A review by readbooks_eatapples
Agave Kiss by Ann Aguirre

2.0

This was a disappointment. It’s the last in a series, so it had to go out with a bang I guess, but it felt more like being at a party that’s supposed to be Epic where everyone else gets a little too drunk, there’s an excess of drama and a couple of fistfights, and someone’s mom is tidying up while lecturing the whole time.

After the everyone-is-horny-for-Corine vibe earlier in the series, suddenly there’s a lot of “well actually” they’re just friends and she’s so totally devoted to Chance blah blah blah. I swear, I started feeling concerned for the author. Was she being blackmailed to write the story this way? Was she just so invested in her outline that she refused to let the story and characters evolve? It makes little sense to me. If you have to say repeatedly that there are no romantic feelings, that the obsession is love, it just comes across as denial either by the character or the author.

It was a bit boring and repetitive, but the writing is mostly good. It did need another couple of editing rounds to address the awkward overexplaining. This lost a star for me because of that.

This book is nine years old, now, which is apparently a very long time when you’ve lived through the past seven years or so. It feels like two dozen. Elements of this, particularly the relationship dynamics, are clearly rooted in the beforetimes.