writing to be (he felt very flat to me for at least the first 60% of the book) and how poorly certain topics are handled, such as:
- Vanessa laughing until she cries when Aiden is groped without consent by a fan (stop normalizing the idea that it's "acceptable" or anything less than sexual assault when a man is harassed, even if he's a famous and attractive celebrity)!
- When Vanessa finds out a loved one is being abused by their significant other, her entire inner monologue for several chapters isn't "I can't believe my loved one is being abused, how can I help them?" but is instead "how dare they lie to me about this?" and is ridiculously, painfully self-absorbed and victim-shaming.
- Vanessa's older sisters are VERY abusive towards her, but Vanessa blames FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorders) for causing their violent and abusive tendencies, which is an immensely ableist and hurtful stereotype that a LOT of people with FASD have to deal with in the real world.
- There is a lot of fat-phobia that never gets properly addressed.
Other than feeling bad for her terrible childhood, I struggled with liking Vanessa as a character more often than not, and I couldn't bring myself to care about Aiden until waaay too far into the book. We learn some of his motives, of course, but I didn't feel that any of them ever actually explained his behavior or redeemed his treatment of Vanessa in the first half of the book. The chemistry between the two of them felt forced, and even by the time they finally got together (literally at 95% through the book — I love a slow burn, but damn), I think my emotions were less joy at seeing them confess their love for each other, and more relief at having finally finished this immensely disappointing book.
I can objectively see why so many people love this book, I think, but it didn't work as well for me as I hoped it would. If I had rated this the moment I finished the book, I might have given it 3 or 3.5 stars, but after sleeping on it, I have too many issues with it on a lot of levels, and to be totally honest, it's reminded me of why, despite loving the only other MZ book I read (Dear Aaron) years ago, I've been very hesitant to pick up more of her books. This book is older than that one was, and I'm open to trying another newer release of hers, but I think I'll probably leave Zapata's backlist alone for now.
✨ Representation: Vanessa's best friend is Latinx
✨ Content warnings for: memories of severe domestic abuse, claustrophobia, nyctophobia (extreme fear of the dark), alcoholic parents, absent parents, memories of foster homes, body-shaming, victim-shaming of domestic and sexual abuse survivors, ableism, "jokes" about sexual harassment
- Vanessa laughing until she cries when Aiden is groped without consent by a fan (stop normalizing the idea that it's "acceptable" or anything less than sexual assault when a man is harassed, even if he's a famous and attractive celebrity)!
- When Vanessa finds out a loved one is being abused by their significant other, her entire inner monologue for several chapters isn't "I can't believe my loved one is being abused, how can I help them?" but is instead "how dare they lie to me about this?" and is ridiculously, painfully self-absorbed and victim-shaming.
- Vanessa's older sisters are VERY abusive towards her, but Vanessa blames FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorders) for causing their violent and abusive tendencies, which is an immensely ableist and hurtful stereotype that a LOT of people with FASD have to deal with in the real world.
- There is a lot of fat-phobia that never gets properly addressed.
Other than feeling bad for her terrible childhood, I struggled with liking Vanessa as a character more often than not, and I couldn't bring myself to care about Aiden until waaay too far into the book. We learn some of his motives, of course, but I didn't feel that any of them ever actually explained his behavior or redeemed his treatment of Vanessa in the first half of the book. The chemistry between the two of them felt forced, and even by the time they finally got together (literally at 95% through the book — I love a slow burn, but damn), I think my emotions were less joy at seeing them confess their love for each other, and more relief at having finally finished this immensely disappointing book.
I can objectively see why so many people love this book, I think, but it didn't work as well for me as I hoped it would. If I had rated this the moment I finished the book, I might have given it 3 or 3.5 stars, but after sleeping on it, I have too many issues with it on a lot of levels, and to be totally honest, it's reminded me of why, despite loving the only other MZ book I read (Dear Aaron) years ago, I've been very hesitant to pick up more of her books. This book is older than that one was, and I'm open to trying another newer release of hers, but I think I'll probably leave Zapata's backlist alone for now.
✨ Representation: Vanessa's best friend is Latinx
✨ Content warnings for: memories of severe domestic abuse, claustrophobia, nyctophobia (extreme fear of the dark), alcoholic parents, absent parents, memories of foster homes, body-shaming, victim-shaming of domestic and sexual abuse survivors, ableism, "jokes" about sexual harassment
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Sexual harassment, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Ableism
golden_like_dior's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Child abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
Minor: Cursing, Violence, and Sexual content
polkadotgirl's review against another edition
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I'm sad. I'm sad and disappointed. And sad.
