Age Rating: I dont recommend ever reading this but it is an adult romance if you want to hate something with your whole soul.
SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS
This review spoils the entire book but i have a no-spoilers version on Fable if you want to look at that for the content warnings.
Its never a good sign when I finish a book and I am just so gaslit I leave it for two weeks to recoup some form of my own sanity before I go back, but this book was that. I read it because there is a new series on Amazon Prime, and i always read the books first if i can, but oh my god. This was something and that is not positive. That is i had to go and read other reviews to figure out if I was mad or not and most of the reviews would concur that I am in the minority but there are some people out there thankfully who had written down what I hated so lets get into it because I have a lot to say and it starts with bullet points that will turn into long long paragraphs because Garett is a mess and Hannah might be the only redeemable person in this book, but that’s because I want her to move universities and leave – preferably leave the entire state and every single person who encouraged her and Garett’s relationship because wtf?
Garett doesn’t take no for an answer
This man literally stalks her to WORK to demand she tutors him because he is failing Ethics. Like no shit sherlock, you don’t have any ethics to put in a paper. He asks again and again, and then sends her a shirtless pic – unprompted! – to convince her to tutor him? Then, THEN! Because this isnt bad enough, she ends up at a party she doesn’t want to be at and he convinces her to let him drive her home where he proceeds to destroy her self-confidence, hype himself up and essentially say – date me, serve me, teach me, save me and I’ll help your crush notice you. Hannah doesn’t need him, honestly, I am on the side of date Justin, he has ethics! Maybe. He got a B- which is better than Garrett and he seems to actually notice you before Garett got involved so many there is some reason in there, yeah? But no. No. Lets just fake date and tutor Garett. I don’t hate that decision at all, Hannah, I’m sure it’s not the one where you wont end up crying in a car at the side of the road in five years with all your belongings in a bag as he calls you and calls you and you spend the rest of your twenties trying to outrun the ghost of him. I’m sure. Lets go for that.
Garett’s opinions of women
“Puck Bunnies” – hate you too, Garett
Almost DNF’d in his first POV, I only kept going because of the rave reviews. I should have DNF’d I really should.
Kendell – not the only woman he sleeps with in this book, not the main character, but she deserved her own POV section because honestly? She just wanted a relationship, and then he was like I’ll sleep with you after not seeing you forever but I don’t want a relationship and shes almost crying and hes like it’s a good thing you’re not like other girls because she doesn’t actually start crying. I give you 100% odds on the fact she cried in her car after doing the walk of shame past his roommates – which, are an whole goddamn paragraph of their own right because they might be worse, Garett thinks they are worse and for him to think in his misogynistic little brain, hey they might be too far. They are. They are too far.
I don’t think i’ve ever read a romance book where they had sex with TWO different girls other than the FMC. Ususally that’s a line drawn, and the scenario of walking in on someone mid-sex is saved for cheating exes, but no, lets date him anyway after he leaves that girl in his bed and chases you down the drive saying lets meet up tomorrow!
Hannah’s opinions of women
– not great.
– i believe a highlight was presuming anyone called “tiffany” would be stupid
I honestly didn’t really notice until I looked back because Garett was so unbelievably – or rather too believably – awful, but she wasn’t the greatest. I think internalised misogyny is so ingrained in culture that its not odd for an FMC to have moments of it just because she is surrounded by it at all times but it was never discussed and Allie her friend existed only to mess with her boyfriend and say you should have sex with the playboy.
I also don’t like that she made him dinner because she was grateful for the sex scene earlier. No. No. No. The teammates made it so much worse as well, but Garett is awful, don’t wait on him that’s what he wants.
Garett = “stripper tits”
Do I need to say more? This was repeated, I might add. Multiple times. Only characteristic we really got of Hannah and only thing he ever complimented regularly so that speaks doesn’t it.
The Roommates
Garett doesn’t trust for her to be left out in the common room with his friends – yes his friends – because he thinks they’ll rape her because lets not leave those friends and roommates lets keep that going and introduce them! “They are just looking for tipsy chicks to put their d**k’s in.” – from the mouths of clueless frat boys comes horrifying truth.
Assuming she is a stripper because she’s wearing a waitress uniform and a birthday present
Saying Kendell was a “gift” and surprise waiting upstairs.
That friend of his who was in love with her and then she went in the epilogue to say it makes me uncomfortable, but hes just like it’ll pass who wouldn’t be in love with you was weird as well. Garett should have had a conversation with him, because ogling your friends girlfriend is weird, its weird when she was a tutor too, but its weirder when you know they are dating.
The Punch
Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate so much. If you have read it then you know what moment i mean, if you havent he decides to punch a guy who defended her rapist on the stand at a random hockey game. I get it, you’re angry, but lets manage that, yeah? Lets not punch people. She didn’t ask you to do that, there is a reason she didn’t want to tell you who he was in her past, its because instead of comforting her, you go punch him.
HIGHLIGHT
The dean kiss because I hate Garett so much that yes hannah lets do that. Its toxic but its fun! I want more of that, I want fun and flirty romance, I want wild situations and sitcom level laughter with deep moments.
The Trauma
Hannah had therapy – not enough – and Garett has had none. Why is every backstory of every MMC now that his dad beat him up? Why? Especially because Garett was right – you are angry and rageful like your dad (the punch anyone) and you probably will turn Into your abusive dad because your views of women are abhorrent. Hannah’s trauma was horrific, and so matter of factly said like it was just a checklist to add to her past was horrific as well. I get that she had come to terms with it, and she was calm, and yet sometimes her trauma around the rape still ruled her life, that was realistic and interesting. What wasn’t was the weirdness around Garett and dating him. You’ve had shitty exes, just because Garett has experience doesn’t mean it’s a good idea
World – 2/5 – I mean its set in America in generic 21st century frat boy athletes rule campuses with no reference to politics so its not really world its how solid it felt to me and it felt very 2D.
Characters – 1/5 – Hannah was interesting, gaslit by everyone, but a solid FMC. Everyone else ranged from no personality to awful people to should be in prison.
Plot – 2/5 – it was basic, it was outlined by tropes, it wasn’t executed well but everything made sense.
Romance – 0/5 – its not romance, its just concerning and i feel like an army of therapists should be involved.
ROMANCE RATING: Sexually Explicit, multiple scenes, detailed anatomical language (and some really weird language choices that were really odd and i wish i had never read)
VIOLENCE RATING: Level 4 – only a punch on page but we get a pretty detailed account of her rape from her – maybe three paragraphs – and we also know Garett was being beat up as a child, and that his father is still domestically abusing Cindy who we meet on page.
CONTENT WARNINGS: rape (of main character, past, recalled in some detail), domestic abuse, (past, of love interest man, recalled with little to no detail and the same man being abusive towards his mother (no detail at all) and another woman (mention of bruises). General frat boy vibes all around which is disgusting in the way they discuss women.
