to be honest, i'm not sure why i devour these books, because in general, i'm not a fan of the writing, and there's more het nonsense than i tend to go for in romances, but i think it's the strong family friendships. as much as i rolled my eyes at some of the writing in the addicted and calloway sisters series, i loved the relationships between the sisters. i adored the found family, let's all pile together in a big house thing that emerged from their relationships, even if i wasn't much of a fan of the actual romance and sex that was happening 9/10. it was fine. and it was fun. and sometimes, that's all you need. these books aren't full of the best writing, they're fairly predictable, but they're fun and i adore the way they write families and friendships so closely.

this one is about some of the children of the addicted/calloway crew, namely maximoff hale, and his romantic relationship that blossoms with his bodyguard, farrow. you don't need to have read the other books to get into it, but if you have, it makes for some nice easter egg moments. as a queer woman, i tend to not care as much about mlm or relationships, because i want to look for media about women, since there's so many dudes everywhere. but, i enjoyed this one more than i thought i was going to! i'm thrilled that semi spoilers, one of the other siblings is revealed to be a lesbian part way through, and i very much hope that we get more focus on her in later books, and i'd love for more focus on some of the other female characters, and their relationships in general with each other, but i ended up really liking the setup of the new family dynamics they've got going to far. i really love moffy and jane's friendship, and i love sulli so far, and i can't wait to get to know more of the other kids a bit better as they age.

all in all, i enjoyed this more than i thought i would, and had a pretty good night reading it, and sometimes, that's all you can ask for in a story:) ( )

The prose is so purple it's like you can smell grape kool aid while you read it. The characters are vapid, shallow, superficial--there is absolutely no way for a reader to connect. Their descriptions of themselves are so over-the-top and then they even contradict themselves when a situation arises to make themselves sound even better than they did before. It's like the authors wanted to set a new standard for the concept of a Mary Sue--and succeeded. And then as we meet the entire family, we learn that they are all just as ridiculously shallow, self-involved, and Mary Sue as the main characters--and their sudden "concern" for Maximoff seems out of character, disingenuous, and completely ridiculous. I had to put this down several times and eventually just powered through to get to the end, which I only did because I had to read it for a reading group challenge. I hoped that as I came back to it each time it would maybe get better...but it only seemed to get worse.

I can't remember the last time I gave a book a one-star review. I'd give this a zero if it was an option. ( )

You start off with a guy named Maximoff and that sort of damages the immersion, but no, it gets worse as you go. So many side characters you can't remember them all. The romance took a backseat to me trying to learn and like this review says, here's my experience while reading too: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2043599971?book_show_action=true ( )

Kinda of like the Kardashians if they were a likeable family? ( )

This book was...terrible. I’m trying to be mindful of that fact that authors are people and not just faceless names on a cover, but there’s no way around it: this book was bad. First, the authors spent a lot of time worldbuilding, which was great, but it seems like they spent all their time on that and none on researching whether their foundational premise is workable. (Case in point: The first thing a chola learns is to have someone hold her earrings when she’s ready to throw down. And yet a professional bodyguard wanders around with multiple facial piercings? Nope.)

Second, the writing was uneven. The family is a fictional analogue of the Kardashians, which isn’t revealed until you’re 70% of the way through the book. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why on earth they were famous and that context would have helped so much earlier on. There was also so much talk about how the families love and trust each other, which all flies out the window for the sake of a twist.

Third, there were times when the writing was just odd. When characters were frustrated, their jaws and cheekbones sharpened. What? That’s...not a thing. There were so many sentence fragments. There were some really odd word choices (“he ropes my gaze tenfold,” “only extremely affable people can afford tickets,” “our locked gazes exhume the deepest depths”) and the main characters’ voices were incredibly similar. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of whose POV I was reading.

This was a struggle and while I appreciate the richness of the authors’ world, the writing really needs a good editing before it can match their ambition. ( )