It's no secret that I absolutely adored From Lukov With Love and it became my favorite stand-alone romance book. I was so incredibly excited to have found Mariana Zapata, then, because I had heard that all her books were perfect examples of slow-burn romances and I thought they could have the potential of being as good as From Lukov With Love. But, obviously, I was very wrong, because I picked up her most famous and well-loved book and it absolutely disappointed me and even angered me a little bit.
There are many things I thought while reading this book and while I'm sure I'm going to forget many of them, here are some of the ones I actually wrote down as I was reading:
(warning for spoilers)
- Now that I've read two of Mariana Zapata's books, I can see that her writing style is very recognizable and I still find it refreshing because I love it more than I tend to like "traditional" romance writing. It's more descriptive than romance tends to be, which I love, and it has a lot of internal monologue from the main character. However, this book still shows some of the flaws that From Lukov With Love showed and while I could ignore them in that book because I was loving it, they just irked me more this time around.
Firstly, the expletives are just everywhere and they're so irritating. "The man who was my closest friend said." "The woman who I trusted with my life rolled her eyes." "The man who had the most delightful chest blinked." Just write names. Just. Freaking. Write. Names.
Secondly, the euphemisms used during the one sex scene were just... No. No. "His long pipe was hard." Horrible, just simply unsexy. I want to feel hot and bothered during smut scenes and using phrases like "his mushroomed tip entered me" makes me want to die of secondhand embarrassment. It might be that authors like this think that using straightforward words like "dick" and "cock" and "pussy" is crass but that just works so much better than trying to "beautify" it and ending up with words like "penis" and "my center" and "member".
Like I said, these were things that already happened in From Lukov With Love but I could ignore them in that book, and yet in this one they're so blatant and repetitive that it's impossible to not comment on them.
- Now, about the slow burn. I am the BIGGEST fan of the slowest of burns. And I mean sloooow. I mean several books long. And yet, it does not work here. At all. I'm sorry to bring up From Lukov With Loveall the time but it's just so easy to compare how interesting and well-developed that slow-burn was to how meandering and pointless this one seemed to be. By the end of the book I didn't feel like the relationship between the two characters -Vanessa and Aiden- had changed much and it did not convince me as to how they had fallen in love, even though the book had 672 pages to do so.
This coupled with the fact that the pace of the story was choppy at times -the scenes and chapters seemed not have any cohesion and connection-, made for a somewhat boring read. It didn't make me want to continue reading to see how the story advanced and how the romance progressed. There were no stakes at play and so I could have perfectly dropped the book at 75% and I would have been fine.
- I did not ship the characters at all. Not at all. Aiden was such a boring character, there was nothing appealing and compelling about him apart from how he was "incredibly hot". And I know that the grumpy guy thing is huge on romance novels but you can make a guy grumpy and still give him a personality. (Also not the biggest fan of a dude who can NEVER take no for an answer so not the biggest Aiden fan.)
And don't get me started on Vanessa.... What a dreadful heroine for a romance book, oh my god. I'll talk more about this in a bit.
- I started the book without knowing it had the Fake Relationship trope and let me just say this was the worst waste of the trope EVER. The story never once used any of the elements of the trope that make it so compelling -faking in front of other people, having to convince people you're in love, "forced" intimacy, etc- and when it did use them it did so boringly.
- The main character in this book describes the minions as cute. The minions. Cute. That's really all you need to know as to why I'm giving the story 2 stars.
- And now, the worst parts of the book. The ones that took it from "an average romance that I can rate 3 stars" to "a dumpster fire not deserving of so much hype".
The main character, and the book in general, is so misogynistic that it made me want to tear my hair out multiple times. A few examples of this -that won't actually cover the whole spectrum of it-: calling women "hookers" when they look at a guy that they find hot, Vanessa thinking of WAGS (the wives and girlfriends of other football players) as vain and catty and mean towards her, thinking that getting pregnant out of wedlock is a thing that tramps do... And many more things. Just horrible, all of it. But of course, Vanessa, our main character, is NOT like that. She's entitled to think of Aiden as hot and muscly and big and attractive because... well.... he's her husband, even if it's fake. And she's better than other WAGs because she's intelligent and she has a personality and isn't just gorgeous like they are, she's more than that. So yeah, we have a case of "I'm not like other girls" syndrome over here.
