Reviews with content warning for Cancer - Curves for Days

Happy publication day!

I would like to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks - Casablanca for providing me with a free e-ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

After winding up with $80 million from the lottery, Rose Barnes escapes the constant hounding from her old life in Indianapolis and finds herself in the town of Galway, North Carolina to start over. She gets herself some new friends and ends up hiring the local grump, Angus, to renovate her new home. Yet, as she tries to keep her winnings a secret and her relationship with Angus develops, she wonders if love can conquer all.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Curves for Days addresses some heavier topics. I encourage you all to check out my content warnings at the top of my review and decide whether this is a title to read or not.

Curves for Days is a delightful small town rom-com that you want to keep an eye on this summer. Moher is able to bring out all the Southern charm and hospitality that I love into book form. I really like the dual POV approach that Moher utilizes in Curves for Days and does a great job with creating authentic personalities for Rose and Angus. Though, I would have liked it better if the dual POV was separate into chapters instead of line breaks.

Rose and Angus are great MCs and I enjoyed rooting for them throughout the book. Both go through their own growth during the course of this book and I feel that Curves for Days does a great job with showing how their relationship strengthens due to their pasts.

I would definitely recommend Curves for Days to anyone looking for a fat-positive rom-com that has small town charm, such as Abby Jimenez’s Part of Your World, and grit, a la the Knockemout series by Lucy Score or if you’ve been searching for a secret millionaire rom-com.

Content Warnings

imskylow's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.0

Having won the lottery from a ticket she was gifted by a dying friend, everything in Rose Barnes life is turned upside down and sends her running away. She finds herself in a small town full of wonderful people and decides to stay, keeping her money a secret while she builds the humble life of her dreams. She quickly falls in love with her grumpy contractor who shows her curvy girls deserve love too. However, she keeps her money and the charity work uses it for a secret, hoping that her new home, friends, community, and love won’t change their opinion of her with the knowledge of it.

I gotta be honest, I love everything about this book except for the love interest, Angus, and his toxic masculinity. He really broke it for me. I was really hoping he’d have a big realization about how many of his beliefs are just plain wrong or hurtful and really change for the better. Had he done that, this book would have gotten five stars. Everything else about the book is so charming and sweet, I love all of the friends Rose makes in the small town of Galloway and the people that she helps with her money. All of this is soured by Angus’ and his failure to convincingly realize his toxic beliefs and show a legitimate change of heart.

I once watched a video of a couples therapist that mentioned the occupations of the men most likely to get divorced. She listed heroic jobs like firefighter, policemen, and doctors. Soldiers were also included. As Angus is a veteran and a counselor, I think it would have been nice if we could have seen the hero complex that is so interwoven into his character completely dismantled. It would have been great to see him to understand that he can’t help, fix or save everything on his own. Sometimes, he too, needs caring for. Instead, we find a man that is constantly trying to balance everything even when people are being kind to him out of love. All of his relationships are transactional and money focused. If he can’t balance interactions or pay back kindness immediately then he becomes rude. Rose buys him a meal, he tips the restaurant all the money back. She makes him coffee, he gets extremely pissy and refuses the offering— not drinking a single drop. Alternatively, he doesn’t mind showering others in his love even if they can’t pay him back. He’s perfectly happy paying for meals and groceries helping people with car trouble. At some point it starts to feel very sexist like Angus believes he has to be the breadwinner and take care of his woman and their joint needs. Obviously, when he comes to find out about Rose’s money, he doesn’t know what to do or how to process it. He feels absolutely worthless if he can’t bring his income to the table.

His plan was to save her from what he thought was money struggles. He was prepared to pay off all her debts but instead when he finds she has lots of money, he’s distraught.

Of course, Rose then ends up feeling bad about hurting him and apologizes for keeping her wealth under wraps— for good reason, might I add!! She does get annoyed that he thought their entire relationship was transactions, and I cheer as she argues how horrible that is. Ultimately the book ends soon when Angus realizes he’s too horny and feels bad about making her cry. He apologizes that he got upset and hurt her and the story ends.

‘Twas a completely unsatisfying amount of character development.

Sure, he can’t picture life without Rose but and she adores him but attraction does not a relationship make. I really wished they could have worked through their issues and had a legitimate breakthrough.

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