hrector's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
caroiline's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Racism, Sexual violence, and Police brutality
Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Gun violence
thebookybabe's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
cmd2010's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
courtneyvbooks's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Police brutality, and Racism
Moderate: Alcoholism, Gun violence, and Sexual assault
Minor: Drug use and Rape
mirandao78's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this but I’ve been wracking my brain as to why I didn’t love it. I love slow burn romances so I feel like I should love Kennedy Ryan’s books…and I think the difference for comes down to preference. I prefer my slow burns to be more of a gradual building in the relationship, where as with her books (including this one) the love is there pretty quickly, and then you just get tortured forever with the angst and waiting for them to get together and over come their conflicts. Do while I always enjoy her books and characters, I just prefer a different type of slow burn, in order to love it.
chelseyrothwell's review against another edition
3.0
A friend recommended this one and I struggled to get through it. I almost DNFd it at 30% it picked up about halfway but still barely held my interest. I just didn’t like the FMC at all so it wAs hard to get into the story!
yessikachu's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
after living through, supporting and being educated by 2020 blm from the collective outrage of the police killing of george floyd and every instance of police brutality on the black american community that followed, especially in light of the rising police presence in new york that is already severely affecting marginalised identities eg the unhoused and black communities — reading this book in general and consuming the lyrics of main character marlon ‘grip’ james’ hit song ‘bruise’ in specific was impossibly difficult to swallow. the lines “don’t blue lives need to matter?” still rattles in my brain and i do not know where to put it that it won’t burn.
this was specifically exacerbated by the fact that bristol gray is in fact “that white bitch” and she was not beating the “that white bitch” allegations when she “snorts disbelievingly” at grip being pulled over for no reason and fucking humiliated in the name of a routine search because she could not comprehend that racism is a sociopolitical issue so rampant and normalised dwb is a thing when the american police literally came from slave patrols and night watchers. she could have known that if she was not so busy being in denial and had picked up a fucking book.
bristol was also not beating the “that white bitch” allegations by not understanding the reclamation of the n word (and expressing her disagreement on its reclaiming as if she is of any position to decide what an entire group of people unrelated to her would find to be empowering??she can go fuck herself for real. corpse can come for me i ain’t scared) and was literally proving the allegations when her immediate response to the black panther was to question their violence: “Weren’t they violent?” I ask carefully. “Like ‘blowing up things’ violent?” and this honestly drove me up a wall because it is such a privilege to be able to live in a violent world and not have violence be a proportionate answer.
the reason why bristol gray being such a privileged white woman exacerbated the issue of this book was that if he was so vehement about his community and identity the way it was described to be then he wouldn’t have been able to have been in love with her for 8 fucking years because that one week of some childish notion of love would have been grown out of him with age. but it didn’t. instead he wrote cop sympathiser anthem ‘bruise’ where i cannot possibly not question how that wasn’t a blue lives apologist slap in the fucking face.
the overall energy was very centrist blue apologist core and that inherently contradicted grip’s entire defence against the felt betrayal of his community in specific and the black american community in general as described by the book. because the truth is blue lives don’t matter. this is not because cops are not people but because cops are jobs. they are sources of employment. blue is removable and changeable. black is a racial identity. black is permanent and unchanging. blue lives don’t need to matter and frankly blue lives shouldn’t matter because if you weren’t cops you could be engineers and service workers and teachers and painters and writers and standup comedians. you can stop being apart of the blue lives brotherhood at any time. you can never stop being black. and you shouldn’t fucking have to. we live in a world where people can be defined by more than their job but we also live under such extreme white supremacy that we are always first and foremost defined by the colour of our skin and the racial ethnic identity that colour may dictate.
it is insane to even compare because saying black lives matter is saying you do not stand for the police sanctioned violence against black people on prejudice. saying blue lives matter is saying you don’t give a fuck about the fact that innocent adults elders and children die from racialised discrimination and profiling over a job. you can always get a new job. we cannot bring back the people whose lives were taken. like that was a whole fucking person in fact it has been so many fucking people and you’re telling me that is beneath someone’s job significance? have you no heart? have you no goddamn respect?
and grip of all fictional characters wanna tell me that harmony of the two communities is the solution when you cannot rehabilitate something that is not broken (it only seems broken when in actuality its job is the awful thing it does like profile black and brown children to be ‘thugs’ or poor children to be ‘thieves’ when they are literally just children) you can only abolish it.
