Trevor Daniels is feeling aimless. A recent college grad, he’s not sure what to do with his useless degree, and his family all but abandoned him after he revealed the truth about himself. But a friend’s suggestion that he take his chances on a reality show aimed at finding the next big boy band strikes a chord with him—until the show’s producers convince him to act like he’s in a relationship with a guy who’s not at all his type. It isn’t exactly love at first sight for Jalen Smith either—but lust just might push them in an unexpected direction. If only their secrets weren’t even more twisted than their sheets, threatening to cost them the win—and each other…
This one went over my head. I admit I had doubts about this one from the very beginning, despite the great reviews. It’s one thing to suspect it, and another thing altogether is to experience it in person.
My main and only problem with this book is this simple fact: it’s extremely boring. Apart from a detail or two I got a little upset about, this is the only objection I have.
The writing style doesn’t agree with me. I struggled with each passing chapter hoping for a ray of sunlight to appear, to no use. There were a few hints of potential and I thought finally this story would take off... However, I was let down again and again.
And again.
I felt like I was sitting on the tarmac, waiting for some signal for my trip to begin.
There I was expecting to fly and instead was left on the ground.
At first, "Love Me Tenor" was (a generous) 2 Hearts. But seeing that it was not improving for me, I had to DNF. There are better things to invest my time in especially one that was becoming like homework for me. And that is not fun.
43%--It took that long for me to realize it wouldn’t start up.
At first, I got the impression Jalen was a Latino, but when they said he was “brown” the questions began. This is what happens when authors are ambiguous in their descriptions. I NEVER get it right. I just want authors to be fair and not beat around the bush, because feeling stupid upsets me endlessly.
At least, it wasn’t like that time when I found out the MC was black when they chose to display a black model on the SECOND book cover in the series or when the author says AT THE END of the book that the guy was born in Nigeria. It’s like “Hey, now that you got to 95% of the book, I forgot to mention I’m black, before you get to the 100%, you know? That’s all I wanted to say, goodbye!”. My look on my face after those two examples was priceless.
Why is it so difficult to mention a character’s ethnicity?
I don't really care what color his skin is. If the author says nothing about the appearance of the characters, I'm okay with that. But if you are going to describe them, do it properly, please. Above all, when authors show aspects related to ethnicity like marginalization and racism., there is a tendency in using euphemisms and I believe it’s counter-productive.
To sum it up: just don't bring up a vague reference to skin color and then never explain anything. Yes, I know, I’m a little…
Please, don’t get me wrong. All of this was to simply show that I want to know where my characters come from, not only in a geographic sense, but culturally speaking and the like, because that shapes someone and makes him grow into what he currently is. I want to understand them better. I want to get to know them. And, above all, I want to have a proper and faithful image of them in my head. It’s not a criminal request, right?
And authors tiptoeing around it is not the best way to do that, in my humble opinion. I value when someone says it naturally in a book. But I didn’t get that impression here, unfortunately.
Apart from that, the media stuff and music show bullshit was getting on my nerves. I felt I was watching some kind of Big Brother and it was unbearable. I realize the author did a good job portraying the falseness and stupidity of this kind of reality television competition but it didn’t make it less painful to read.
Definitely, not for me.
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