Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones

I read this one just to see how the story ends, but I feel as if I gained nothing but annoyance and a scant few cute moments from the experience. Frankly, it feels more like a fanfic than part of the same canon as the first book. I kept feeling like I had to force myself to finish it and what should have been a quick read was a chore.

Since I'm in a weird, unpleasant mood unrelated to this book but wish to share my thoughts, allow me to introduce my friend the list again.

GRIPES

* The dudebro slang is so overwhelming I often felt as if I'd unlearned English.

* Hazing is normalized and never challenged.

* Bitty's personality completely shifted in ways I can't pinpoint but which left him hazing newbies with public humiliation; letting teammates harass a newbie for being himself (literally just driving a motorcycle); ignoring his senior thesis to the point he nearly loses his spot on the team (one of many ‘never mentioned again after the chapter' plot beats); and behaving violently.

* Bitty calls Jack either by his full name or “honey” or “sweetheart” basically every two sentences, which makes him sound more like a grandma than a young man. It's annoying.

* Every conflict feels superficial. Every plot beat feels unimportant. Every plot thread feels unresolved, except maybe the relationship between Jack and Bitty which got a sappy and predictable outcome I could have headcanoned to save myself a lot of dull reading time. Also, there are some odd plot holes and some of the most interesting side ‘plots' (if they can be called that for as little page time as they get) never see true resolution.

* It makes no sense that Bitty isn't out to his family from the start. He's all pride and openness in the first book, and I vaguely recall it seeming like his mom in particular knew. Beyond that, he tweets and vlogs about his boyfriend and his sexuality constantly on public social media so this whole concept of nobody knowing - especially not his parents - feels incredibly farcial.

* Bitty locks his Twitter at one point, then mentions how he is using his aunt's jam recipe but his mom should never be told. Except, several pages prior to him locking his Twitter, he mentions making his aunt's jam twice. Do his parents just not even pretend to keep up with his life via social media despite his mom being a helicopter parent? Seems ridiculous to me!

* Bitty's mom finds out in person when he decides to tell her about the jam thing. She proceeds to have a pathetically juvenile, screaming and flailing temper tantrum over it. The reason is never explained until the couple dozen pages of tweets at the end of the book. It barely makes sense: something about a childhood rivalry, a stolen recipe, a jam contest, and a grandmother.

* I had to read through around two dozen pages of dull, in-character tweets from Bitty just to find out what Shitty's real name is. (It's Byron Sterling Knight. Hence B.S. for bullshit, ergo Shitty. Not clever or fun enough for all the trudging through tweets.)

* Third time to mention it, but it's that annoying: two dozen pages of tweets which are required reading to find out important details.

* Turns out Jack doesn't have an addiction, despite the first book saying he kept taking more anxiety meds until he overdosed then went through rehab afterward - and mentioning his discomfort (which was mentioned once or twice then ignored) with drinking at parties, which suggests wariness over potential new addictions forming. Nope, apparently it was a deliberate overdose, and all the sudden there's this backstory of how it was pressure from his loved ones who drove him to it...? Idk, it feels a lot like a crappy retcon for ‘extra drama' and angst... or perhaps Bitty (who relays it) performing some grossly revisionist history on his boyfriend's life. I'm none too pleased with a relatable aspect of my fave character being changed.

* “I cannot stress how important it was for me to be able to choose when I came out and to who.” and “I needed to feel comfortable. It's scary. There's never a rush [...]” tweets Bitty, who spent most of the early chapters whining about his boyfriend wanting to keep the relationship secret and not yet being ready to come out.

* The fact Bitty resembles a young teen makes the relationship with Jack look creepy visually. In fact, in a lot of panels, they look more like a man and his younger brother than boyfriends.

* Many profanities and plenty of misogyny are present without censoring, which doesn't bother me one bit because it fits the setting. What does bother me is that things like “sissy” and calling a gay man a woman are directly portrayed yet an arbitrary line is drawn in an unnecessary flashback wherein what's presumably a heavier insult/slur is censored (not even the first letter is shown). I personally feel that it's bothersome to draw that kind of line where directly portraying misogynistic slurs is okay but the one used for a shock value attempt to justify a violent outburst is deemed too bad to show.

* The lowkey racism and highkey homophobia from Bitty's dad seem weirdly inconsistent. It's like he's portrayed halfway as a bigot and halfway as totally open-minded... probably to make the ‘redemption' element that much easier to sweep away without proper resolution. He goes from refusing to acknowledge Bitty's relationship with Jack to eagerly wanting to get to know Jack in the span of maybe one chapter.

* The way the story's presented gives a strong undercurrent that it's impossible to be happy in a relationship with someone closeted and it's impossible to be bisexual and truly happy.

* This book is at least a hundred pages longer than necessary and is dreadfully boring in several places.

* The text density is ridiculous! So many times, there's so much dense dialogue that it covers up interesting pieces of the artwork and feels overwhelmingly claustrophobic, making it difficult to decide where to start reading (especially during conversations).

* It's hard to care about a relationship in which one partner has crying, guilt-trippy (possibly unintentionally) crying fits over being secretive and his boyfriend staying closeted for safety... when he knew from the very beginning the relationship couldn't be public.

LIKES

* Parse and Whiskey were very interesting and I want more about their lives!

* Not counting the age disparity in Bitty's appearance, I adore the art style. It's clean and crisp and the characters are expressive.

* I now know how the story ends, at least with regards to Jack and Bitty.

* The stressful prying of journalists is portrayed in a very believable manner.

* Bitty's reaction to graduation is absolutely adorbale.

* I like the ending of the romance and the story in general - minus that non-ending for Whiskey.

OVERALL

I wanted to feel neutral or hopefully even enjoy this. I saw so much potential in the story and genuinely like some of the characters. But in the end, my annoyances far outweigh the things I like and the main emotions I felt were annoyance and boredom.