Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck by D.N. Bryn

1 review

benjiwilla's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An alright read, but certainly not the best that Bryn has written. I loved the MLNB T4T relationship, but the characters were not that loveable. Andres felt almost limp and meh, but was lovely to Shane. And whilst Shane did feel very relatable, I feel he as a character was too similar to Andres in a way. The plot was fun and I loved the way it was a follow on from book 1+2 in the series, but the execution felt too focused on Andres and Shane’s relationship, which was very flawed but still cute. I felt I couldn’t truly appreciate their relationship as I did in the first 2 books,  it almost seemed as though there was so much smutty-ness, that I could not get a real feel for their non-sexual affection for each other. Even in moments, like at the end
when they both literally ALMOST DIED
, post-traumatic event, where I perhaps felt there could have been an opportunity for Bryn to explore their tenderness and vulnerability with each other, and to talk about their feelings, it instead is overshadowed by a sexual tension that perhaps could have been missed out until a bit later on. 
This is perhaps furthered in the lack of expansion
on Nat’s disappearance. What happened to her is not the point, but rather the fact that Nat was quite literally FAMILY to Andres and arguably Shane also. They briefly mentioned her 2 times
but this is evidently a problem within the book as emotions are not properly explored and almost left me feeling cut-off and separate from the characters. 
2.5 as I actually did truly like the premise, just not so much the execution. However, bonus points for the inclusion of previous characters!

Overall, a good plot line but the character and plot execution felt lacking. 

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