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A review by geekxgirl
Text 2 Lovers by J.D. Hollyfield, K Webster
1.0
This book was in short simply an OK read. It started out good. Entertaining but by about 30% or so things really became more clear and got worse as the book progressed. The blurb was so interesting too! Such a huge disappointment. [spoilers and ranting ahead]
I wasn't really feeling the heroine Dani aka Danielle. She was supposedly this altogether too nice human being who was quite the pushover and doormat because of said abundance of kindness. It was an endearing characteristic but it didn't quite add up to a likeable heroine. She was meek, shy, had little confidence, no backbone and was too naive. The author tried to make her stronger as the book progressed. I guess we were supposed to go on her journey to growing a damn backbone but I didn't like her either way.
Our hero Ram (I know, such a ridiculous sounding name) aka short for Ramsey! Ah ha, so the name was short for something! Yes, that is something that WAS surprising since the author didn't drop that nugget of knowledge on us until well past the 50% mark. Anyway, yeah so we have our hero Ram. Which by all accounts seemed a great guy from the beginning but definitely struggling with finding his feet after a bad firing from his previous job working at the same advertising firm with his older brother, Roman. There were many things about his plight I found myself relating to as a web and graphic designer, on top of the fact our hero suffered from depression. This for me was a little bit of a surprise. Apparently Ram had dealt with depression since his father passed away from cancer ten years before, and since he'd been fired it had been acting up and causing him insomnia. All these things I felt were very real, especially since I have been in those exact shoes that were described for Ram with his depression because of the death of a family member. So did it pull at my heartstrings a little bit? Yes.
But see, the thing about Ram? He went from a pretty good sounding dude, and then as Dani and him continued to text and talk things began to change, or maybe reveal themselves. Suddenly Ram felt like he was this possessive and almost obsessive guy. The possessiveness I can handle, and it was mostly still an attractive trait for him. That bit wasn't written poorly. However, the obsessive thing became a little weird. Even when they met and got together forreal he felt and even told Dani he was obsessed with her, which sure, I can understand how that could be cute if your super hot boyfriend whom you're really into told you that. But the problem here is it all lead to the fact that apparently Ram had become dependent on Dani for his happiness, even before they met in real life and began their relationship in truth.
I totally get that her sudden appearance in his life definitely lightened his world up and gave him something positive to focus on. She distracted him from his depressive thoughts and made him laugh. All things I TOTALLY understand. It's just that it felt a little bit unhealthy to me the more I kept reading. Especially so when the big disruption happened and Dani, taking a page from her best friend Andie's playbook, reacted spectacularly dramatic about it and ended things with him. Because guess what happened after that? He got depressed again (although it never truly goes away) and wasn't eating or showering and again, not sleeping. Dani of course refused to speak to him, and BFF Andie was so helpfully keeping her phone and responding to anything he texted to Dani with asshole replies. Thus leading to Roman bringing in their younger sister Reagan to try to pull him back out of the darkness.
==PAUSE==
Side note here, it also felt like that the author used Ram's depression as a device. Maybe I'm sensitive to the subject since I suffer from it, but it really did feel that way. Especially when he seemed pretty okay and happy most of the book until Dani broke up with him, then we're shown this ugly side of how much he placed his happiness in the hands of another person. It was pretty annoying if I'm honest. None of it was shown in a healthy light. Didn't help that the depression was like a aside most of the book since Dani didn't even find out about it from Ram but from his mother. SIGH
==PAUSE==
And guess what? All it takes is a drunken phone call that Dani apparently answered from him without saying anything in return other than a "sob" (although this happened from Ram's POV and was never acknowledged from Dani's) and his baby sister talking to her. Then Dani decides to FINALLY talk to him about why she threw a tantrum (long story about him "lying" which was more by omission that she never asked and he didn't want to throw it out there because he was embarrassed sort of thing. Big neon sign in the SHE DOESN'T TRUST HIM DEPARTMENT. Could've just, gee, I don't know! TALKED TO HIM AND HAD HIM EXPLAIN!?) and broke up with him. And low and behold she just goes to his apartment, gets him off the floor, puts him to bed and they hold each other while he finally explains what caused her to freak out and suddenly everything is just fine and dandy because Dani came back to him and he realized he hadn't lost his freaking smile. And he could sleep again. LOL
Honestly, people! These two just became ridiculous (I'm using that word a lot in this review) as the book continued. Dani was 25 and he was supposedly 30, and I say supposedly because the way he spoke/acted sometimes came off college-aged.