the other issue is the american police system is objectively bad at doing their job, they don’t solve crimes, they don’t protect civilians, the power given to them are abused under racial gender and sexuality based prejudices which makes them the literal danger, their overpolicing is how a lot of gangs rise up to doll out ‘protection’ and ‘justice’ for police untrusting towns / cities which they use to justify more police brutality, they are extremely undertrained and unbelievably overfunded. i can in fact go on. the way that grip is described to be so well read and intelligent is so confounding to m in face of this song because it is such a naive and ultimately unrealistic idea to believe that harmony between the black and blue community is somehow the answer when the blue community was founded and is run on the oppression, control and (threats of) abuse of the black community.
i really didn’t think it was possible for grip to be so credulously gullible.
all of this is to say that the politics of this book and its main character grip was so toothless in its fairytale dreamland fantasy. in that all grip is talking about is a purely aesthetic movement and will bring ultimately no change his neighbourhood’s subjugation to police brutality. in that all grip is talking about is entirely aesthetic because harmony between the abused and the abusing system cannot be achieved. in that it is a band-aid solution and a bandaid would drown in the blood of a wound that deep. in that it is so performative and near sighted in its vision, it is at best appeasement and at worse a coverup catalyst.
i frankly cannot believe that ms james would allow for that. she said she would call out his shit if it was weak. i am beginning to doubt that.
considering that this book was marketed to be a romance, let’s talk romance. the basis of every romance is connection and the connection between grip and bristol was supposedly explosive. which i found to be very strange considering that in my consumption of flow this connection was not at all significant to m in the slightest. and honestly where should it have fit?
between her ignorance on racial issues that she could have known but choose not be educated about because her racial privileges made sure that she would never have to experience that kind of dehumanisation vs his lived and extremely personal experience since an impressionable young age that now colours his actions and worldview?
between the both of them trauma dumping on each other but calling it bonding and the both of them very young, clinging onto the idea of each other, of the first person they could have an easy click with?
between her feeling betrayed when she has known him a week then scared and paranoid and in denial for the next EIGHT FUCKING YEARS because of something he didn’t even do vs him obsessing over someone he barely got to know in a week for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS because of some misguided young adult promise of love??
the very basis of their attraction for one another was entirely delusional and i am not speaking from a you-can’t-have-serious-feelings-at-a-young-age/quickly mentality. i am speaking from a you-know-nothing-about-each-other-what-was-there-to-love mentality. which is also known as being realistic.
and everything that came after was built on this delusion. of course a lot of the things they fell for in each other was true. he is talented. she is passionately family oriented. however, this doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a delusion.
if anything i would argue that it supports the delusion argument even further in light of the fact that every feeling they had for each other that was not established years after was entirely built on the backbone of their personal issues. eg she loves him because he never tries to stamp out her curiosity giving her his time without condition and this would have been such a great thing had she not been deprived of emotional support her entire fucking life.
the reason why they made such a significant impact on each other that one week in flow was not because they were perfect for each other (that is something earnt. grow up. you don’t actually believe people were made right for each other as if relationships do not require dedicated hard work and volition do you?) but because their trauma slotted together as if a fuckedup delusional jigsaw monster. this is not a relationship make.
this is an obsession and you could reasonably take in my arguments or you could just believe them! it’s not as though they don’t take every given opportunity to affirm this insane and unjustifiable obsession like when bristol was setting grip up to be with qwest like some pimp or when grip was with qwest and again when she was set up by parker to make it seem as though they had sex when she was literally unconscious and again when grip was set up and sent to jail,,,, i can keep going. i could also clarify that obsession is not love and can never be love as you do not choose your obsessions and love requires enthusiastic consent for love related behaviours — but i won’t actually because i am just assuming that if you’re reading this, you’re grown. and should already known that from like,, common sense.
⭐️ was for what i think to be kennedy ryan’s greatest strength which is the very realistic and incredible portrayal of certain sociopolitical conditions or conversations. this is seen in many other books by kennedy ryan such as long shot’s portrayal of domestics abuse and violence which i think did adequate justice for the space it was given / hook shot’s conversations on religion being centered around people first and foremost before all these sociopolitical barriers that divides faiths and practices.
in this book specifically it was 1) the portrayal of childhood trauma and familial divide being driven by the overpolicing and police brutality of which grip’s childhood neighbourhood was subjected (the centering of which was redirected by ‘bruise’ into some fairytale gutter).
