A review by ourxstorybegins
The Best Friend Bargain by Crystal Kaswell

Did not finish book. Stopped at 56%.
I really wanted to like this book. I did!

Anyway, here are the sins the author committed in the first half of the book:
  • Skye is supposed to be fat. Like, “I shop at plus size stores” level fat. I could forgive the cover if it weren’t for…everything else.
  • There’s this thing with romances where the woman is fat that I cannot stand, and that is the man’s obsession with her boobs, and when I tell you that Forest would not. stop. thinking. about her boobs! His top 3 things about her from what I could tell: tits, eyes, hands. 🤢🤢🤢
  • Everything about Holden, Forest’s brother. There’s having no filter and then there’s NOT KNOWING WHEN TO SHUT UP. Like, I’m talking this dude could have hundreds of sexual harassment charges against him.
  • Speaking of Holden, why is he hanging out with a 17 year old and why is everyone just joking about this grown man wanting to sleep with a minor instead of idk, showing actual concern? Like they talk about the fact that Daisy is a teen MULTIPLE TIMES, really lean into it. And yet????? It’s a weird way to set up their love story (book 2, apparently), that’s all I’m saying.
  • Every time someone nodded, shook their head, shrugged, or raised an eyebrow, the author decided to explain exactly what they were trying to say with those movements. EX. “He shakes his head this is a real tragedy.” Or, a PARAGRAPH later: “He shrugs Holden is Holden.”
  • Every other sentence was a new paragraph. Which is super helpful for trying to emphasize a point or something, but not when it happens more than once per chapter.
  • Forest is…kind of an ass? Very full of himself and seems to have this idea that every woman who makes eye contact with him wants to fuck him. And if this was the vibe of the character, cool, but it’s simply not. His whole thing he needs to get over is his ex, not his ego. Maybe it would’ve come up later, but from what I could tell, that wasn’t thought to be a concern at all.
  • I decided I’d give it till the first sex scene. They talked and thought about sex so much, I thought it wouldn’t be too far in! Here I am at 56% going….it is truly not worth the wait.

I’m really annoyed because I got invested in the characters and I wanna know what happened, but not enough to put myself through the rest of the book.
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