And another flaw in the story was HOW THE HELL did Ram afford to take her on those dates? Or buy the plane tickets he mentioned in his thoughts for a trip some place she loved (can't remember) ???? He wasn't making much money or at all and mentioned early on in the book how his brother Roman was covering his half of the rent for the house they shared. NO SENSE.
And last but not least we had to deal with Dani's best friend, Andie aka Andrea. Andie was ridiculous. And I mean that in the WORST way. First impression of Andie had me laughing and thinking this woman is fantastically bold and doesn't give a flying fuck at all and it was entertaining. At first. As the story goes on we see obviously see Andie a ton more throughout and truth be told it's easy to realize this character we so enjoyed at the beginning was quite the immature woman with some serious issues on how to treat another human being. There was seriously so much wrong with how she treated the Ram's older brother Roman. That in and of itself, having Andie and Roman get together was a total cliche and uncreative in my opinion.
Roman actually seemed like the most rational and sensible character by the end of the book. Even after seeing all the crap he chose to deal with by chasing after Andie. But Andie was an absolute PIECE OF WORK. I'm not kidding when I say that woman had ISSUES. And when I say she was an asshole, I mean that wholeheartedly. Not "that girl was a bitch," no way, buddy. I mean it when I say asshole. Bitch was too tame a word for her. She was a volatile human being who treated others like shit and thought she had the right to physically put her hands on someone for angering her or doing what she thought was a wrong to her. The fact Roman kept coming back to her was astounding to me.
And by the end of the book we were forced to be in Andie's POV for the next to last chapter, then Roman's in the epilogue because their book is next in this supposed series. That ruined it for me. Keep the epilogue POV's to the main characters of the story I just read, please!
The only up side of finishing this book was the insults Andie and Roman traded back and forth the few times they hung out with Dani and Ram. Most entertaining thing in the whole book.
I wasn't really feeling the heroine Dani aka Danielle. She was supposedly this altogether too nice human being who was quite the pushover and doormat because of said abundance of kindness. It was an endearing characteristic but it didn't quite add up to a likeable heroine. She was meek, shy, had little confidence, no backbone and was too naive. The author tried to make her stronger as the book progressed. I guess we were supposed to go on her journey to growing a damn backbone but I didn't like her either way.
Our hero Ram (I know, such a ridiculous sounding name) aka short for Ramsey! Ah ha, so the name was short for something! Yes, that is something that WAS surprising since the author didn't drop that nugget of knowledge on us until well past the 50% mark. Anyway, yeah so we have our hero Ram. Which by all accounts seemed a great guy from the beginning but definitely struggling with finding his feet after a bad firing from his previous job working at the same advertising firm with his older brother, Roman. There were many things about his plight I found myself relating to as a web and graphic designer, on top of the fact our hero suffered from depression. This for me was a little bit of a surprise. Apparently Ram had dealt with depression since his father passed away from cancer ten years before, and since he'd been fired it had been acting up and causing him insomnia. All these things I felt were very real, especially since I have been in those exact shoes that were described for Ram with his depression because of the death of a family member. So did it pull at my heartstrings a little bit? Yes.
But see, the thing about Ram? He went from a pretty good sounding dude, and then as Dani and him continued to text and talk things began to change, or maybe reveal themselves. Suddenly Ram felt like he was this possessive and almost obsessive guy. The possessiveness I can handle, and it was mostly still an attractive trait for him. That bit wasn't written poorly. However, the obsessive thing became a little weird. Even when they met and got together forreal he felt and even told Dani he was obsessed with her, which sure, I can understand how that could be cute if your super hot boyfriend whom you're really into told you that. But the problem here is it all lead to the fact that apparently Ram had become dependent on Dani for his happiness, even before they met in real life and began their relationship in truth.
