Laura (28), she/her, spoonie, Germany | Gendrya | Reylo | AO3 | IG | anyone may use 'my' prompts no special permission required but please give credit ✌️ |
A word vomit review of the first and hopefully last Ali Hazelwood book I actively dislike.
1/5⭐
Take this with a grain of salt as my mood was already ruined before I even had the book in my hand (I had to wait an extra day cause my bookstore messed up my pre-order) and I had built it up in my head because Not in Love is my absolute favourite Ali Hazelwood book.
What do they say? A crush is just a lack of information? The crush is the book and I regret gaining information about it. I wish Maya & Hark had stayed a fantasy.
Tbf, I should've probably given it 2⭐, since the prose and background characters are good and there definitely were a handful of good quotes, but they were so good they only reminded me of how hard they would hit in a decent book and thus highlighted how bad the rest of the book was and I'm too salty about it all.
Plus I usually round up my rating for Ali and this is me taking all those extra half and quarter stars back.
This age gap relationship shouldn't and doesn't work and I was so excited to see how Ali would manage to make it work because I was convinced that if anyone could it would be her.
Remembering something Ali said about the dynamic of Maya being an unstoppable force and Hark an immovable object, which hits the nail on the head and I was dying to see how this works out and it just didn't!!!!
Ali did herself a disservice by the way she set these two characters up.
Something that did work for me:
All the secondary characters, even the women who were only there to make Maya jealous.
The first time they "meet" when Conor comes to her rescue after her break up was so out of character for him, I kept reading purely because I was waiting for the plot twist.
Not to mention how a break up with a cheating college boyfriend as the catalyst for the love interests relationship felt so stale.
Finding out they actually hooked up three years ago?? The pining would've hit a hundred times harder if they hadn't imo.
From about the half way mark, I was reading with a permanent scowl on my face.
The tone didn't feel quite like Ali to the point I'm half convinced she didn't write this. I'm obviously reaching here cause I need an explanation for this train wreck.
(That being said, the writing itself is still good, nice flow, concise, dense descriptions, all the things that made it easy to finish this book in one day).
Maya's voice sometimes appears way, way too mature in the present timeline, like she was written by someone older who keeps forgetting she's supposed to sound like a 23yo, and simultaneously too childish at times in the flashbacks. Hark had the opposite problem and came across as way too immature in both timelines.
The biggest issue I had with the book is that neither of the MCs felt like the characters we met in Not in Love, which I re-read recently in anticipation for this de facto sequel.
Hate to say it with every fiber of my being, but Hark comes across as a bit of a loser to me.
A pathetic 35yo who strings along a younger woman for literal years (!), exploiting her for emotional intimacy while keeping their long distance, strictly over the phone "friendship" a secret from the people in their lives. Extremely unattractive behaviour.
You have to really let that sink in.
She even describes him as her best friend cause she lost touch with all but one of her other friends.
I'm not coming at this from a "this is red flag behaviour" standpoint (even though it would be a field of red flags in real life) but from a "none of this is realistic for these characters" and a "this doesn't make an appealing storyline" stand point.
What gave me the final ick was Hark being portrayed as submissive with a breeding kink, I guess in order to soften the power imbalance? A cheap trick I didn't think Ali would have to resort to.
It would've been fine, good even, for Maya to have the reigns in the bedroom and for Conor to choose to take on a more passive role in order to give her more agency without reducing him to a caricature. But not like this, because to me it only made him come across as immature and even sexually inexperienced somehow.
I was supposed to pine for Conor, instead I just pitied him.
The only time Maya respects Conor's No is when it comes to kissing him (good for her for respecting consent I guess?) but not when he keeps rejecting her saying they can't be together? Girl, what are you doing?
(Again, not trying to be the morality police, but the logic police).
We're constantly being told she's super smart but we're not reeeally being shown. There were glimpses of her STEM background but it wasn't super believable that she's an astrophysicist which is where she's different from all the other Aliverse FMCs.
Another aspect that was lacking for me in this book that I expected like I expect the sun to rise in the morning.
And is her announcing she got certified to be a teacher actually a plot hole or did I miss something?
