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A review by whit_lovesbooks
A Long Time Coming by Meghan Quinn
funny
lighthearted
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? No
2.0
Writing? good. Story? interesting. Romance? well…
This book disappointed me, and for no other reason than I really hate the sex. This is the second book I’ve read in a row in which the male love interest has been aggressive and domineering in the bedroom and sweet and cuddly outside the bedroom. I understand why writers like to do that, but it takes me OUT of the story so fast.
Breaker, the MMC, is SO SWEET for the first ~70% of the book. He’s unfailingly loyal and kind, and he treats Lia with so much respect that I was occasionally swooning from it all. Well before he realizes his feelings for her, it’s clear how much he loves her.
And then, at a significant part in the book, he realizes his feelings for her and takes full advantage of that the second Lia breaks up with her fiancée (for a reason that actually has nothing to do with Breaker, thank goodness).
I’d been patiently waiting for most of the book for the feelings reveal, and I was extremely disappointed with how it happened. In fact…it ruined the WHOLE character of Breaker for me.
She breaks up with her fiancée, he takes her back to his house, gets her all horned up and takes advantage of her sexually (using dominant language that I think is severely UNsexy)…and then when she expresses discomfort with it, he tells her over and over that “it’s okay”…which gave me heavy non-consensual vibes. She comes to terms with her feelings because she is essentially forced to. I was so confused about what was happening too because he would switch back to his sweet self after they would do whatever sexual thing. The switch between his sex self and his normal self kept giving me whiplash.
If I was Lia, I would not be okay with any of what he was doing. She technically was giving consent so it wasn’t ACTUALLY non-con, but the fact that he kept taking advantage of her emotions to initiate sex was, frankly, gross.
And, ya know, I wouldn’t have minded if I could skip the sex scenes…but the last ~20% of the book is mostly just sex, or sex adjacent. I ended up skipping a bunch, and then having to go back because I was missing context for what was going on.
This book was definitely…not for me. It wasn’t a bad book necessarily, but I’ve definitely realized that if a book has a sweet male main character, he absolutely cannot change up his personality when he’s horny or it ruins it for me. If sex turns a good guy into jackhole, it’s actually worse to me than if the guy had just started out as a jackhole. Kudos to this book though! It made sex seem extremely unappealing to me and effectively turned me off of the friends-to-lovers trope for a minute.
This book disappointed me, and for no other reason than I really hate the sex. This is the second book I’ve read in a row in which the male love interest has been aggressive and domineering in the bedroom and sweet and cuddly outside the bedroom. I understand why writers like to do that, but it takes me OUT of the story so fast.
Breaker, the MMC, is SO SWEET for the first ~70% of the book. He’s unfailingly loyal and kind, and he treats Lia with so much respect that I was occasionally swooning from it all. Well before he realizes his feelings for her, it’s clear how much he loves her.
And then, at a significant part in the book, he realizes his feelings for her and takes full advantage of that the second Lia breaks up with her fiancée (for a reason that actually has nothing to do with Breaker, thank goodness).
I’d been patiently waiting for most of the book for the feelings reveal, and I was extremely disappointed with how it happened. In fact…it ruined the WHOLE character of Breaker for me.
She breaks up with her fiancée, he takes her back to his house, gets her all horned up and takes advantage of her sexually (using dominant language that I think is severely UNsexy)…and then when she expresses discomfort with it, he tells her over and over that “it’s okay”…which gave me heavy non-consensual vibes. She comes to terms with her feelings because she is essentially forced to. I was so confused about what was happening too because he would switch back to his sweet self after they would do whatever sexual thing. The switch between his sex self and his normal self kept giving me whiplash.
If I was Lia, I would not be okay with any of what he was doing. She technically was giving consent so it wasn’t ACTUALLY non-con, but the fact that he kept taking advantage of her emotions to initiate sex was, frankly, gross.
And, ya know, I wouldn’t have minded if I could skip the sex scenes…but the last ~20% of the book is mostly just sex, or sex adjacent. I ended up skipping a bunch, and then having to go back because I was missing context for what was going on.
This book was definitely…not for me. It wasn’t a bad book necessarily, but I’ve definitely realized that if a book has a sweet male main character, he absolutely cannot change up his personality when he’s horny or it ruins it for me. If sex turns a good guy into jackhole, it’s actually worse to me than if the guy had just started out as a jackhole. Kudos to this book though! It made sex seem extremely unappealing to me and effectively turned me off of the friends-to-lovers trope for a minute.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content