2) the conversations surrounding black men choosing white women over black women and the way that misogynoir is perpetuated by black men especially those in entertainment and sport industries who came up in the world on the backs of single black mothers (was entirely undermined by grip and bristol’s relationship because she is in fact “that white bitch” and their relationship is 100% delusion fuelled by the magical powers of lust).
in conclusion, grip as a book had three main areas of focus: being black in america, interracial relationships and music the concept work and industry. i have mentioned sufficient upsets i believe over these topics. i do however believe that if kennedy ryan just wrote fiction instead of romance fiction all of these would have been incredible. had she sat down and wrote this book under the lense of this is how it would have worked out and that is the disappointing reality of it — i would have ate it up and leave no crumbs. however, the romantic lens in which these heavy topics are discussed and portrayed is both: a disservice to the weight and value of these subjects; but also a series of missed opportunities on kennedy ryan’s part for had she let go of this high quantity low quality romantic pursuit she could actually do what she is good at and write books where these portrayals are not sitting duck for the eventual demolition of having the main characters cum one time.
this was specifically exacerbated by the fact that bristol gray is in fact “that white bitch” and she was not beating the “that white bitch” allegations when she “snorts disbelievingly” at grip being pulled over for no reason and fucking humiliated in the name of a routine search because she could not comprehend that racism is a sociopolitical issue so rampant and normalised dwb is a thing when the american police literally came from slave patrols and night watchers. she could have known that if she was not so busy being in denial and had picked up a fucking book.
bristol was also not beating the “that white bitch” allegations by not understanding the reclamation of the n word (and expressing her disagreement on its reclaiming as if she is of any position to decide what an entire group of people unrelated to her would find to be empowering??she can go fuck herself for real. corpse can come for me i ain’t scared) and was literally proving the allegations when her immediate response to the black panther was to question their violence: “Weren’t they violent?” I ask carefully. “Like ‘blowing up things’ violent?” and this honestly drove me up a wall because it is such a privilege to be able to live in a violent world and not have violence be a proportionate answer.
the reason why bristol gray being such a privileged white woman exacerbated the issue of this book was that if he was so vehement about his community and identity the way it was described to be then he wouldn’t have been able to have been in love with her for 8 fucking years because that one week of some childish notion of love would have been grown out of him with age. but it didn’t. instead he wrote cop sympathiser anthem ‘bruise’ where i cannot possibly not question how that wasn’t a blue lives apologist slap in the fucking face.
the overall energy was very centrist blue apologist core and that inherently contradicted grip’s entire defence against the felt betrayal of his community in specific and the black american community in general as described by the book. because the truth is blue lives don’t matter. this is not because cops are not people but because cops are jobs. they are sources of employment. blue is removable and changeable. black is a racial identity. black is permanent and unchanging. blue lives don’t need to matter and frankly blue lives shouldn’t matter because if you weren’t cops you could be engineers and service workers and teachers and painters and writers and standup comedians. you can stop being apart of the blue lives brotherhood at any time. you can never stop being black. and you shouldn’t fucking have to. we live in a world where people can be defined by more than their job but we also live under such extreme white supremacy that we are always first and foremost defined by the colour of our skin and the racial ethnic identity that colour may dictate.
it is insane to even compare because saying black lives matter is saying you do not stand for the police sanctioned violence against black people on prejudice. saying blue lives matter is saying you don’t give a fuck about the fact that innocent adults elders and children die from racialised discrimination and profiling over a job. you can always get a new job. we cannot bring back the people whose lives were taken. like that was a whole fucking person in fact it has been so many fucking people and you’re telling me that is beneath someone’s job significance? have you no heart? have you no goddamn respect?
and grip of all fictional characters wanna tell me that harmony of the two communities is the solution when you cannot rehabilitate something that is not broken (it only seems broken when in actuality its job is the awful thing it does like profile black and brown children to be ‘thugs’ or poor children to be ‘thieves’ when they are literally just children) you can only abolish it.
the other issue is the american police system is objectively bad at doing their job, they don’t solve crimes, they don’t protect civilians, the power given to them are abused under racial gender and sexuality based prejudices which makes them the literal danger, their overpolicing is how a lot of gangs rise up to doll out ‘protection’ and ‘justice’ for police untrusting towns / cities which they use to justify more police brutality, they are extremely undertrained and unbelievably overfunded. i can in fact go on. the way that grip is described to be so well read and intelligent is so confounding to m in face of this song because it is such a naive and ultimately unrealistic idea to believe that harmony between the black and blue community is somehow the answer when the blue community was founded and is run on the oppression, control and (threats of) abuse of the black community.
i really didn’t think it was possible for grip to be so credulously gullible.
all of this is to say that the politics of this book and its main character grip was so toothless in its fairytale dreamland fantasy. in that all grip is talking about is a purely aesthetic movement and will bring ultimately no change his neighbourhood’s subjugation to police brutality. in that all grip is talking about is entirely aesthetic because harmony between the abused and the abusing system cannot be achieved. in that it is a band-aid solution and a bandaid would drown in the blood of a wound that deep. in that it is so performative and near sighted in its vision, it is at best appeasement and at worse a coverup catalyst.
