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A review by paperbacks_and_planners
The Spy and I by Tiana Smith
3.0
2.5⭐️
Thank you so much to Berkley Romance, Netgalley, and PRH Audio for the advanced copies of this book. All thoughts and opinions are still my own.
I was really excited for an action rom-com featuring a female hacker. Unfortunately this just didn't quite hit the way I had hoped.
Let's start with what I did enjoy.
I have no idea if Tiana Smith has a background in programming, but she actually did a great job with the programming aspects. The heroine is an ethical hacker (or penetration tester) and while simplified somewhat, her tactics were actually accurate.
As a professional programmer, I'm always nervous reading a book about coding because it's not always... quite right. But this book did a great job and I was really impressed.
I also thought that the chemistry between the characters during close scenes was written fantastically. This book doesn't ever feature on page sex, but the characters had palpable tension and chemistry from the get-go.
Unfortunately the romance and plot itself didn't deliver in what I wanted.
This book is about spies, mistaken identities, hacking, and undercover ops. By definition, it should have been fast paced and engaging. But somehow it dragged the whole way through.
The opening scene where Dove is drawn into the scheme, was fantastic. But everything from there on dragged.
I felt like we spent more time in Dove's head listening to her inner monologue than anything else. Rather than experiencing things first hand, we listened to her describing things second hand. With long, long tangents about her feeling for her, her situation, her sister, and Mendez (over and over and over again).
It became repetitive and also lost the action feel because we didn't get to experience the action ourselves.
And this internal monologue led to my other issues with this book. Dove was constantly repeating herself, going on long tangents about Mendez's forearms during chase scenes, crying over her sister during fights... it was just bizarre.
Instead of being focused on a car chase, she describes the way the hero's hands look grabbing the window. So the actual action scenes felt cheapened and less dangerous.
Overall I just don't think this book committed to a tone. It wasn't necessarily rom-com-y. There weren't laugh out loud, silly moments. It didn't play into the silly chaos. But it also didn't go action heavy either.
So in the end I was just feel very underwhelmed by the entire thing. How can a book that ends with a building explosion be boring? No idea... but this one succeeded...
Thank you so much to Berkley Romance, Netgalley, and PRH Audio for the advanced copies of this book. All thoughts and opinions are still my own.
I was really excited for an action rom-com featuring a female hacker. Unfortunately this just didn't quite hit the way I had hoped.
Let's start with what I did enjoy.
I have no idea if Tiana Smith has a background in programming, but she actually did a great job with the programming aspects. The heroine is an ethical hacker (or penetration tester) and while simplified somewhat, her tactics were actually accurate.
As a professional programmer, I'm always nervous reading a book about coding because it's not always... quite right. But this book did a great job and I was really impressed.
I also thought that the chemistry between the characters during close scenes was written fantastically. This book doesn't ever feature on page sex, but the characters had palpable tension and chemistry from the get-go.
Unfortunately the romance and plot itself didn't deliver in what I wanted.
This book is about spies, mistaken identities, hacking, and undercover ops. By definition, it should have been fast paced and engaging. But somehow it dragged the whole way through.
The opening scene where Dove is drawn into the scheme, was fantastic. But everything from there on dragged.
I felt like we spent more time in Dove's head listening to her inner monologue than anything else. Rather than experiencing things first hand, we listened to her describing things second hand. With long, long tangents about her feeling for her, her situation, her sister, and Mendez (over and over and over again).
It became repetitive and also lost the action feel because we didn't get to experience the action ourselves.
And this internal monologue led to my other issues with this book. Dove was constantly repeating herself, going on long tangents about Mendez's forearms during chase scenes, crying over her sister during fights... it was just bizarre.
Instead of being focused on a car chase, she describes the way the hero's hands look grabbing the window. So the actual action scenes felt cheapened and less dangerous.
Overall I just don't think this book committed to a tone. It wasn't necessarily rom-com-y. There weren't laugh out loud, silly moments. It didn't play into the silly chaos. But it also didn't go action heavy either.
So in the end I was just feel very underwhelmed by the entire thing. How can a book that ends with a building explosion be boring? No idea... but this one succeeded...