Yes, she alludes to loving kids but not to the point of making it her career? This whole choice is worthy of an essay in and of itself. Because sure, subvert expectations for this young woman in STEM who decides to do a 180 career wise. In context though? I don't love it. Older, richer man with a young wife whom he has known since she was a child and who then chose a stereotypical female job instead of a prestigious career in science? Damn, feminism is weeping.
Retconning the importance of Hark's relationship with Minami was a huge mistake that only achieved to, once again, make him appear immature at 38 by realising he never really loved his ex to begin with. When his quiet stoicism/ broodiness and apparant loyalty, commitment, selflessness (looking at the bigger picture aka the company), competency, and protectiveness of their time together in the first book made him a highly interesting and mature character. Turns out, that was him pining for Maya, not being tortured by the loss of his old love. Poor Minami.
Sure, he needed some flaws to make him human, but uggghhhhhh I feel like his core characteristics have been taken away. He is so much better than this.
(some of these characteristics were merely inferred or maybe I'm just projecting them onto him, whatever).
If he looks old enough at 38 to be a 23 year old's father to several strangers, he really should strive to improve his work life balance. The stress seems to be taking a massive toll on him.
This is only not a quirky, funny thing to read about in an age gap romance, but actively off-putting.
NIL presented him as a very serious, maybe even a bit of grouch, pragmatic, responsible, no nonsense, yet loveable brother's best friend.
Here his role outside of Maya's love interest has been reduced to his wallet, throwing cash at people and problems.
He basically investor zoned himself by making being rich his only talent.
Can't even be a sugar daddy cause he keeps declining the sugar.
Also, how convenient that he's the only one at the villa who speaks Italian, hello Gary Stue.
He comes across as this fun, maybe late 20s guy in the flashbacks (which take place 3 years to 10 months prior) and at times like a geriatric finance bro who can't keep up "with the kids" during the main plotline. Literally the way I pictured him was more like a man in his fifties 🤢
Him and his dialogue didn't even really read (pun intended) as Irish.
It begs the question: which version is the real Conor? The guy we were briefly introduced to in NIL or the one only Maya got to really know?
Maya and Conor's banter is okay, but too often completely gate crashed by one of them bringing up their age gap in a non fun way.
His actions contradict his words more often than not and I really wanted Maya to tell him to "pick a lane!" in Taormina at the latest.
She really had to resort to making him jealous and he fell for it like a highschooler.
His overprotectiveness was exactly that, over the top. Like, why would a young woman who has experience living alone on a different continent not be able to explore a Sicilian city on her own during the day? For the plot I guess.
Maya has a serious case of "I can fix him" disease, which she ultimately does achieve with her magic vagina in one (!) night, after one (!) time where *he* didn't even come (!) but she came five (!) times. Immediately followed by a third act break up followed by immediate (!) reconciliation followed by their first kiss (!) followed by their engagement (!) a few weeks (!) later.
-> The End.
???
I'm still dizzy from the whiplash.
I'm the biggest Ali Hazelwood fan, but I'm disappointed to the point of crying on my couch at 3:30 am after having finished this book that I've been looking forward to ever since it was announced —and that I thought was gonna be the highlight of my reading year— in one day.
I was skeptical about the destination wedding summer fling setting from the beginning, because I feared it would force the relationship to be rushed (and I would not have picked this book up had it been written by anyone else).
Which it kind of did, even though the flashbacks softened the blow by providing some much needed backstory and character depths.
Furthermore, for a summer read, this was too angsty too often in my opinion. The typical beach read tropes also felt misplaced here and made me feel like I was reading two different books.
The whole cursed wedding thing transcended the comedic part of romcom and was just ridiculous.
As if Rue would get married without Tisha present! As much as I liked that they kinda eloped after everything that went wrong in the days leading up to the wedding, that just doesn't sit right with me. I also have to mention that them throwing out all their fancy wedding plans was such a predictable cliché that I usually would've been fine with, but since I'm critiquing every single plot point of this book atp, I might as well add this one.