Next, we have the treatment of mental health in this book. It's... how to put it... disgusting. I get it, Vanessa needs to have a tragic backstory and that includes an addict mother and terrible sisters. However, the fact that there is no nuance when talking about addiction, and everything is just boiled down to "people make their own choices and bad choices means they're terrible people" is not my thing. And the fact that we get told repeatedly that Vanessa's sisters are horrible people because of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome... Not good.
And last but not least, let's get a bit into the WORST OF THE WORST parts of the book.
There is a scene in the book where Vanessa and Aiden are talking about their previous relationships and Aiden discloses to her that he had girlfriends in high school but hasn't since then dated anyone. Vanessa is baffled by this because it means Aiden hasn't had sex in years and she thinks that's weird and unnatural and so weird. The only way that Vanessa can understand this is if Aiden is religious. Which is just... Not only acephobic but stupid as fuck. People can without sex for a long time and that isn't strange at all.
However, if you think there is nothing that can be worse, let me tell you, you're wrong. Pages 348 and 349 of the book are some of the worst pages I've ever read in a romance book.
[Trigger warning for Sexual Assault]
The scene in question happens when Vanessa and Aiden are at a show in Vegas and he gets recognized and people ask to take pictures with him. During one of these encounters an older woman gropes Aiden non-consensually -she grabs his ass as they're posing for the photo- and Vanessa finds this is the most hilarious thing that has ever happened, even though Aiden is clearly very uncomfortable and hates it and asks her to please stop laughing. She somehow thinks that because Aiden is big and strong that means that it's funny when women sexually assault him because I guess he could just hit them if he wanted to and that must mean he could never be a victim. This is so repulsive and it doesn't just happen once because Vanessa seems to find it hilarious throughout the whole book that women never respect normal human boundaries with Aiden.
And yet, AND YET!!!!, Vanessa herself suffered from being a victim of non-consensual touching and kissing by one of Aiden's teammates and we're told clearly that she's a victim of this. But she has zero empathy for Aiden and the book distinctly sells the idea that men who suffer sexual assault can't be really victims. It's abhorrent.
So yeah, this review got a lot longer than I thought it would but obviously I had a lot to say about this book and most of it not good. I can believe this book was written by the same author as From Lukov With Love because their writing is practically a mirror, I simply cannot believe that it's the same author because the romance aspect of them and their characters are so different.
It's no secret that I absolutely adored From Lukov With Love and it became my favorite stand-alone romance book. I was so incredibly excited to have found Mariana Zapata, then, because I had heard that all her books were perfect examples of slow-burn romances and I thought they could have the potential of being as good as From Lukov With Love. But, obviously, I was very wrong, because I picked up her most famous and well-loved book and it absolutely disappointed me and even angered me a little bit.
There are many things I thought while reading this book and while I'm sure I'm going to forget many of them, here are some of the ones I actually wrote down as I was reading:
(warning for spoilers)
- Now that I've read two of Mariana Zapata's books, I can see that her writing style is very recognizable and I still find it refreshing because I love it more than I tend to like "traditional" romance writing. It's more descriptive than romance tends to be, which I love, and it has a lot of internal monologue from the main character. However, this book still shows some of the flaws that From Lukov With Love showed and while I could ignore them in that book because I was loving it, they just irked me more this time around.
Firstly, the expletives are just everywhere and they're so irritating. "The man who was my closest friend said." "The woman who I trusted with my life rolled her eyes." "The man who had the most delightful chest blinked." Just write names. Just. Freaking. Write. Names.
Secondly, the euphemisms used during the one sex scene were just... No. No. "His long pipe was hard." Horrible, just simply unsexy. I want to feel hot and bothered during smut scenes and using phrases like "his mushroomed tip entered me" makes me want to die of secondhand embarrassment. It might be that authors like this think that using straightforward words like "dick" and "cock" and "pussy" is crass but that just works so much better than trying to "beautify" it and ending up with words like "penis" and "my center" and "member".
Like I said, these were things that already happened in From Lukov With Love but I could ignore them in that book, and yet in this one they're so blatant and repetitive that it's impossible to not comment on them.
- Now, about the slow burn. I am the BIGGEST fan of the slowest of burns. And I mean sloooow. I mean several books long. And yet, it does not work here. At all. I'm sorry to bring up From Lukov With Loveall the time but it's just so easy to compare how interesting and well-developed that slow-burn was to how meandering and pointless this one seemed to be. By the end of the book I didn't feel like the relationship between the two characters -Vanessa and Aiden- had changed much and it did not convince me as to how they had fallen in love, even though the book had 672 pages to do so.
