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A review by findmeinunderland
Benched by Colleen Charles
Did not finish book. Stopped at 80%.
So bad i actually laughed my way through it. Well most of it.
1.) there is a scene where there is an attempted assault, I was getting through it just fine until the main character said something along the lines of “I don’t make a habit of putting myself into situations where I need to be rescued” or something as equally victim blame-y, disgusting. And then afterwards when a piece of the storyline revolved around people making her out to be a liar about the attack, the other characters regarded her assault in some weird rhetoric that was supposed to come off as progressive but in reality it just felt cheap.
2.) I feel like Adam was supposed to come off all charming in a “I’ll do anything to make you happy way” but he actually came off very chauvinistic in a “Feeling protective is how I know I love you cause I don’t really care what happens to other women” way, he talks about the man that tried to attack her like the reason drugging her was so offensive is because he had the audacity to do it to Julia. He had recalled a time when they were frat brothers (so very fitting) about how he had always found carter annoying cause he got away with everything cause he had a habit of slipping certain girls stuff to “skip the consent portion of his evenings” like it’s an irritating trait comparable to talking with one’s mouth full…like even in terms of her business and how she handled stress, his inner monologue consisted of insinuations that she couldn’t possibly take care of herself the way HE could take care of her.
3.) one of my favorite books is over 800 pages, while this genre doesn’t usually touch that range I’m not one to shy away from a large page count, this book was 260 pages and it still felt too long. I remember three distinct points of reading a half-way decent conclusion, to look down at the progress bar and see that I’m nowhere near finished. Three separate poorly written conflicts all with their own resolution. The dust would be completely settled, like to the point where we saw a resolution between the main antagonist and the MMC and they had agreed to peacefully coexist in the same town but to let each other move on, I look down and I have 20 pages left, I turn to the next one and the main antagonist has done something, again, worthy of a protective order. Just end the book already. Short books are fine, just stop. I made it to the 4th resurrection of the miscommunication trope before I DNF’d
1.) there is a scene where there is an attempted assault, I was getting through it just fine until the main character said something along the lines of “I don’t make a habit of putting myself into situations where I need to be rescued” or something as equally victim blame-y, disgusting. And then afterwards when a piece of the storyline revolved around people making her out to be a liar about the attack, the other characters regarded her assault in some weird rhetoric that was supposed to come off as progressive but in reality it just felt cheap.
2.) I feel like Adam was supposed to come off all charming in a “I’ll do anything to make you happy way” but he actually came off very chauvinistic in a “Feeling protective is how I know I love you cause I don’t really care what happens to other women” way, he talks about the man that tried to attack her like the reason drugging her was so offensive is because he had the audacity to do it to Julia. He had recalled a time when they were frat brothers (so very fitting) about how he had always found carter annoying cause he got away with everything cause he had a habit of slipping certain girls stuff to “skip the consent portion of his evenings” like it’s an irritating trait comparable to talking with one’s mouth full…like even in terms of her business and how she handled stress, his inner monologue consisted of insinuations that she couldn’t possibly take care of herself the way HE could take care of her.
3.) one of my favorite books is over 800 pages, while this genre doesn’t usually touch that range I’m not one to shy away from a large page count, this book was 260 pages and it still felt too long. I remember three distinct points of reading a half-way decent conclusion, to look down at the progress bar and see that I’m nowhere near finished. Three separate poorly written conflicts all with their own resolution. The dust would be completely settled, like to the point where we saw a resolution between the main antagonist and the MMC and they had agreed to peacefully coexist in the same town but to let each other move on, I look down and I have 20 pages left, I turn to the next one and the main antagonist has done something, again, worthy of a protective order. Just end the book already. Short books are fine, just stop. I made it to the 4th resurrection of the miscommunication trope before I DNF’d
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Drug abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Classism
Minor: Cancer