And why wasn't the wedding going to be in Scotland in the first place? You know, the country Eli's and Maya's ancestors are from and the one where she went to college? The setting seems to be there purely so this could be a beach read, but then there needed to be some significance to it in-universe so they made it Conor's childhood vacation home.
As is so often the case with romance, we don't actually get to see much of their established relationship until the last what feels like five percent of the book. And even then, we never get the juicy part of them fucking each others brains out because Conor immediately goes on a business trip after the wedding and is gone for like two weeks!!
There was so much potential to extend the story to when Maya starts her job, when they get married and have kids way too soon (I just know in another universe Ali would've managed to make this romantic instead of cringe) and to see all of this play out with their unusual dynamic.
Knowing they're engaged and both want children might even provide enough material for a whole second book about them.
(Hope springs eternal I guess?)
Also, I could swear I've read this exact ending before. (Which could mean nothing, since nothing is ever completely new, but it's still extremely trippy).
Also also, the timeline? Lukas and Scarlet cameo? Jack Smith and wife mention? Meaning Not in Love must be set when? More confusion on my part.
You know how parents say "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed?" when you fuck up?
Well, I'm both angry and disappointed. Traumatised even and this review is my therapy. I just don't know how to exist in a world where I actively dislike an Ali Hazelwood book.
Sorry to everyone who's read this far.
I will now be looking for Maya and Hark fanfic and pretend to forget this book exists.
Had PSR been set up and written in the same way as NIL, more character focused and with a dual POV, I think it might have met my hopes and expectations. I kept waiting to feel something other than confusion. Even the smut was subpar, the scenes felt strangely cut short (knowing now that Ali originally planned this as a novella might explain this particularly issue at least).
As it is, I'm reluctant to even put it on my shelf next to Ali's other books.
Before anyone says I should offer suggestions for improvement if I hate it so much, here's my idea for what this book should've been:
[Even though I would never claim to be a good writer, much less a better writer than Ali Hazelwood]
Maya realising she wants to stay close to her family because she's matured, not because it's where Conor is.
Maybe her taking a job in her field only to realise a couple of months in that it doesn't fulfil her. She comes to the same conclusion she does in the book, that she'd like to be a teacher.
Conor falling in love with her for her intellect. There shouldn't have been any one-on-one contact between them aside from the few situations we know about from Not in Love. Conor would've had the opportunity to get to know her (again) as an adult while being able to recognise he knew a different version of her when she was a young teen, but since that version is so far removed from who she is now, it feels less creepy. Maya still could've flirted at/with him to get a rile out of him as a joke in the beginning, then having spent more time with him —maybe for wedding planning— realising she actually likes him. This would work well, because it's through Conor that they get the location in Italy and we could've had a whole snowball effect of trying to organise a destination wedding. This would've been the build up and we still could've had the Sicilian summer romance as pay off through forced proximity at the villa.
The villa is where Conor caves and tells himself that he can reconcile a summer romance with his conscience in lieu of a real relationship and that Maya just has to get this "juvenile" crush for him out of her system. While Maya sees it as her in to change his mind, show him how it could be everyday.
Months of late night wedding planning leading up to it because he's such a workaholic. Maya falling asleep at his house, him low key taking care of her in small ways, her starting to share her doubts about her career, them bonding over not becoming scientists? Turning into just hanging out, but not really becoming friends. There's always this distance of two people who at first glance don't have much in common and even worse, of being attracted to each other; that last bit of holding back parts of your soul. Hell, he can still tell her things he's never told anyone else and vice versa.
This would've eliminated the need for OWD. I really wanted Maya to purposefullly show how uninterested she is in other men to proof to Conor how serious she is about him, instead of going the ol' jealousy route.
Throw in some angst by them agreeing that it would just be a fling, that they need to "get it out of their system" and they can pretend to not be them in this temporary setting etc. and you'd even have some pining and angst.
Add a happy ever after epilogue of them making lots of babies and boom.
This seems like such a basic and straight up, safe bet formula to me that Ali only needed to add her magic dust to to elevate it and make it unique like she does every other time.
