Alexis Hall

Something Fabulous

Valentine Layton, the Duke of Malvern, has twin problems: literally.

It was always his father’s hope that Valentine would marry Miss Arabella Tarleton. But, unfortunately, too many novels at an impressionable age have caused her to grow up…romantic. So romantic that a marriage of convenience will not do and after Valentine’s proposal she flees into the night determined never to set eyes on him again.

Arabella’s twin brother, Mr. Bonaventure “Bonny” Tarleton, has also grown up…romantic. And fully expects Valentine to ride out after Arabella and prove to her that he’s not the cold-hearted cad he seems to be.

Despite copious misgivings, Valentine finds himself on a pell-mell chase to Dover with Bonny by his side. Bonny is unreasonable, overdramatic, annoying, and…beautiful? And being with him makes Valentine question everything he thought he knew. About himself. About love. Even about which Tarleton he should be pursuing.

i think this is mostly around 2.5, but i mean. [gestures vaguely]

Alice Main

** spoiler alert **
           This book was, quite simply put, infuriating. I kept on waiting for any kind of catharsis but it never came, and I was left feeling hollow. Every character save for Valentine was unlikable at best, and down right irredeemable at worst.

Starting off with the worst character we have Belle, a selfish narcissist who seems to have deluded herself into thinking she's some tragic heroin, doing nothing but behave abysmally throughout the entire book and being allowed to get away with it. Not only is she completely unfair to Valentine, who literally never did anything wrong, she also lies to others constantly, to the point where she puts literal lives in danger. She spins the wild and fantastic narratives that border on delusions for all that she seems to believe them herself, and ropes others into her ridiculous strop, all because she doesn't want to get married to a perfectly reasonable man. I've never seen a character so completely up themselves, and it would be forgivable of she weren't one of the main focuses of the book. Why the author decided to have so much of the book revolve around this fucking nightmare I don't know.

Bonny is just the slightly tamer version of his sister, although equally selfish and full of childish notions of fantasy and fairy tale. He does nothing to earn Valentine's respect, let alone his affection, and in more than one occasion puts Valentine in horrible situations just because he's a self riotous prick. Him trying to blame Valentine for getting shot was the last straw on me holding anything other than contempt for the character, because of course it's the thoroughly abused and rightfully angry man's fault that he got shot by your sister yes? Definitely not hers. His constant defence of his sister's bad behaviour towards the man he supposedly loves is completely aggravating, and he doesn't treat Valentine particularly well either. In fact, i was shocked to see him remark on another man's sexiness right after taking Valentine's virginity.

Valentine to me felt very much coded to be nerodivergent, making the characters poor treatment of him even worse. Not once is he listened to, constantly being spoken over and having unfair judgments about his character made. I don't think the author intended for him to come across as nerodivergent, but to me he very much did, causing me as a nerodivergent reader to feel very attacked right along with him. Characters constantly point out that he is rude, with very little evidence to support this, and his social awkwardness seems to, in their eyes, warrant him to be put through hell. All because he did what was expected of him and asked Belle to marry him. I was rather disgusted by the way the author seemed to revel in torturing this introverted, socially awkward character in the name of supposed comedy. 

I tried to keep telling myself that the book was satire, a slapstick take on regency romances, but I honestly couldn't deal with how absolutely abhorrent the cast was. And the catharsis never came, there was never a moment of remorse from these phycopaths, never a chance for Valentine to give them a real telling off, because they even managed to convince him, time and time again that he was the villain. 

Honourable mentions of bullshit include:

Valentine getting tied to a chair and being threatened to be left there for days 

Valentine being held at gun point because when said chair broke it, very obviously by accident, hurt someone

Being locked in a cellar at gun point

Nearly getting seriously hurt in a duel set up by Belles lies

Bonny defending Belle shooting Valentine because he 'scared her' despite her being shown to want him dead just pages before

Belle could have gotten an innocent bystander killed because of her lies if Peggy hadn't messed with the guns

And just over all the entire cast treating the socially awkward, nerodivergent coded main character like absolute shit.

I would not reccomened this book at all

Mikaela 

The banter!! The pining!! The full cast of queer characters!! The slow gay awakening and gentle self-acceptance!! After finishing this book I have decided I am in love with Alexis Hall and can he please give me tour of his magnificent brain that creates these beautiful queer stories??

Skye

Read if you like:
+ M/M love stories
+ Regency-era settings
+ Cross-country galavanting
+ Runaway brides

Thank you Amazon Publishing for sending me a copy of Something Fabulous.

Sandra Gomes

I usually love Alexis Hall's writing, but this one just didn't do it for me. Most of the times I just wanted to slap them all, way too much nonsense and I couldn't really relate or empathize with any of the characters.

Sarah Williams

I wanted to like this so much, I really did. As a huge fan of Boyfriend Material, this sounded like such a perfect pairing with Alexis’s witty writing style and the fun setting of a historical romance, but it was just…okay? 

Parts of it were certainly funny. I mean, how could they not be? Alexis Hall is absolutely hilarious and so even at this, not his worst but his, at least in my opinion, mediocre, he is still hilarious. In fact, his sense of humor is what kept me on the hook until the end—I kept desperately hoping that the story would get better because of how dearly I love his writing. 

While I enjoyed it enough (or felt hopeful enough) to at the very least want to see it through until the end, I found myself checking to see how much was left at multiple points. And that’s never a good sign.

A large part of what detracted from my enjoyment was the characters. All of the main characters were unlikeable at times, with Arabella being absolutely unbearable for most of the book. Decisions were made that were frustrating to say the least, and while I was generally rooting for Bonny and Valentine to get together, I also found myself not really caring at points. Again, this was a far cry from how I felt about Boyfriend Material, which I was just so completely, wholeheartedly invested in, that I was floored.

The plot was also ridiculous and the motivations of the characters and the reasoning behind their actions unclear. This again goes to the characters—I would have liked both Bonny and Valentine so much more had they not made the most ridiculous choices at several points. 

Unfortunately, Alexis’s delightful voice and writing style wasn’t enough to save Something Fabulous, a book that managed to both be absurd and boring at the same time.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. This has not impacted or influenced my opinions.