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Louise Willingham

Autore di Not Quite Out

2 opere 26 membri 1 recensione

Opere di Louise Willingham

Not Quite Out (2021) 24 copie
Marshmallows (2022) 2 copie

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Firstly, I wish to thank the editorial for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Took me a while, but better late than never!

Now, I have a beef with this book. I spent the entire book expecting the aforementioned food item in the title. And the story kept going on and on without reaching the scene where the squishy loaves of sugary goodness would appear.

Oh, wait, after checking the book's search function, marshmallows appear in a teeny tiny scene halfway through the book. It's just that the food item plays such a menial role in the scene that I forgot. So, I was about to make a fool out of myself writing a clever comparison of the lack of marshmallows with the Snakes on a Plane movie. The fact the food item never appears in the most important scene of the book still makes me feel very cheated. :/

Reading the whole story, I believe the book should have been titled Tinsel & Pudding instead.

I am still a bit confused about the plot of the book. William is a 1st-year med student, and the whole story is set in his POV. Whenever he isn't micromanaging his new boyfriend Daniel's life, he worries about how people will view him dating Daniel. I was just expecting it to have a more linear plot. The most important scene in the book happens halfway, whereas the ending doesn't feel like an ending at all.

Daniel is a lovely and far more interesting character than William, whose micromanaging behavior was getting on my nerves. As a college student close to his graduation, Daniel fears returning to Russia and trying to get a work visa. He doesn't have a good relationship with either of his parents and is battling drug addiction. Even though I didn't like William's possessive and overbearing behavior, Daniel was a real joy to read. He has been through a lot over the past few weeks, and I keep feeling William is just too pushy. The book delivers some heartwarming scenes when Daniel is in the mood to cuddle and say a few basic phrases in Russian. Note to the readers: there isn't a dictionary at the end of the book, and Daniel's phrases are always written in Cyrillic. I didn't struggle too much because I could read Cyrillic a little. The sole sentence in Spanish included in the book is missing a tilde and comma, but I understood it without major issues.

One thing that kept on pestering my mind while reading this book is Daniel's visa status. His mother is a Spanish citizen, which theoretically should grant him automatic Spanish citizenship without renouncing the other passport. The book hints he has only lived in Novosibirsk. It is plausible while he has the right to get his second citizenship, the lack of access to his mother's birth certificate and knowledge of the language would be a deterrent.

The timeline in the story doesn't specify whether it happened before or after Brexit, so I am not sure if the visa issue would have crept up regardless if Daniel had an EU passport. I still would have liked a chapter where Daniel & William visit the Spanish embassy and ask around.

In a nutshell, I didn't love the book because I felt William to be a tad bit annoying, and there weren't enough marshmallows. However, it is well written without typos, and I am certain plenty of readers will like it.

3 1/2 stars!
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
chirikosan | Jan 28, 2023 |

Statistiche

Opere
2
Utenti
26
Popolarità
#495,361
Voto
3.0
Recensioni
1
ISBN
3