DNF @ 34%
This was a new to me author and a lot of her book blurbs appeal to me and she's been publishing MM romance since 2011 so I was wondering why I haven't heard this author's name before and why most of her books have surprisingly low rating averages despite the blurbs seeming tailormade to attract the usual MM contemporary romance reading crowd. I realized after a few chapters that it's probably because the stories aren't well plotted or well written. This felt like a paint-by-numbers MM romance and while I would normally write a short review and move on, I'm pissed because I had been looking for a book with this exact premise for years and this was the first time I found it, so having it be a boring, lackluster mess was even more disappointing than it would otherwise be.
The premise of this enemies-to-lovers story was interesting. I love home renovation shows and I've spent way too much time watching HGTV over the years. Having two MCs where one is a grumpy contractor and the other is a recently-divorced uptight realtor/celebrity house flipper should have been a great setup. Unfortunately, the author didn't take advantage of this to create something interesting.
The first problem is that the 'enemies' aspect is forced and lackluster. What's the big conflict between Travis and Brandon? What do these two 'enemies' intensely fight about? Well, Brandon (who is apparently a dumbass) is dead set on removing all historical/character details of the Victorian house they're renovating because he claims that buyers want fully modern and 'neutral' (ie bland) homes. He's never worked with a historical home before and he's never worked in that part of Brooklyn before, but he's very sure he knows what he's talking about. Never mind that what he said isn't true anyway. Every home reno show I've ever watched that deals with historical homes has everybody (realtors, designers, contractors, buyers) going gaga over the period details. That's exactly what Travis points out. Brandon eventually accepts that Travis is right, but the point is that this 'conflict' was stupid and I couldn't believe that the author couldn't come up with something more interesting. Never mind that this 'conflict' was stretched out and repeated over and over again to the point where I skimmed their conversations. That leads me to my next problem.
The story barely had any plot. Instead, characters have the same conversations over and over again while the renovation process slowly moves forward. The topics were always the same: the stupid bland vs keep-historical-details argument, Brandon worrying about the reno budget getting out of hand, Brandon's relationship with his ex-wife and how Brandon and Travis are attracted to each other. It got so repetitive that it almost felt like a joke. Each day Brandon and Travis come to the house, the author describes what they're each wearing and that's followed by them thinking about how sexy the other person is before they wind up in the millionth discussion regarding design, finances or Brandon's ex-wife. By the way - the situation with Brandon's ex-wife was so unoriginal that I couldn't believe the author was drawing out the 'reveal' until the 25% mark. Does the author seriously think that readers are so dumb that they didn't realize that Brandon's wife is obviously his beard?? Maybe that would work if this book is somebody's first MM romance ever but it was silly.
Another ridiculous plot choice was to have Brandon's fear of coming out be a major source of conflict. Like the designing conflict, this was dumb and didn't fit with reality. Brandon is out to his family but he's worried that the network will fire him if they find out he's gay. You're telling me that a show focusing on designing homes that's airing in 2021 would have a problem with a gay host?! Especially a host of a show that's airing in New Jersey and now in New York?! A quick google search tells me that HGTV has 6 (SIX!) hosts that are part of the LGBT community. Like the design issue, this conflict was lackluster, unoriginal and didn't make any sense.
What kills me about the boring storytelling is that I've been looking for a book with this premise for years. I love enemies to lovers and I love home renovation shows and based on the great chemistry I've seen between hosts on various shows, I couldn't wait to read this. There are so many sources of good conflict and interesting plotlines that the author could have included but didn't. For example - have them be actual enemies due to being ex-partners either in a romantic or business sense or maybe Brandon's ruthless father forced Brandon to screw over Travis' construction company during a project they did years ago. As for the in-story conflict - it's a construction site! There are so many built-in opportunities for accidents, forced proximity and other situations.
My last issue was that the writing wasn't very good. It wasn't terrible and I've read much worse but the lack of plot and unoriginal character dynamics made the bad writing stand out. One example of this was that every conversation was drawn out, overly detailed and felt unnatural. The MCs would go out of their way re-explain things a hundred times, add unnecessary details and in general, the way they spoke didn't fit with their characterizations or how normal human conversations go. This is a result of the author forcing the MCs to say the words she wants them to say because she's convinced that readers need to reminded for the millionth time about XYZ. You can even feel how badly the author strained to force the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go when the MCs were pulling it into a different direction. That's Bad Writing 101. Let your MCs talk the way they want and if they end up pulling the story in a different direction from where you wanted it to go, that means your original story idea didn't fit those characters.
Another example of the author forcing her own voice into the story instead of telling the story through the perspective of the MCs was how both MCs used the word 'flipping' as a synonym for the word 'fucking' (in terms of an adjective; ex. these bags are really flipping heavy). First - it's jarring to have the word flipping being used in place of profanity in a book that heavily focuses on house flipping. Second - that's a very odd word choice so the chances of two random guys using it are slim to none. Again - this is because the author was inserting her own preferences into the MCs' dialog instead of figuring out what their in-character dialog should sound like.
I know I'm being extra salty in this review, but I'm pissed because the author says in her bio that she writes smart romances that are brainy. So I got all excited and I ignored the low ratings and I put multiple McMurray books on my TBR because the blurbs really appealed to me. In particular, all four books revolved around topics that aren't often written about in MM romance and they were ones I was particularly interested in. I thought I'd found a new author who writes sports romances and about blue-collar MCs, which is exactly what I love. Unfortunately, the author's storytelling abilities and writing abilities aren't my cup of tea so I'm going to move on.