Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Those Three Little Words

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Those Three Little Words by Meghan Quinn

36 reviews

shadowmaster13's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

3.5

Content Warnings

kb33's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

This book was a little funny, but it was also a little toxic. Penny does some stuff that definitely waves red flags, and blames it all on the pregnancy (yeah, not an excuse). The pranks were funny, though.

Content Warnings

kitcat_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

My Rating: 2.5 ⭐️ | 3 🌶️

Summary:

Eli Hornsby is a ladies man and known player on the Vancouver Agitators Professional Hockey Team. On his birthday, one of his teammates leaves him alone at a bar and then he see’s the woman he’s been crushing on for a couple years, Penny Lawes. Penny is kind, slightly shy, but also fun to be around. But she’s also Eli’s teammate & best friend’s sister. The sister Eli was told is, “Off limits”.

Penny knows Eli’s a player and never stays tied down to one woman. But yeah, she still thinks he’s hot and when they’re talking she really likes this guy and kinda forgets that’s one of her brother’s best friends and teammate. They hook up, but agree to one night only. And Penny’s brother cannot know anything! But five weeks later, this whole hook up get’s harder to hide with an unexpected pregnancy and Penny’s surprise notice to both her brother and the baby daddy at the same time!

Tropes:

x Brother’s Best Friend

x Teammate’s Sibling

x One Night Stand

x Accidental Pregnancy

x Forced Proximity

My Review:

This was a low star review for me because I stopped rooting for Penny about 40% in. It got harder to care about her as a character when she made poor choices, apologized after the fact, continued to make the same or similar choices and also blame her pregnancy hormones. No. Absolutely not. That’s a disservice to pregnant people everywhere. While the physical nature of pregnancy can be challenging and the emotional rollercoaster of managing this new normal is no small feat, to blame all Penny’s actions on the pregnancy (which is sure seemed like what was happening) is awful. And even if I’m interpreting that incorrectly, and there’s no blame to the hormonal changes of pregnancy, that means that as a character Penny is absolutely terrible.

Penny’s character starts off quirky, sweet, and shy. Kinda word-vomity in a cute over sharing way. But that takes an awful turn. She's a coward, weak, and chose to invite someone into her life for the rest of her life and doesn't take responsibility for her actions or emotions until after she hurts them or runs away. Toward the end of the book, I actively started praying for the demise of her character or a full lobotomy.

One such scene of awful Penny attitude: About 70% of the way in, we learn that Eli doesn't know when Penny’s bday is and no one tells him. So the day before her bday he has an interesting convo with her brother, doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, and ghosts Penny for a night. The next day, day of her bday, and her BFF texts Eli he’s awful and made Penny sad. Then Penny’s brother tells him it’s Penny’s bday how could not do anything for her. So he calls and no one answers. So how is he the bad guy in this situation? He may have shut her out the night before but really? Penny is such a problematic character.

We find out Eli has a slightly emotionally traumatic childhood and has a severe fear of abandonment. And Penny - even upon learning this - Abandons him every time she doubts his care for her.

For example she says “I love you” first and Eli doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t say it back but his actions have spoken more. But what does she do, the next day? She bolts. Doesn’t tell him where she’s going and, even though they’re on vacation together, she abandons him with nothing except a note. She flies out of the country to see her parents and meet up w/her brother’s GF only to get hurt and end up in the hospital.

Penny acts as though she’s entitled to not only Eli’s love but the vocal expression of the love without cause or reason. She also actively ignores

his past trauma

, gives short shrift to his caring and loving actions towards her, and assumes he doesn’t share her feelings because he doesn’t vocalize them like she does. She begrudgingly stays living with him because her friend convinces her

that his traumatic childhood is probably

why he may not verbally state “I love you”.

And while she stays in his apartment (he moves her & their things together there) she manages to destroy parts of the apartment and then go to dinner with his known rival.

This book had the potential to be super cute with Eli’s character being lovable, just needing to know or be shown love and Penny’s being slightly shy & quirky and learning to be comfortable with herself and learn/know her value and worth. Instead we get this awful FMC in Penny and a pushover with Eli.