I totally get that her sudden appearance in his life definitely lightened his world up and gave him something positive to focus on. She distracted him from his depressive thoughts and made him laugh. All things I TOTALLY understand. It's just that it felt a little bit unhealthy to me the more I kept reading. Especially so when the big disruption happened and Dani, taking a page from her best friend Andie's playbook, reacted spectacularly dramatic about it and ended things with him. Because guess what happened after that? He got depressed again (although it never truly goes away) and wasn't eating or showering and again, not sleeping. Dani of course refused to speak to him, and BFF Andie was so helpfully keeping her phone and responding to anything he texted to Dani with asshole replies. Thus leading to Roman bringing in their younger sister Reagan to try to pull him back out of the darkness.
==PAUSE==
Side note here, it also felt like that the author used Ram's depression as a device. Maybe I'm sensitive to the subject since I suffer from it, but it really did feel that way. Especially when he seemed pretty okay and happy most of the book until Dani broke up with him, then we're shown this ugly side of how much he placed his happiness in the hands of another person. It was pretty annoying if I'm honest. None of it was shown in a healthy light. Didn't help that the depression was like a aside most of the book since Dani didn't even find out about it from Ram but from his mother. SIGH
==PAUSE==
And guess what? All it takes is a drunken phone call that Dani apparently answered from him without saying anything in return other than a "sob" (although this happened from Ram's POV and was never acknowledged from Dani's) and his baby sister talking to her. Then Dani decides to FINALLY talk to him about why she threw a tantrum (long story about him "lying" which was more by omission that she never asked and he didn't want to throw it out there because he was embarrassed sort of thing. Big neon sign in the SHE DOESN'T TRUST HIM DEPARTMENT. Could've just, gee, I don't know! TALKED TO HIM AND HAD HIM EXPLAIN!?) and broke up with him. And low and behold she just goes to his apartment, gets him off the floor, puts him to bed and they hold each other while he finally explains what caused her to freak out and suddenly everything is just fine and dandy because Dani came back to him and he realized he hadn't lost his freaking smile. And he could sleep again. LOL
Honestly, people! These two just became ridiculous (I'm using that word a lot in this review) as the book continued. Dani was 25 and he was supposedly 30, and I say supposedly because the way he spoke/acted sometimes came off college-aged.
And another flaw in the story was HOW THE HELL did Ram afford to take her on those dates? Or buy the plane tickets he mentioned in his thoughts for a trip some place she loved (can't remember) ???? He wasn't making much money or at all and mentioned early on in the book how his brother Roman was covering his half of the rent for the house they shared. NO SENSE.
And last but not least we had to deal with Dani's best friend, Andie aka Andrea. Andie was ridiculous. And I mean that in the WORST way. First impression of Andie had me laughing and thinking this woman is fantastically bold and doesn't give a flying fuck at all and it was entertaining. At first. As the story goes on we see obviously see Andie a ton more throughout and truth be told it's easy to realize this character we so enjoyed at the beginning was quite the immature woman with some serious issues on how to treat another human being. There was seriously so much wrong with how she treated the Ram's older brother Roman. That in and of itself, having Andie and Roman get together was a total cliche and uncreative in my opinion.
Roman actually seemed like the most rational and sensible character by the end of the book. Even after seeing all the crap he chose to deal with by chasing after Andie. But Andie was an absolute PIECE OF WORK. I'm not kidding when I say that woman had ISSUES. And when I say she was an asshole, I mean that wholeheartedly. Not "that girl was a bitch," no way, buddy. I mean it when I say asshole. Bitch was too tame a word for her. She was a volatile human being who treated others like shit and thought she had the right to physically put her hands on someone for angering her or doing what she thought was a wrong to her. The fact Roman kept coming back to her was astounding to me.
And by the end of the book we were forced to be in Andie's POV for the next to last chapter, then Roman's in the epilogue because their book is next in this supposed series. That ruined it for me. Keep the epilogue POV's to the main characters of the story I just read, please!
The only up side of finishing this book was the insults Andie and Roman traded back and forth the few times they hung out with Dani and Ram. Most entertaining thing in the whole book.