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A review by rosska22
Stay with Me by S.E. Harmon
3.0
I wanted to strangle Mac for practically this entire book. Jordan was equally as frustrating, in all the opposite ways.
There were weird plot pacing issues (mainly, the plot was, shall we say, lacking) and I was NEVER clear on how old Mac was supposed to be. He talked about being a cop like he'd done it for ages, and his younger brother is old enough to be the father of a teenager, but then Mac says something about being "nearly 30" and I had to put the book down and try and puzzle through a timeline on that one. I never figured it out. I'm SUPER unclear on the time-span this book takes place. Is it weeks? Is it months? I have no idea. Mac meets Jordan, within (2?) weeks has gone to his house for a backyard party, is mad that Jordan doesn't seem into cheating on his fiancee, makes it all about Jordan being homophobic, and then throws a hissy fit when he gets what he wants. There's some sort of time jump wherein Jordan and Mac have been "seeing each other" for "a few weeks". During that time, Jordan Messy, hard to follow, and overall distressing.
This read a little bit like the author watched a lot of Suits and a lot of Burn Notice and then thought "you know...I could do that." I kept expecting there to be some sort of plot point that kept drawing them together, but there was a barely visible "Mac following Rachel" thing that sort of...puttered out. The book was really just the reader following Mac around while he moped and lashed out and had a lot of sex. That would be fine, if Mac were at all likable, reasonable, or had a coherent narrative structure to his person.
There were weird plot pacing issues (mainly, the plot was, shall we say, lacking) and I was NEVER clear on how old Mac was supposed to be. He talked about being a cop like he'd done it for ages, and his younger brother is old enough to be the father of a teenager, but then Mac says something about being "nearly 30" and I had to put the book down and try and puzzle through a timeline on that one. I never figured it out. I'm SUPER unclear on the time-span this book takes place. Is it weeks? Is it months? I have no idea. Mac meets Jordan, within (2?) weeks has gone to his house for a backyard party, is mad that Jordan doesn't seem into cheating on his fiancee, makes it all about Jordan being homophobic, and then throws a hissy fit when he gets what he wants. There's some sort of time jump wherein Jordan and Mac have been "seeing each other" for "a few weeks". During that time, Jordan
Spoiler
apparently breaks up with Rachel, which gets NO screen time or discussion. I was in fact under the impression that he was still engaged to her the whole time he was seeing Mac until and offhand comment at nearly the end of the book.This read a little bit like the author watched a lot of Suits and a lot of Burn Notice and then thought "you know...I could do that." I kept expecting there to be some sort of plot point that kept drawing them together, but there was a barely visible "Mac following Rachel" thing that sort of...puttered out. The book was really just the reader following Mac around while he moped and lashed out and had a lot of sex. That would be fine, if Mac were at all likable, reasonable, or had a coherent narrative structure to his person.