After taking a shower I have collected my thoughts into what I'm a about to type here. *WARNING* This Is A Rant Review!!! So before you read any of this, know that this is all my opinion and as such you are entitled to yours as well, and even if and when I say negative things, is no way a personal attack on anyone who might have enjoyed this book nor am I looking down on the romance genre. Now with that out of the way, I shall continue on with this review.
Quiet frankly, I don't know how to begin this properly. I was going between a 1 star and a 2 star because while I found this book to be horrible in many ways, I've settled for a 2 star rating. Again while this was terrible to read it wasn't the worst things I've ever read as it didn't romanticize things that shouldn't be for example. But even so, let me get into the things that this book did poorly.
Writing:
The writing while easy to read, I'll give it that, was extremely repetitive. And this book used way too many adjectives/adverbs where using a stronger word would have been better. Also what irritated me so much was the fact that as the reader we were constantly told things and feelings and not shown. I feel weird as a reviewer to say this to an author who should know this by now to show and not tell!!! And sometimes it wasn't at all necessary??? Like I could get if someone was sad, but we had to be told that for some reason? And if we weren't shown then just told and it's just like, um okay? And what perhaps irritated the most is that when the author did want to show sadness she had her main character Kitty cry. And while yes this is showing omg I cannot tell you how annoying it was to read Kitty cry literally almost every single page. And I'm not saying this in terms of toxic masculinity, let me be 100% clear on that! But there are other ways to show sadness, and really to me it got to a point where she cried over such things to a point where, although not the intention, was shown to be extremely self-centered and whiny. And because of that, among other reasons, did not let me sympathize with her at all. In summary, much of the writing I felt like could have been fixed at least with some editing? I still wouldn't have enjoyed the story but at least the writing would have been not so seemingly amateurish!
Story:
Plain and simple, after reading this book, there was absolutely no romance that I found reading this. Everyone in this book was extremely toxic, I didn't understand why anyone was with anyone. Someone would meet someone, talk to them so little, have sex with them, and then pine after the other in the most annoying way possible as if there was no one else on earth. The character motivations in the book made little to no sense. The use of the word f@g was completely unnecessary, and as a whole I felt this book to be a bit biphobic. And then near the end I felt that the gay character where there just as pawns to "show" how great Kitty was compared to the others. Also, Kitty is a hypocrite. I cannot tell you how unpleasant as a character she was to follow around.
Did I say this these characters were toxic and had as much chemistry as my attraction to a literal box of crayons??? And while the cheating in this book was disgusting to read about, I felt that it was worse for the bisexual man to be himself??? But it's like....excuse me Kitty, how the f*ck did you not know? I am reading this story and I knew way before you did! Like, the entire world revolved around her to the point where she just seemed so stupid. And I'm sorry if that seems harsh but you also cheated with someone that the book tried to pass of with someone who you apparently had a connection with after like a page with this man and like what??? And then later on in my opinion when he was somehow back in your life, you 100% manipulated him when he was grieving and on top of that, and in other moments too, you always have to make it about yourself somehow and how you know best???
I think if the book actually wrote some type of romantic moments between the characters then maybe maybe this would have worked, but I don't understand why the author had to use cheating or bisexuality to cause drama in the book. It was completely unnecessary, and even their reactions throughout was weird cause like....just leave each other! She said it herself that the sex wasn't good anyways!!!!
I'm just happy that this was a quick read for me, all things considered because this was so panful to get through. And I just want to say at the end here that I picked this book up in the first place because I admit, the cover is what got me. But omg, this is the perfect example of don't judge a book by it's cover. Cause while the cover is stunning, the story within is a dumpster fire and a complete waste of tree.