I really wanted to like this book because the concept was cute but this was not well-written and desperately needed a good editor.  Luckily, there are other gay romances out there so you can skip this one and read something better. I would not recommend.

From Goodreads: Jordan Collins doesn’t need a man. What he needs is for his favorite author to release another one of her sexy supernatural novels and more people to sign up for the romance book club that he fears is slowly and steadily losing its steam. He also needs for the new employee at his local bookstore to stop making fun of him for reading things meant for “grandmas.” The very last thing he needs is for that same employee, Rex Bailey, to waltz into his living room and ask to join Meet Cute Club. Despite his immediate thoughts—like laughing in his face and telling him to kick rocks—Jordan decides that if he wants this club to continue thriving, he can’t turn away any new members. Not even ones like Rex, who somehow manage to be both frustratingly obnoxious and breathtakingly handsome.

Oh boy, where do I begin?   The bad editing? The love story that doesn’t really happen on the page? The characters that are mentioned once with no explanation and for no apparent reason?  The only reason I could finish this book was because it was only 238 pages.  Otherwise, I would have stopped at around page 50.  The one thing I will give the author credit for is a cute concept that should have worked in a romance novel.  A romance book club should be the perfect setting for a light, fluffy love story and I appreciate that more authors are writing LGBTQ+ romance novels. That’s where my praise ends.  I didn’t for one second believe that Jordan and Rex would like each other, let alone fall in love. That’s because there are very little scenes of them actually interacting in way that would lead to romance and when they do interact, they are quick scenes that don’t lead to anything meaningful.  The book is about them interacting at a book club but there are only a few scenes of the club and only 2 that have them at the club together.  I can appreciate a quick romance but there needs to be substance to it and there wasn’t in this one.

The weak storyline aside, my main issue with this book was the lack of editing.  There were a lot of disjointed scenes where a chapter would end, and then the story would pick up days later with no indication that time had passed and with the characters not even addressing what had happened in the previous scene.  This book was told from multiple POV’S that would switch in the middle of a chapter with no hint that things were changing so one line would be from Jordan’s POV and then all of a sudden Rex would be thinking.  This is confusing and unnecessary.  But, the biggest mistake with this book was towards the end.  Rex is showing Jordan a stack of his late grandmother’s books and Jordan is amazed to see a book written by Viviene Holloway.  3 sentences later, he says the book is written by Joan Holmes!  There are literally 3different names given for this person and no one caught it in the editing process.  This book wasn’t great but the mistakes didn’t help.

As you can probably tell, I did not like this book.  The only reason I gave it 2 stars and not 1 was because the idea was cute and the potential was there.  But the romance was lacking and the editing needed to be better.  Do yourself a favor and read something else.

Author: Jack Harbon

Published: May 16^th, 2020

Rating: 2 Stars