Content Warnings

brittinyh3711's review

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Even better than the first book. It was hilarious! So much second hand embarrassment as well. Even made me tear up at the very end. Can’t wait to read the next book

Content Warnings

acethirtynine's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

The banter even between the hockey players wasn’t as good in this one - often the dialogue felt unrealistic and even though I know it’s written by a woman the dialogue between the female friends sometimes felt like a male fantasy of female friendship.

Content Warnings

ambercunningham's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

This book has some of my fav tropes but it was a miss for me. Maybe it’s because this was my first Quinn book and I’m not used to her writing style but…the dialogue in this was so cringe that I couldn’t get over it even though I liked the story. I hated Penny. Like girl get a grip damn

Content Warnings

marpaige's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

dkgreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was pretty funny, but also had a more emotional side. Penny’s pregnancy neurosis was fairly comical. I kinda wish we’d’ve spent a little more time unpacking Eli’s feelings though.

Content Warnings

brandee_cook's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

4.0

Good storyline and fun to read. Love the comedic relief throughout.

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional 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

3.0

I wanted to read this book because I loved Meghan Quinn’s Cane brothers’ series and was wanting to read more of her work. I loved hockey romances, and I enjoyed Pacey and Winnie’s story, but this book was so frustrated and just damn annoying and long for no reason.

This book has two points of view. The first is Penny Lawes, she is the baby sister of Pacey Lawes who we met in the first book. She works for the same hockey team as Pacey as the social media executive and she posts and makes Tiktok edits for the hockey team. Pacey has made it clear that she is untouchable – none of the hockey players can have her. Everyone knows this. But Pacey has especially told playboy hotshot Eli Hornsby to stay away from her. However, one night Penny is dragged on a night out by her best friend on Valentines Day and ended up leaving early. Eli asks Penny to stay out and to hang out with him on his birthday, Penny being slightly intoxicated gives in to her feeling that she’s always felt. However, she is determined not to sleep with him after she has been told in the past that she is bad in bed. Eli makes her confidence plus with a bit of liquid courage, she ends up sleeping with him and five weeks later, she finds out she’s pregnant. The second point of view is Eli Hornby, we met him in the first book. His family is his team, he doesn’t have any family. So, when his best mate’s little sister is pregnant, he will do anything to be in his child’s life. Once Pacey finds out he has knocked up his sister, threats were made, friendship were revoked and then he was marched up to her apartment, suitcases in hand and forced to live with her so he can take care of her every need. What Pacey didn’t know was that Eli had been wanting this girl since her first day and that the sex they had blew his night and he hasn’t stopped thinking about her. Eli wants to get his friendship back with Pacey, but with every mood swing, every pair of pants that don’t fit right and every late-night run to find the perfect donut, he is finding it harder and harder not to fall for his best friend’s sister especially when she kisses him again.

Again, as with the first book, I loved the bromance between the boys, and I would die for any of them. I love how they all call out each other’s bullshit and make sure they are responsible for the shit they do especially when they aren’t communicating correctly. I love how the boys came together to help them through the pregnancy and everything. I love that both Eli and Penny’s friends are like we are here to support you, you tell me what you want to do, and I'll do it. That was about it. I liked the lads. Eli’s trauma was so well-handled, and I loved his story and his arc.

I hate the pregnancy trope, especially one-night stand pregnancy. Penny drove me nuts, I wanted to punch her – pregnancy or not, she was a bitch, and she didn’t deserve the sweetheart that was Eli. She was extremely immature and pretty much just wanted to throw her rattle out the pram when she wasn’t getting her own well and then just winding up Eli for no good reason. Like Eli did everything to help her and she still wasn’t happy about it. Like be a single mum then, leave Eli alone. I hated the miscommunication, and the third-act conflict wasn’t needed at all. This book did not need to be so long for Penny to be such a pick-me and a child. This book should have been smaller than the first book and I would have preferred that compared to whatever the hell this one.

The boys in the cabin and the little snippets of what I hope the next book is saved it, otherwise it was going to be two stars. Poor Eli deserves better.

Content Warnings

More...