After several nasty reviews from his last book, Gendry's ego is bruised and he is beginning to wonder if he's lost his touch. Determined to meet his deadline, he books a week in an isolated cabin for the holidays.
Arya has no intention of spending the week under her family's microscope. She hasn't mustered up the courage to tell them she quit the very job they got for her. What she needs is a little R&R in a cozy little cabin in the woods.
What neither expected was sharing with a total stranger when the company double-books. With no other vacancies, the couple stubbornly refuses to give up either of their spots. Besides, it was only one week. What could go wrong?
Arya and Mycah are on a cross country roadtrip through Westeros as a well earned break after exams. When Mycah’s clunker inevitably breaks down in the Crossroads, Arya goes to the Crossing Inn’s handyman on the off chance he might know how to fix it. Jeyne’s not the only one to notice Gendry’s cheap price for the pretty girl that asks him.
@aryasbadbenergy
@super-nerd-stark-angel
Christmas, Baby Please Come Home
When her husband Gendry is reported missing and presumed dead in combat, newlywed turned widow Arya Stark-Waters refuses to believe she will never see him again. As Christmas approaches, she continues to believe he will come home to her. Until, finally, on Christmas Eve, a miracle shows up at her door.
Catelyn Stark, the recently departed Stark matriarch, had a funny way of screwing her daughter's life beyond the grave. When Arya learns of the small fortune to be inherited, she believes she'll finally be able to live the life she wants. Unfortunately, there is one tiny stipulation...she has to get married before her 35th birthday.
Robert Baratheon left his son with a terrible outlook on life and a debt he'll never be able to repay. After Gendy is denied a loan by another bank, he is desperate enough to ask his best friend for the money.
The proposition is simple enough.
Jon will give Gendry half the money upfront if he agrees to marry Arya by Christmas. He'll get the other half if he manages to stay married to her for a year.
What is a year in comparison to having all your dreams come true?
All Gendry would like this Christmas is to hear from his mom. Sounds easy enough, but his mom died ten years ago. Gendry tracks down a witch who’s said to be able to communicate with the dead, but at first, he thinks he must be at the wrong house in the middle of the woods. This witch is nothing like he expected. She refuses to take any payment, in the spirit of Christmas. Her hut in the woods even has a Christmas tree.
@aryasbadbenergy
@katlyn1948
Christmas in Winterfell
Injured in the war and unable to eat solid food during his recovery, Gendry Waters spends his convalescence devouring Arya Stark's food and lifestyle column in Westeros Woman’s Day magazine. Dreams of the lavish meals she prepares in her cozy cabin in Winterfell speed his recovery.
When Waters’ story reaches Arya's publisher, Tyrion Lannister, Lannister sensing positive publicity, arranges for he and Waters to spend Christmas in Winterfell enjoying Arya’s gourmet food and famous hospitality.
Unbeknownst to Lannister and Waters, Arya's career is all a charade; she knows nothing about hospitality and even less about cooking. She relies on her chef friend, Hot Pie for material for her column.
Arya determination to maintain her charade is complicated by her immediate attraction to the handsome Mr. Waters.
*inspired by the underrated Christmas in Connecticut (1945), it's worth checking out if you have a chance
@thatsaysalotalotalot
Merry Christmas to those celebrating today! 🌌🌟🎁🎄🕯️🤶👼🔔
He is an anonymous performer at a local club, and posts regularly online to bring in new customers. While the extra cash is nice, he gets a thrill with an audience watching.
Arya is an open book.
She isn't shy voicing her dark desires to the mysterious influencer in his comment section. Her attraction amplifies when she meets him in person during a girl's night out.
Sparks fly when they join one of the private rooms in the back and discover that one time isn't enough.
"i love you", ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?
Well, I just really miss gendrya, and because of that (and because i wanted to avoid my responsibilities) i made a photo-board inspired by one of my favorite fic that combines gendrya and taylor swift together (what else can a girl ask for??!) called "it's a love story" from @aryasbadbenergy, which I recently re-read and got me in the feelings because it's so perfectly sweet and angsty 🥹
vaporwave
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
gracieabrams
gamechangershow
