Choke Up

Life must be peachy if you can just tear through people, literally and figuratively and do a whole 'woe is me, I'm so bad' routine, and the other MC is like 'Noooo bb, don't say that. Here, have my ass and feel better.' 🚮

Today I'm here to hate.

On Gabe, mostly, for being such a recurring Dick™ that for most of this book, I could ask myself, 'What's the worst thing this man can do in this situation?'....and be right.

On the plus side, this man exceeds expectations each time. As long as they're in the gutter.

'I just wanted to watch out for him. I needed to know he's being safe. I didn't want anyone lying and manipulating him. Taking advantage of him. Doing exactly what I'm doing to him.'

Mmmmm. Bombastic side eye. Nothing more attractive than an MC who is self-aware enough to know he's doing the wrong thing —then going ahead to do it anyway. No, really. I live to be disappointed in romance MCs.😬

'I love your brother more than I love myself, and his opinion means more to me than either of our happiness.'

Eat him, then? No, like, literally just get out of the other MC's ass(he practically lives there, btw) and go play with your bestie??? Why are you here? Nobody's holding you.

AND TO MAKE IT WORSE, WE CAN'T EVEN HAVE THE ILLUSION THAT HE HAS MIRACLE DICK.

'An ass isn't a pussy. You can't skip foreplay.' I'm going to hold your hand when I tell you this but you can't skip foreplay even with pussy....tell me you're shit at sex in general without telling me you're shit at sex in general.

This man is the best in class (Emotional and Physical War Crimes 101) but he somehow gets off scott-free because the other one is so pathetically down bad for him that he doesn't stand up for himself.

Which brings me to disappointment #2. Ellis. I have a lot of hate left over for this bitch. Never heard of self-respect or having a sense of worth OR knowing when someone's bad for you.

He's treated horribly by Gabe for most of the book but somehow it's always him doing the apology tour? Make it make sense. Begging for scraps of attention each time. I started out feeling a bit bad for him but by the end I'd thrown in the towel. Can't want better for him than he does for himself.

Can't even think, 'If he likes it, I love it.', because what is this fuckery you're into?

**BLOCKED NUMBER: I’m okay with sneaking around, clearly.

HOW ARE YOU OFFERING YOURSELF UP AS A SECRET, and not just that, but you're begging to be considered for it. Gagging for it, even?

Brother, ewwwwwwww!

Ellis gives Gabe SO much unwarranted grace. Case study for the theory that if you advertise yourself as an understanding person, people will give you something to understand. Every time.

Too forgiving by far. I can't get into the details of the vaguely icky crimes Gabe loves to commit without spoilers, but it's....it's a lot.

And Ellis is so into him that he CONVINCES Gabe all of it is okay. There was a War Crime committed at about 50% in or so and I thought.....finally, yes! This is it, surely. Surely this is the point where Ellis finally snaps out of it, and we get a grovel to end all grovels.

Dear reader, it wasn't the point. If anything, that was the point where I lost all respect for Ellis because how does he tear you open, freak out, run away, make it all about him.......and your solution is to badger him(in spite of being blocked, AGAIN) with texts on how it's not his fault and all you have is increased determination to prove to both of you that you can take it?

Honey, no. I kept telling myself that they're just 19, so some of their more.....stupid?....decisions were understandable, but I reached the limit of my understanding.

And to make it worse, I don't even understand the forbidden aspect of this relationship. You're not related. Neither of you is in a position of authority over the other where it could be feasibly suspected that undue influence was at play, you're not cheating, you're just.....*checks notes...his brother's bestie? Outraged gasp. CALL THE POLICE!

THIS was the big motivation for hiding all this while and doing the most shitty things ever?

I now have to ask myself.... Am I the drama? Because this has such great reviews! Am I nitpicking?

Once again convinced that I'm definitely, irrevocably going to die alone if people are out here forgiving this sort of behavior because....nope. Not during my regime, I'll tell you that.

****Caveat that I really liked the writing, and I genuinely couldn't put this down, but it ended up being a hate read because I simply could not stomach either MC and as such I'm not going to give it a higher rating than this.