i frankly cannot believe that ms james would allow for that. she said she would call out his shit if it was weak. i am beginning to doubt that.
considering that this book was marketed to be a romance, let’s talk romance. the basis of every romance is connection and the connection between grip and bristol was supposedly explosive. which i found to be very strange considering that in my consumption of flow this connection was not at all significant to m in the slightest. and honestly where should it have fit?
between her ignorance on racial issues that she could have known but choose not be educated about because her racial privileges made sure that she would never have to experience that kind of dehumanisation vs his lived and extremely personal experience since an impressionable young age that now colours his actions and worldview?
between the both of them trauma dumping on each other but calling it bonding and the both of them very young, clinging onto the idea of each other, of the first person they could have an easy click with?
between her feeling betrayed when she has known him a week then scared and paranoid and in denial for the next EIGHT FUCKING YEARS because of something he didn’t even do vs him obsessing over someone he barely got to know in a week for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS because of some misguided young adult promise of love??
the very basis of their attraction for one another was entirely delusional and i am not speaking from a you-can’t-have-serious-feelings-at-a-young-age/quickly mentality. i am speaking from a you-know-nothing-about-each-other-what-was-there-to-love mentality. which is also known as being realistic.
and everything that came after was built on this delusion. of course a lot of the things they fell for in each other was true. he is talented. she is passionately family oriented. however, this doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a delusion.
if anything i would argue that it supports the delusion argument even further in light of the fact that every feeling they had for each other that was not established years after was entirely built on the backbone of their personal issues. eg she loves him because he never tries to stamp out her curiosity giving her his time without condition and this would have been such a great thing had she not been deprived of emotional support her entire fucking life.
the reason why they made such a significant impact on each other that one week in flow was not because they were perfect for each other (that is something earnt. grow up. you don’t actually believe people were made right for each other as if relationships do not require dedicated hard work and volition do you?) but because their trauma slotted together as if a fuckedup delusional jigsaw monster. this is not a relationship make.
this is an obsession and you could reasonably take in my arguments or you could just believe them! it’s not as though they don’t take every given opportunity to affirm this insane and unjustifiable obsession like when bristol was setting grip up to be with qwest like some pimp or when grip was with qwest and again when she was set up by parker to make it seem as though they had sex when she was literally unconscious and again when grip was set up and sent to jail,,,, i can keep going. i could also clarify that obsession is not love and can never be love as you do not choose your obsessions and love requires enthusiastic consent for love related behaviours — but i won’t actually because i am just assuming that if you’re reading this, you’re grown. and should already known that from like,, common sense.
⭐️ was for what i think to be kennedy ryan’s greatest strength which is the very realistic and incredible portrayal of certain sociopolitical conditions or conversations. this is seen in many other books by kennedy ryan such as long shot’s portrayal of domestics abuse and violence which i think did adequate justice for the space it was given / hook shot’s conversations on religion being centered around people first and foremost before all these sociopolitical barriers that divides faiths and practices.
in this book specifically it was 1) the portrayal of childhood trauma and familial divide being driven by the overpolicing and police brutality of which grip’s childhood neighbourhood was subjected (the centering of which was redirected by ‘bruise’ into some fairytale gutter).
2) the conversations surrounding black men choosing white women over black women and the way that misogynoir is perpetuated by black men especially those in entertainment and sport industries who came up in the world on the backs of single black mothers (was entirely undermined by grip and bristol’s relationship because she is in fact “that white bitch” and their relationship is 100% delusion fuelled by the magical powers of lust).
in conclusion, grip as a book had three main areas of focus: being black in america, interracial relationships and music the concept work and industry. i have mentioned sufficient upsets i believe over these topics. i do however believe that if kennedy ryan just wrote fiction instead of romance fiction all of these would have been incredible. had she sat down and wrote this book under the lense of this is how it would have worked out and that is the disappointing reality of it — i would have ate it up and leave no crumbs. however, the romantic lens in which these heavy topics are discussed and portrayed is both: a disservice to the weight and value of these subjects; but also a series of missed opportunities on kennedy ryan’s part for had she let go of this high quantity low quality romantic pursuit she could actually do what she is good at and write books where these portrayals are not sitting duck for the eventual demolition of having the main characters cum one time.
danireads1225's review against another edition
5.0
Grip!!! ❤❤❤❤. I loved this book. Yes, it's a romance, but there's so much more added to it. An old fashioned mom who doesn't necessarily like an inter-racial couple. A white girl who loves her man but doesn't necessarily understand the black culture. This book warmed my heart for so many reasons. The race aspect was written beautifully, as was the rest of the story.