A review by kitcat_reads
Those Three Little Words by Meghan Quinn

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.
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