This book is FUBAR - fucked up beyond all repair.
The writing and character voices sound extremely elementary.
Fluffy. Verbose dribble. Nothingness. Here’s what I mean:
I look out to see we’re parked in front of my building. Pulling more than enough money out of my wallet, I hand it to him. “Thank you.” “Have a good one, ma’am.” “You, too.” With my books securely in my arms, I get out of the cab and head inside. The doorman, Levi, opens the door for me with a smile—the same way he has since I was younger. “Miss Forbes,” he greets me. “How are you today?” “Tired. And you?” He radiates a comforting warmth. “I’m just fine. Do you need help carrying those books up?” I shake my head. “I think I’ve got it. Thanks, Levi.” “It’s my pleasure.” As the elevator opens to our penthouse, I can already hear my mom’s sniffles echoing from the kitchen. My heart hurts for her. The pain of knowing I’m going to be losing my grandfather is hard, so I can’t even imagine if it were my dad. And yet, she’s trying so hard to stay strong for Kylie and me. I place my books and my purse on the coffee table and then go find my mom. As expected, she’s sitting on a barstool at the island—her
^ Do authors not understand that such over-telling of every little move kills the storyline’s pacing? Why the fuck would I care about her cab, her door man, whether she had her books as she exits a car, that she puts said books and a purse down, that mom is sitting on a barstool at the island… etc etc etc etc etc?!? I don’t.
Here’s why no one GAF…
Take the books as an example. They’re mentioned TWICE within the span of a page. Are the books central to the storyline? Are the books going to somehow develop this character? Do they set the stage for the scene? Does anything about the books move ANYTHING forward within the book? No. So, the mention of books once is word clutter - fluff - pointless - useless. Mentioning it twice just becomes a gigantic red flag that the author is flopping around because she’s either unable to tell her story or has no story to tell. I’m going with all of the above~
And, it just goes on an on with nothingness….
Putting my phone away, I take a deep breath and head into the hospital. The security guard checks my license and prints me out a visitor's pass before telling me where to go. I thank him and follow his directions since Nessa was the one who guided me to his room last night. The elevator feels like it takes forever to get to the sixth floor, stopping at both the third and fifth to let off other visitors. On the fifth, I notice the labor and delivery ward. People being born on one floor, and others dying on the floor above it. Circle of life. It’s a morbid thought, and one that a therapist would probably want to dig deep into. But that’s the beauty of thinking things. As long as you don’t say them out loud, it’s your little secret. Making my way down the hallway, the sound of someone sobbing grabs my attention. I turn to the left to see a young woman crying, her head resting on a patient’s bed. The man lying in front of her can’t be much older than she is. He has a tube down his throat, the ventilator breathing for him. He looks completely lifeless, other than the forced rise and fall of his chest. A nurse murmurs a quiet apology before stepping outside the room. She smiles kindly at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. How could it, when you just had to give someone the worst news of their life? Not wanting to be rude, I continue to make my way toward my grandfather’s room, but my mind is still with the woman back there. What happened? Is he going to make it? Who am I kidding? Of course, he isn’t. And if he is, it’ll be as a vegetable and not as the man she fell in love with in the first place. Regardless of what happens from here, she has lost the love of her life, and that’s heartbreaking to me.
^ That would be two pages of irrelevant, useless, uninteresting fluff squashed between tiny scraps of anything remotely relevant to the storyline.
The multiple FMC nicknames… Saxon, Sax, Saxi, wildflower. Yeah, that’s irritating, too.
I’m at 10%, and nothing has happened. It’s her birthday. She has a BFF. She has a frat boy, fuckboy fanboy she’s not interested in, who the MMC kills because he was trying to spike her drink. < That’s just told to you, not even shown. Her gramps is dying, and he owns half of NY. Some *strange* hottie (MMC) almost bumps into her in the hospital and eyefucks her from afar at a club. No interaction…. Yet, it makes her feel: “But I don’t think I’ve ever felt more protected and safe.” WTF? His stare made her feel the safest she’s ever been … wtf ever.
Lazy….
“Where’s Dad? Shouldn’t he be helping you with all of this?” “Oh, honey,” she says with a sigh. “You know how your father is.” But that’s the thing. I don’t. Not the way she does, at least. Ever since I was little, I’ve always been treated like his little princess. He’s always put me first. Done anything I wanted. And until now, I thought he was the same way with Mom. I guess I never looked close enough to realize I was wrong.
^^ So, the FMC decides she doesn’t really know her dad simply because she walks into her parent’s home and her dad isn’t there at that exact moment helping to plan a funeral for someone who isn’t dead yet? 1) That doesn’t even make sense. 2) The reader can see the insert of daddy issues/bad guy out of nowhere, character vilification a mile away.
FFS
“It Happens On A Friday.”
“BY THE TIME THE helicopter lands at my house, a large, castle-like structure in the Hamptons,…”
^ Wtf is with all the weird capitalization shit? 🧐
^ The mobster refers to his house as a “castle-like structure” 🙄🤣😂
Bottom LINE
“Suffer in Silence” is an apt title. The reader suffers through miles of fluff and BS in place of a storyline that’s completely silent - MIA, DOA, FUBAR. If I’m bored to death and annoyed beyond belief by 10-15%, there’s no way I’m going to finish this one, much less this as a duo.