Katana Collins

Beefcakes

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Meh. I struggled a bit with this one since the story didn't hold my attention and the MCs had no chemistry. It was hard to like Neil after he ghosted everyone with such a dumb excuse for 10 years. And Lainey was annoying for the first half of the book especially when she tried to (view spoiler)[shut down the bakery knowing it was paying for Neil's mom’s chemo.  (hide spoiler)] What kind of a monster does that?

I did feel for Neil at being valued only for his body - it was kind of a refreshing angle to see how men react to being objectified all the time. And the opening scene was just.... I could feel the second hand embarrassment all the way over here with how those women were acting.

The whole reality show thing seemed dumb - I'm seeing a pattern for myself that I generally do not like reality show plots in books because all too often the premise of the show and how it goes down feel dumb and/or ridiculous (and yes, I'm aware that IRL reality shows are often dumb and ridiculous, which is why I don't watch very many of them). 

A couple of other plot developments also felt contrived or ridiculous like how (view spoiler)[a mega-wealthy real estate guy didn’t already know that there was another property available from the same seller that was a much better location for him and it look a body builder/cupcake baker (hide spoiler)] to figure it out? And Lainey paying for (view spoiler)[Neil's mom's surgery, which Neil found out about because the surgeon told him there was an anonymous donor and that the insurance would reimburse the anonymous donor directly One, it doesn't work like that. And 2) surgeons would not bother themselves with administrative details like that (hide spoiler)]. 

Towards the end, I wanted to smack Neil when he gets mad at Lainey (view spoiler)[because after ghosting her over some silly reason and then being together for all of a month and he proposed and she wasn’t ready. It wasn't a "no", it was a "not yet". And he had the nerve to get mad at her. Ugh.  (hide spoiler)]