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A review by indiekay
P.S. I Spook You by S.E. Harmon
2.0
I was very conflicted with this one. And about 60% in I was VERY tempted to DNF it, but I pushed through because I wanted to hear the end of the ghost and murder case plot lines. But I REALLY wasn't invested in the romance plot line.
Things I liked about this book:
1) I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a good job
2) Rain's inner-voice is fun. I like his constant use of pop culture references and his sarcasm. He's a likeable protagonist.
3) The murder case is... good? Ish? But there's another review somewhere here where someone complained that they couldn't tell when the case happened and wondering why a cold case team in a small town would have so many people on it, and I agree with them.
No. My problem with this book was Danny, the love interest. He was fine at first, if a little difficult to get a read on. Did the guy even have a personality? He was so hot and cold and unreadable, I could never figure out if I liked him or not. But then two things happened:
1) There's a police brutality scene in which Danny holds a character (a manager of a McDonalds, who isn't even involved in the case at all) in a choke hold and threatens him into giving him the information they needed. These kinds of scenes are exactly what stop me from reading books about cops more often, and I just can't find him particularly likeable after this. Nor am I routing for the characters to get back together, really. There were NO repercussions faced after doing this. Hello?? A book written in 2017 and this was written in it, and no one else in the reviews seemed to mind it? Ok.
2) There's a bit in chapter 21 that had me wanting to DNF, and forced me to take a day's break from listening any further, and it feels very much like non-consent, or at the very least dubious-consent.
I guess because these characters are exes I'm suppose to just accept that Danny can read Rain's signals, so when Rain says NO Danny is allowed to read that as yes? And then sneak into his room later in the night to fuck him, even after that big fat NO? Uhhh. Yeah that doesn't really fly by me. I did not find that scene hot and sexy. I just think it's repulsive. Especially since the only other sex scene before this also included Rain saying maybe we shouldn't do this, and Danny talking him into it and then afterwards acting like it was no big deal and they just won't do it again. I ended up just skipping over this whole sex scene and the next one that happened later in the book. Couldn't do it.
The ghost thing isn't actually as big of a plot point to this book as I expected it to be. There's such long sections where there's just no ghosts mention that I sometimes forget that's supposed to be part of the plot. I also was expecting the ghosts to be a bit more of an issue for Rain, with some kind of hijinks along the lines of him talking to ghosts and people giving him weird looks about it, or Danny catching him talking to himself and being concerned. There were two scenes in the book where I was expecting someone to say something along those line: 1) when Danny and Rain go to Amy's parents' house, and Rain sees the ghost of an old woman who points at his face, and he goes cross-eyed looking at her, and neither Danny not Amy's mother reacts at all to him just pulling weird faces like that? And 2) When Danny walks into the house and leaves Rain out on the porch, and then Eric appears and Rain and he have a long, loud conversation outside. I really thought Danny would come out and ask Rain what he was doing, but nope.
Anyway. I finished this, and by the end I was liking it enough to pop it up to a 3 star, but yeah. I won't be reading any more in this series, mostly because of that copoganda police brutality scene, which just gave me the skin-crawlies.
Things I liked about this book:
1) I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a good job
2) Rain's inner-voice is fun. I like his constant use of pop culture references and his sarcasm. He's a likeable protagonist.
3) The murder case is... good? Ish? But there's another review somewhere here where someone complained that they couldn't tell when the case happened and wondering why a cold case team in a small town would have so many people on it, and I agree with them.
No. My problem with this book was Danny, the love interest. He was fine at first, if a little difficult to get a read on. Did the guy even have a personality? He was so hot and cold and unreadable, I could never figure out if I liked him or not. But then two things happened:
1) There's a police brutality scene in which Danny holds a character (a manager of a McDonalds, who isn't even involved in the case at all) in a choke hold and threatens him into giving him the information they needed. These kinds of scenes are exactly what stop me from reading books about cops more often, and I just can't find him particularly likeable after this. Nor am I routing for the characters to get back together, really. There were NO repercussions faced after doing this. Hello?? A book written in 2017 and this was written in it, and no one else in the reviews seemed to mind it? Ok.
2) There's a bit in chapter 21 that had me wanting to DNF, and forced me to take a day's break from listening any further, and it feels very much like non-consent, or at the very least dubious-consent.
I guess because these characters are exes I'm suppose to just accept that Danny can read Rain's signals, so when Rain says NO Danny is allowed to read that as yes? And then sneak into his room later in the night to fuck him, even after that big fat NO? Uhhh. Yeah that doesn't really fly by me. I did not find that scene hot and sexy. I just think it's repulsive. Especially since the only other sex scene before this also included Rain saying maybe we shouldn't do this, and Danny talking him into it and then afterwards acting like it was no big deal and they just won't do it again. I ended up just skipping over this whole sex scene and the next one that happened later in the book. Couldn't do it.
The ghost thing isn't actually as big of a plot point to this book as I expected it to be. There's such long sections where there's just no ghosts mention that I sometimes forget that's supposed to be part of the plot. I also was expecting the ghosts to be a bit more of an issue for Rain, with some kind of hijinks along the lines of him talking to ghosts and people giving him weird looks about it, or Danny catching him talking to himself and being concerned. There were two scenes in the book where I was expecting someone to say something along those line: 1) when Danny and Rain go to Amy's parents' house, and Rain sees the ghost of an old woman who points at his face, and he goes cross-eyed looking at her, and neither Danny not Amy's mother reacts at all to him just pulling weird faces like that? And 2) When Danny walks into the house and leaves Rain out on the porch, and then Eric appears and Rain and he have a long, loud conversation outside. I really thought Danny would come out and ask Rain what he was doing, but nope.
Anyway. I finished this, and by the end I was liking it enough to pop it up to a 3 star, but yeah. I won't be reading any more in this series, mostly because of that copoganda police brutality scene, which just gave me the skin-crawlies.