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now_booking's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
This to me was very much on brand with the sort of captivating, deeply emotional, input downs or stories this author writes. Being new adult romance, this book amplified the general high key drama and messiness that characterize her work. Yet, even though this was difficult to put down, I struggled to be happy for the couple. Their age was a factor but also Marquis, repeated ain’t-ish behaviour and lies. The author is talented so she salvaged jt, but I was concerned about what this couple was taking on at such a young age given the trust and baggage they had, and for that reason, this was not believable to me, or if it was believable, I wasn’t settled about it.
The premise is that Keyara is a legally-blind freshman enrolled at the university where Marquis is the top dog quarterback senior headed for the NFL. A continuous mess up, Marquis’s father punishes his son by forcing him to be Keyara’s guide and while sparks of the wrong kind fly between the two initially, eventually the enemies become lovers but there’s a lot of baggage and obstacles to overcome.
The issue I had was that while I didn’t doubt that Marquis absolutely loved Keyara in a selfless way even, I doubt his judgment and level of responsibility. There were little things throughout the book that may have been continuity issues, but that bothered me as I read. For example, Marquis is the one that requests to make a video, but later he says Keyara was the one who asked. There’s a dismissiveness of the fact that Marquis’ father is the president of the university and actually says someone else will take his courses and then is upset that his son is irresponsible- how will he be responsible when he doesn’t even have to take his own classes. Like I know this is a thing for college athletes but then why was Marquis irritated that people didn’t think his father deserved to be the president of the school. There’s the whole “cheating to protect Keyara” part as well which I think was pretty annoying and ill-advised. This is also the second book by this author I’ve read where I felt like the transition from enemies to lovers was abrupt and lacked any build and thus, was kind of unbelievable. I don’t know… there were lots of niggling bits like this that I found bothersome like a stone in my shoe. Nonetheless, I really like this author’s writing and the way once you start, you can’t put her books down even though you’re yelling at the characters internally- like get your act together!!!! Continuing with the rest of her back list now.
Note there are lots of CWs in this and they’re in my Storygraph review.
The premise is that Keyara is a legally-blind freshman enrolled at the university where Marquis is the top dog quarterback senior headed for the NFL. A continuous mess up, Marquis’s father punishes his son by forcing him to be Keyara’s guide and while sparks of the wrong kind fly between the two initially, eventually the enemies become lovers but there’s a lot of baggage and obstacles to overcome.
The issue I had was that while I didn’t doubt that Marquis absolutely loved Keyara in a selfless way even, I doubt his judgment and level of responsibility. There were little things throughout the book that may have been continuity issues, but that bothered me as I read. For example, Marquis is the one that requests to make a video, but later he says Keyara was the one who asked. There’s a dismissiveness of the fact that Marquis’ father is the president of the university and actually says someone else will take his courses and then is upset that his son is irresponsible- how will he be responsible when he doesn’t even have to take his own classes. Like I know this is a thing for college athletes but then why was Marquis irritated that people didn’t think his father deserved to be the president of the school. There’s the whole “cheating to protect Keyara” part as well which I think was pretty annoying and ill-advised. This is also the second book by this author I’ve read where I felt like the transition from enemies to lovers was abrupt and lacked any build and thus, was kind of unbelievable. I don’t know… there were lots of niggling bits like this that I found bothersome like a stone in my shoe. Nonetheless, I really like this author’s writing and the way once you start, you can’t put her books down even though you’re yelling at the characters internally- like get your act together!!!! Continuing with the rest of her back list now.
Note there are lots of CWs in this and they’re in my Storygraph review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, Car accident, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Miscarriage, Grief, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Abortion, and Abandonment
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