Whew chillayyyyyyy. I don't even know where to begin.
Well, let me start by saying I know exactly what time it is when I pick up a book in this series: these are my fast-paced problematic faves where I turn my brain off and just go along for the ride. I suspend my belief and put my morals to the side because usually the story is story-ing and it makes the journey worthwhile. I was expecting to read this really quickly because I was in a 3-star streak, but I dreaded every time I picked this one up (however, I am clearly a glutton for punishment because I sure did keep picking it up).
This was a hot ass mess. The characters were stuck in a constant loop of the women being impulsive, pissing off their boyfriends, fighting with them, crying, stomping around, and claiming they're through. The men were abusive verbally, physically, and emotionally, were insensitive, hypocritical, and cheated on the women then got mad if they even made eye contact with other men. Everyone acted the exact same, spoke the same way, and are borderline indistinguishable from one another when it's all said and done. Which is sad because one of my favorite parts of Front St. Porter and On Us was feeling like the characters were being developed. I felt like that ended here.
This was just tewwww toxic for me honey, and if it had been written in a way where I felt like it was making social commentary about urban fiction/lifestyles it would have been way more digestible. But I got tired of reading this cycle and it reoccured like every 3 chapters. This was a book chock-full of difficult topics—mental health, miscarriage, abortion, domestic violence, the justice system, gun violence, a coma, postpartum care, child SA, drug addiction, and many more—and none of them were handled with care or written responsibly. Avery and Ivy have kids and "snap back" in like a week, don't experience postpartum depression (they definitely do but it's treated as them just being crazy and emotional), and go back living their normal lives right after giving birth. Avery literally woke up out of a coma post c-section and was hobbling around her hospital room like? Just unrealistic. She also evolves into a horrible sister and stuck-up woman who is judgy and repeatedly tells her sister to forgive her abuser. All of the women are bird-brained, male-centered pick-me's.
The court scene, therapy scenes, wedding scene, were all written in very unrealistic ways that didn't seem like research went behind them. The dialogue overall was very stiff, disjointed, and unrealistic. People do not speak that way to one another, and they certainly don't all huddle together and watch people they're related to have sex, repeatedly hit on their siblings' girlfriends verbally and physically as a "joke" when they are known to share women they deem as hos, ask what their brother's girlfriend's breastmilk tastes like, etc. I fully believe there is a scene between Lake and Avery that was noncon at best and fully r*pe at worst, and it knocked Lake off my book boyfriend list 5ever (for context, I loved him down in Front St. Porter and On Us)! Either way, it wasn't written in a way that was clear, and a topic like that should always be clear. Lake felt like an entirely different person in this book—sometimes that was good, but for most of this book it was very, very bad. The amount of women in this book who got smacked all around the house/room, choked out, got called all types of sluts and whores paralleled to all of the men sleeping around and believing the women should just tolerate it because they have "man needs" is very antediluvian and strange.
Dem continues to be treated like he is possessed for having mental health issues when all of them have mental health issues and live in an environment that keeps them in heightened levels of existence that are not safe for people with poor mental health. The mental health commentary is perhaps my least favorite part of this series even among all that I mentioned in the last two paragraphs.
I wasn't even intending to write a review this long. But I really believe reviews are for readers and I didn't see a review that fully captured the issues I had with this book, so I wanted to write this up for people who will pick up this series in the future. I didn't feel this strongly after the other books, but On Us 2 was different and felt strange. With all that said, I will be sat for book 3 because apparently I need help as well LOL. I need Mucci, Cheyenne, and Ky to get laid out! And lowkey…justice for Oceana.
1.5 ⭐️s
3.5 🌶️ (Reminder: This is not rating the spice, but, rather, is an indicator of how spicy the book is)