SHARED: A Dark MMMM Passed Around Shared Romance

by Dane Cutter

203 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 13, 2026

Reviews

[Engrossed Reader]

If I rated this purely on how I felt when I finished it, it would be a well-deserved two stars. Unfortunately, doing that would mean downgrading The Stag Week to one star, and I can neither confirm nor deny whether I will remember to complete this administrative update.

Reading both books back to back and taking time to write this review, rather than spewing my thoughts a la The Stag Week immediately after I got to the end, hopefully means that I give a more measured review.

The writing style was like an energy vampire slowly sucking the life out of me.



By 11% I was already considering a DNF. What got me through was hardened resilience, stubbornness and, apparently, an unreasonable commitment to not avoiding hard things.




Then there is the premise. Jesse agrees to pay off his brother’s debt to the tow-truck crew. Fine. I assumed money, labour or involvement in their slightly sketchy business. Instead, we somehow leap to him paying off the debt with his ass.




By the time they were discussing terms and safewords, I was still wondering when we had established that Jesse was gay, sexually interested in any of these men, or remotely open to group sex. It felt less like a development and more like several missing chapters.

Too much tell and not enough show.



The crew are repeatedly described as sharing everything, yet I saw insufficient evidence of meaningful relationships between the men themselves. Yes they lived together, everyone had their niche, they had a household chore chart AND had a group chat!


Their emotional and sexual focus is almost entirely on Jesse, which made the supposed group dynamic feel more like a monolith rather than four separate men who are in tune with each other.



And the sex became painfully formulaic. Levi’s fingers, Mickey’s filthy mouth, Dez’s restrained strength, Boone’s stoic leadership -repeat as required, individually or collectively. Even the aftercare follows its own checklist: washcloth, salve, water, occasionally a snack. I appreciate knowing aftercare exists; I do not need the full inventory every single time somebody has sex.

Finally, the cover. I’ll say no more than this: I don’t remember this blue-collar tow-truck crew wandering around in dress shirts, nor being tattooed at all. The latter I admit I could have missed because I got tired of descriptions of scarred knuckles and kitchen burns on forearms.

Implausible can be fun. Formulaic can be comforting. This was simply tedious. By the end, “we share everything we keep” felt as romantic as being caught in a thunderstorm and then being struck by lightening.

I can say with all honesty now, this author is not for me and I will do myself a solid and remember this next time I get a recommendation. Kindle sometimes you get it really wrong.

[Jasmin]

Plot held potential. But that’s the only good thing that I could give this book and I only read 10% of it.

But the grammar and structure is so atrocious that I couldn’t keep reading. The author has somehow managed to make first person feel like I’m reading third person. There is no personality or perspective from that writing that feels like it is really happening from the perspective of a person and not an external entity.

For some reason the author doesn’t realise that rather than using the word and they can use a comma and it ruins the entire book. Or at least what I could stomach reading of it.

[Angelique]

I usually avoid giving such low ratings to books because I feel bad for the author and all the work that I know goes into writing. However, I’m genuinely questioning whether a human being wrote this one.

The premise had promise but the book was an absolute mess. The writing is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The grammar is practically nonexistent, or it might as well have been. There were phrases that made absolutely no sense, to the point that not even context could save them. And don’t even get me started on the typos😩

The development of the story is really bad. I started questioning whether there were chapters missing when the plot jumped from A to G with no mention or explanation as to how we got to that point.

The majority of the story is very repetitive and boring. The same phrases and words are used over and over and over again until you want to scream. I might also add that a lot of the expressions used are really odd and make everything sound unnatural.

Just so you don’t think I’m exaggerating, here’s a couple of examples of the aforementioned unhinged writing :

”Inside, the kitchen was cold and dark and mine, and I lit the flat-top and set the container where the morning could get to it, and stood there while the steel heated, turning over a thing I had no license for and no way to stop.”


“Somewhere between that table and this griddle, without one line of it on paper anywhere, the collateral had gotten fed, taught to thin seedlings, laughed into open air, and slept in the exact middle of the only pile of men in Detroit who all knew where I was at any hour and wanted to.”

What the fuck does this even mean??😭

I promise you that context will not make it any clearer either. Both quotes were taken from the same page. That’s how bad it is. I didn’t even have to search for it because the whole story is written like this.

I’m going to assume that no proofreading was done whatsoever before this book was published because there is no other rational explanation.

