Author: James Gregor

Published: August 20, 2019

Publisher: Simon and Schuster   

Where I picked up my book:  Publisher (#partner) THANK YOU

Key Words: LGBTQ, romance, foodie, relationships

My Rating: 2

My Thoughts: I enjoyed parts of this book, but with some major caveats. Let me first talk about the things I didn’t necessarily love:

• One the main characters, Anne, was portrayed as being a single, desperate, slightly pathetic, vulnerable, but highly intelligent woman who is willing to put up with a lot of bullshit from a man (including essentially, paying for friendship and love) AND THEN she was described as overweight. And that blew all hope for me. I am OVER the whole fat people troupe where an overweight woman can’t find true love hence, they should go for what they can get. Usually a jerk who has ulterior motives. Nope, I’m not into it in any fiction (or in real life for that matter) but especially when a man is writing.
• I didn’t love any of the characters in this book, but Richard was the worst. He is a cheater, takes advantage of a woman and just gave me all the ugggh feelings. It was virtually impossible for me to sympathize with a narcissistic, self-righteous, selfish man who takes advantage of women who are lonely and vulnerable.
• What were the plot points? Man is bi, man takes advantage of a woman, man tries to have his cake and eat it too and fails, man breaks it off with partner, man goes back to “pathetic” woman, woman takes him back? And they eat out a lot in NYC. I found that slightly weird.
• Lastly, and maybe the part I liked the least, was that being bi seemed to be treated as a negative and that is a stereotype which needs to be eradicated once and for all in the gay community and in our community at large.
• There was a sense of entitlement in this book mixed with slightly pretentious vibes. I don’t know if those are attributes the author possesses in real life (I hope not), but I couldn’t help but feel them throughout this book.

What I did like:

• The NYC vibes were everything! I visited New York a while back and I think Gregor did an amazing job writing the city as a secondary character.
• The dating scene felt more true to life than how a lot of books portray dating. My personal life was nothing like this, but I have so many friends that would see themselves in this book for sure.
• Writing was smooth and it felt intimate. It was a really well-written book and with tweaks to characters and plot, I think I would have loved it!
• Queer vibes-I’m always here for the queer vibes.

So as you can see, I didn’t love this book. I struggled with not only the main characters (especially with how Anne was portrayed), but with the actual plot of the story as well. It just didn’t do much for me and it’s unfortunate, because I think it had a lot of potential. As a queer woman, I was also really bothered with how bisexuality was treated as a negative. There is also a sense of entitlement in this book and although it’s hard to pinpoint specifics, it just reeked on entitlement and a ‘higher than thou’ attitude that turned me right off. Ooof…that was hard to say, but how I feel.

I think if there were some changes made to this book it would have been a book I enjoyed, but as it stands…I was disappointed. I won’t necessarily shy away from other books Gregor puts out into the world but maybe I’ll be a little weary.

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Hope you’re staying safe inside and happy reading!

bookishfolk…read instead.