This coupled with the fact that the pace of the story was choppy at times -the scenes and chapters seemed not have any cohesion and connection-, made for a somewhat boring read. It didn't make me want to continue reading to see how the story advanced and how the romance progressed. There were no stakes at play and so I could have perfectly dropped the book at 75% and I would have been fine.
- I did not ship the characters at all. Not at all. Aiden was such a boring character, there was nothing appealing and compelling about him apart from how he was "incredibly hot". And I know that the grumpy guy thing is huge on romance novels but you can make a guy grumpy and still give him a personality. (Also not the biggest fan of a dude who can NEVER take no for an answer so not the biggest Aiden fan.)
And don't get me started on Vanessa.... What a dreadful heroine for a romance book, oh my god. I'll talk more about this in a bit.
- I started the book without knowing it had the Fake Relationship trope and let me just say this was the worst waste of the trope EVER. The story never once used any of the elements of the trope that make it so compelling -faking in front of other people, having to convince people you're in love, "forced" intimacy, etc- and when it did use them it did so boringly.
- The main character in this book describes the minions as cute. The minions. Cute. That's really all you need to know as to why I'm giving the story 2 stars.
- And now, the worst parts of the book. The ones that took it from "an average romance that I can rate 3 stars" to "a dumpster fire not deserving of so much hype".
The main character, and the book in general, is so misogynistic that it made me want to tear my hair out multiple times. A few examples of this -that won't actually cover the whole spectrum of it-: calling women "hookers" when they look at a guy that they find hot, Vanessa thinking of WAGS (the wives and girlfriends of other football players) as vain and catty and mean towards her, thinking that getting pregnant out of wedlock is a thing that tramps do... And many more things. Just horrible, all of it. But of course, Vanessa, our main character, is NOT like that. She's entitled to think of Aiden as hot and muscly and big and attractive because... well.... he's her husband, even if it's fake. And she's better than other WAGs because she's intelligent and she has a personality and isn't just gorgeous like they are, she's more than that. So yeah, we have a case of "I'm not like other girls" syndrome over here.
Next, we have the treatment of mental health in this book. It's... how to put it... disgusting. I get it, Vanessa needs to have a tragic backstory and that includes an addict mother and terrible sisters. However, the fact that there is no nuance when talking about addiction, and everything is just boiled down to "people make their own choices and bad choices means they're terrible people" is not my thing. And the fact that we get told repeatedly that Vanessa's sisters are horrible people because of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome... Not good.
And last but not least, let's get a bit into the WORST OF THE WORST parts of the book.
There is a scene in the book where Vanessa and Aiden are talking about their previous relationships and Aiden discloses to her that he had girlfriends in high school but hasn't since then dated anyone. Vanessa is baffled by this because it means Aiden hasn't had sex in years and she thinks that's weird and unnatural and so weird. The only way that Vanessa can understand this is if Aiden is religious. Which is just... Not only acephobic but stupid as fuck. People can without sex for a long time and that isn't strange at all.
However, if you think there is nothing that can be worse, let me tell you, you're wrong. Pages 348 and 349 of the book are some of the worst pages I've ever read in a romance book.
[Trigger warning for Sexual Assault]
The scene in question happens when Vanessa and Aiden are at a show in Vegas and he gets recognized and people ask to take pictures with him. During one of these encounters an older woman gropes Aiden non-consensually -she grabs his ass as they're posing for the photo- and Vanessa finds this is the most hilarious thing that has ever happened, even though Aiden is clearly very uncomfortable and hates it and asks her to please stop laughing. She somehow thinks that because Aiden is big and strong that means that it's funny when women sexually assault him because I guess he could just hit them if he wanted to and that must mean he could never be a victim. This is so repulsive and it doesn't just happen once because Vanessa seems to find it hilarious throughout the whole book that women never respect normal human boundaries with Aiden.
And yet, AND YET!!!!, Vanessa herself suffered from being a victim of non-consensual touching and kissing by one of Aiden's teammates and we're told clearly that she's a victim of this. But she has zero empathy for Aiden and the book distinctly sells the idea that men who suffer sexual assault can't be really victims. It's abhorrent.
So yeah, this review got a lot longer than I thought it would but obviously I had a lot to say about this book and most of it not good. I can believe this book was written by the same author as From Lukov With Love because their writing is practically a mirror, I simply cannot believe that it's the same author because the romance aspect of them and their characters are so different.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Misogyny
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
More...