Ok, I'll take the heat, I will be the odd one out, because I DO NOT LIKE THIS BOOK ! It's pinged a couple of my reader pet peeves, but more than that, I simply do not like the writing style. The incessant movie/tv show references, "baby boy", "bone up", the way Rafi behaves, just the whole way his character is written is off to me.
So this is my first book by this author, it's book 1 in a series, however, going in, it read like this was a spinoff of another book/series, so there were references that were not clear to me, and they were not exactly well explained either. You have Rafi, a 30 yr old university professor, who climbs onto a stranger's lap to cry after he beats up a guy. Who does that? What kind of a man would just cuddle up to a stranger in his car like that ? Weird shit. Apparently, it's his thing though since he does it when they hang out too. Seems like he never found himself as an adult either. I mean, he wears clothes that are too big for him, dad jeans with cuffed legs and cinched waist? WTF !!! And no, I will no accept that it's because of his size, because my husband happens to be a dark skinned, 5 foot 1 man, and I assure you, his jeans are NOT like that at all. Rafi comes off as confused, he doesn't know how to dress, how to express himself or his feelings to Everett, he's just a freaking mess. I also did not feel the connection between the two main characters, at all. How can they claim to be each other's best friend, but Rafi had ZERO clue about Everett's loss ? Oh, and the whole organization Everett and his friends have, comes off as a poor imitation of Sloane Kennedy's Protectors series. Lastly, the constant inner dialogue between Rafi and his dead husband aka it's actually his subconscious but he needs it to sound like his husband. A strange brother-in-law and his relationship with him. I mean, it's a hot mess. Not only that, but Rafi seems to spend the better part of the book crying. Just crying. Over everything.
I'm only at 50% but honestly, right now, I'm only skimming through the pages, not really reading. There's no way I'm reading anything else written by this author either, she's just not for me.