If an actual person wrote this, I’m really sorry for the harsh review but I know you can do better than this.

[Yeehaw]

The plot is promising but the writing put me off. I gave this book a chance and read a few more chapters but the language and grammar used is not easy to read and often left me confused on what was going on.

[Julie]

So different it I quite enjoyed reading this.

I read a few reviews saying they couldn’t get passed the was the story was written but I decided to give it a go anyway. I went into this realising that the person narrating was obviously low class and lived in a neighbourhood in Detroit that he was never getting away from. His life consisted of working as a cook in the diner and then going home. His brother is a low life that he keeps having to bail out of situations which leads to him making a deal with the 4 me that ‘run’ their neighbourhood.

Boone, Dez, Mickey and Ivan are actually really good guys who take Jesse in to live with them and treat him with respect and show him love for the first time in his life. The book was a bit of a slow read but you quickly understand the way it’s being told. Everyone has their place and understand what to do. I actually really enjoyed it. I’m not sure why it’s called a dark mmmm as I didn’t think it was dark , yes Jesse has relations with all four men but I think it’s done tastefully.

[mike bullock]

A slow seduction of life. Sexy!!!😍😍😍

Beautiful. So beautiful. Hard men making hard choices. This story unfolds almost grudgingly. I say this with wonder at the thoroughness of these written characters in a book that compels. It's a settling that's deeply emotional. I kind of expected a different plot, but was pleasantly surprised in the direction it occurred. Left me full and satisfied. I highly recommend adding this book to you collection!😘

[Melinda Marchal]

This book has a strange style of writing, very detached, metaphorical, and unemotional. The intimate scenes are written factually without any heat. It’s a bizarre style for a MMM book, but the characters unfold and reveal themselves slowly and the story and setup is an interesting one. I found myself reading the whole book in just a few days, even though I’m not sure why.

[Emily Johnson]

DNF @ 6%.

The writing style is terrible. It reads like one of those black and white detective dramas.

"I want to be honest about what I knew and when, and the honest answer is that a silent week from Sonny was so standard I carried a budget line for it. A walk-in compressor runs loud. You don't like the sound, and you also don't call the repairman over a sound"

What?!

[Copper]

Painful book to read oddly 1st and 3rd person at the same time, overly descriptive that breaks the flow of the story and is just down right confusing. Seems to be told in the present and the past at the same time.

Complete mess I can't believe this is a series and has multiple good reviews. Very difficult to read and enjoy.

[Liza]

DNF 19%

The first few chapters were good but it became vague quickly. Vague is the perfect word for this book. Everything was vague. Jesse’s sexuality? Vague. The deal? Vague. The sex scene(s?) vague. I didn’t make it past the first sex scene. If you write a book like this it can’t be vague. It just can’t. I expected something like Four and got vague.

Vaguely not recommended.

[Janine]

This read like poetry. Beautiful prose but ultimately boring in action. Some paragraphs I didn’t understand. The book was stoic and quiet but impactful. It didn’t leave you wanting more because it gave you nothing in the first place, but a beautiful read either way.

[Emma]

I struggled on till 41% and couldn't take it anymore, the writing style, what even is it! Its like listening to my daughter tell a story, she has raging ADHD, everything is all over the place and a lot makes no sense. I was hoping the spice would save it but nope, duller than dishwater. Oh well.

[Jessie]

This was terrible!
The plot had so much potential.

But it was clinical and had no feelings. Like robots were writing this.
So many analogies that I couldn’t keep up with. It was like they were writing facts that didn’t relate.
Stopped after about 40 mins in and that me being kind

[Whittleton. Adventures]

I don't know how I feel about this book...

It had so much potential

But it just hard work

[Cornelia Dicoi]

The plot has great potential, but the writing style is overly metaphorical. It makes the story difficult to follow and, at times, quite exhausting to read.

[GLady]

what style of writing is this ??

I was curious after reading the reviews and I definitely agree , the writing is off makes no sense at all … don’t waste your time

[Megan]

Really tried hard to read this.
The writing style is awful. SPAG is none existent and it’s incredibly hard to read. I don’t like the narrative voice - it’s too detached and cold.

[Sophia]

It was an okay and obvious storyline, but the style of writing was simply annoying.

[natalie wing]

Could have been great

The spice just isn't there,it could have been,its rushed and not very descriptive. Which is a shame because it could have been good

[Chinelo]

This felt like hard work to read.