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A review by tendaii8
That One Night by Emily Rath
2.25
I read this to help me determine whether or not I would read the full-length novel cause lord knows I'm not going into a 1000+ page (e)book without any warning on how the author writes, or if I can even stomach it. I'm more conflicted now than I was before.
I enjoyed most of this novella and the writing wasn't necessarily bad... there was just something off. You know when you read a book and you just <i>know</i> it was written by a white woman? I got that feeling the entire time. In some of the ways, the characters were developed, in the character descriptions, and in the sometimes cringy dialogue. Don't even get me started on some of the inner monologues. "My gaze settles on his hard c***, and I'm reminded all over again that I am so deliciously straight." Pardon me??? In hindsight, I guess I can understand the motivation to have that line as this character's brother just had a gay wedding, but when reading it it felt out of place and unnecessary.
I found the characters to be boring and one-dimensional. Not because it felt like the author didn't put thought into them because I can tell they did, but because they were predictable. He's huge and 6 ft something and she's tiny and less than 5'5 and she has a bunch of small, fine meaningless <i>feminine</i> tattoos but she's also edgy because she was a septum piercing. But don't worry, she's not like other girls because despite the fact that she's an astrology girlie she also doesn't wear lip gloss (cause only shallow girls wear lip gloss) so it cancels it out 😑. Every new thing I learnt about her made me less and less interested. And don't get me started on Jack... Jake...? I enjoyed his POV slightly more than Rachel's (most of the cringy moments were in her chapters) but needs some work. You want me to believe he's a great fucking guy because he 'sees red' when he witnesses another man disrespecting a woman but then proceeds to talk shit on the other women he's been with in the past. Like I understand that yes he probably deals with a lot of shallow women but nobody ever forced him to be with those women. The lip gloss thing I just mentioned was because he said "Their lips always feel sticky from that lip gloss chicks wear. Not Mystery Girl. Her lips are buttery smooth." If I rolled my eyes any harder when I read that I would have ended up looking directly at the part of my brain that started rotting in that moment. It was just the little sprinkles of misogyny that show me he is in fact not the amazing guy the author desperately wants us to believe he is.
The only reason I might read the actual book would be because it would be so easy to just turn my brain off while I do it. I am also slightly intrigued at how two other guys enter the mix when these two were seemingly put together because the gods willed it.
I enjoyed most of this novella and the writing wasn't necessarily bad... there was just something off. You know when you read a book and you just <i>know</i> it was written by a white woman? I got that feeling the entire time. In some of the ways, the characters were developed, in the character descriptions, and in the sometimes cringy dialogue. Don't even get me started on some of the inner monologues. "My gaze settles on his hard c***, and I'm reminded all over again that I am so deliciously straight." Pardon me??? In hindsight, I guess I can understand the motivation to have that line as this character's brother just had a gay wedding, but when reading it it felt out of place and unnecessary.
I found the characters to be boring and one-dimensional. Not because it felt like the author didn't put thought into them because I can tell they did, but because they were predictable. He's huge and 6 ft something and she's tiny and less than 5'5 and she has a bunch of small, fine meaningless <i>feminine</i> tattoos but she's also edgy because she was a septum piercing. But don't worry, she's not like other girls because despite the fact that she's an astrology girlie she also doesn't wear lip gloss (cause only shallow girls wear lip gloss) so it cancels it out 😑. Every new thing I learnt about her made me less and less interested. And don't get me started on Jack... Jake...? I enjoyed his POV slightly more than Rachel's (most of the cringy moments were in her chapters) but needs some work. You want me to believe he's a great fucking guy because he 'sees red' when he witnesses another man disrespecting a woman but then proceeds to talk shit on the other women he's been with in the past. Like I understand that yes he probably deals with a lot of shallow women but nobody ever forced him to be with those women. The lip gloss thing I just mentioned was because he said "Their lips always feel sticky from that lip gloss chicks wear. Not Mystery Girl. Her lips are buttery smooth." If I rolled my eyes any harder when I read that I would have ended up looking directly at the part of my brain that started rotting in that moment. It was just the little sprinkles of misogyny that show me he is in fact not the amazing guy the author desperately wants us to believe he is.
The only reason I might read the actual book would be because it would be so easy to just turn my brain off while I do it. I am also slightly intrigued at how two other guys enter the mix when these two were seemingly put together because the gods willed it.