Title: Moonlight & Whiskey
Author: Tricia Lynne
Series: N/A
Choking on angst and cliches
I would like to thank Tricia Lynne, Loveswept/Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book definitely wasn’t to my taste. I requested it several months ago and can’t remember what appealed to me about it to begin with, but I don’t usually get into the sexually graphic, angsty, uber urban young-and-free type of books that are trendy in romance the last several years. The exception could be Jay Crownover’s books, but I haven’t read one in a long while. Maybe if I read one now I’d find them pretty angsty, too. (Which reminds me to check the library for new ones… *runs search* *gasps* There are! Yesss….) I guess I have a hard time relating to that type of story, being a reserved rural farm girl surrounded by family and friends who hold their traditional values in a white-knuckled grip. Plus these books tend to be spilling over with angst, immaturity, and melodrama, all of which I have little patience for. On top of that, a lot of them read like fanfiction—which is why many of them are ebooks.
Does this one fit that bill? In my opinion, yes. The book revolves around characters who could power the east coast with their angst, and the story is full of cliches:
Overly sensitive lead characters who blame their failings on mommy and daddy issues? Check.
Rich characters who don’t care how much money they’re spending? Check. (To be fair, it’s mentioned that the heroine, at least, grew up on a budget and keeps to one herself when she’s not spoiling herself on vacation. I can let that one go, even though she earns a six-figure salary. But the others? Not so much. I mean Jesus, I could become a billionaire and a $3,000 dinner or $1,300 vinyl would still make me feel ill.)
Spunky best friend sidekick who encourages the heroine to be irresponsible and calls it “fun”? Check.
Rock band composed of super hot guys who could make it big but choose not to because the only people who want to be famous are egotistical losers who have nothing else going for them? *deadpan stare* Check.
A supposedly strong woman letting a man get away with being an asshole because he’s sex on a stick? Check. I don’t care if he was just trying to rile her because he had some weird kink for getting dressed down by her. He was pretty much encouraging her to be an asshole, which made them both assholes. While it was amusing to watch her snap back at him—the first couple of times—the dignified thing to do would have been to just get up and walk away because she had better things to do and better people to spend her time with.
The leads jumping to RIDONKULOUS conclusions about one another having been intimate with other people, which makes no sense and undermines the intelligence they’ve shown up to that point? Check.
One or both of them spiraling down beyond rock bottom in a super pathetic fashion that nullifies any respect I have for them? Check.
One or both of them being disgustingly arrogant and rejecting the other to save him or her from a terrible relationship and therefore life? Check.
Hero and heroine talking marriage the moment they make up, which is totally out of character? Check.
Characters regularly talking about songs and bands, most of which I’ve never heard of nor give two shits about? Check.
*sigh* Yeah. I can only assume this manuscript got picked up because Lynne’s writing style is fantastic; she knows how to use words to great effect. Narrative-wise, though, this was incredibly lazy storytelling. After only about a third of the way, I started checking my progress to see how much was left. By halfway, I was skimming if not skipping pages. I have to wonder if a developmental edit was done on an early draft; if so, that was money down. The. Crapper.
As for specific gripes, here are a few that topped the list.
That first chapter where we get to watch…crap, what’s her name? *thinks hard* Shit. *looks it up* Avery. Where we get to see Avery have her ass waxed—that was completely unnecessary. Not because I’m a prude, but because it was largely useless to the narrative. 1: It didn’t need to be mentioned that Avery liked to watch porn, because that information has nothing to do with the plot. It barely had anything to do with her character. She could still have stood transfixed and appreciative while she watched that couple have sex in the alley; it could have been explained then that she simply enjoyed visuals, which there’s no shame in, just as she casually mentioned it to Declan later. 2: Getting waxed—or at least our witnessing it—was similarly unnecessary. Other than a few crude comments about feeling sweat in her butt crack, her lack of hair down there is never brought up again that I recall, not even during the many graphic sex scenes.
Sure, that first chapter was making the point that she was willingly stepping outside her comfort zone in an effort to—well, to more or less relax and have fun, though I don’t consider ripping the hair off my lady bits to be either relaxing or fun. That point could have been made in ways that suited the character and the narrative better—such as her forcing herself to leave her desk and walk away from work despite fires cropping up that she would normally bend over backward to put out. If Lynne wanted Avery’s arc to involve standing up to the jerks at work, that’s cool, but you have to show us the starting point, or we’re not going to appreciate the end point; that climax won’t affect us. Yeah, she was always on her phone and went to that odious party, but we should have gotten a glimpse of her ugly work life right off the bat. You have to demonstrate the “normal world” before the character goes on their journey so the reader can gauge and appreciate the changes.
Next, the switching POVs. This was a major red flag of inexperience. You can’t start switching POVs between the heroine and hero in the last quarter of the book. If you do, it better be for a damn good reason, otherwise it’s sloppy, jarring, and irritating. If you wanted us to see things from Declan’s POV, you should have started that shit at the beginning. Starting it at the end like that was just…really weird. It was also weird when Declan suddenly developed self-esteem issues toward the end, at the party. For over half the book he was an alpha male afraid only of falling in love—another cliche—then one pompous jackass in a suit looks down his nose at him and he figuratively curls into a ball, rocking and blubbering about how he’s not good enough for her? God, that was annoying. Embarrassing, even.
Lastly—because I really don’t want to think about this book anymore—if you’re going to have a heroine who’s plus-size and, more importantly, have her plus-size-ness be a big part of her character and factor into her relationship with the hero, go big or go the fuck home. Don’t give her a “relatively flat” stomach or one small roll when she sits or say she’s got a mere thirty pounds on a model. A six-foot model who’s retired and doesn’t have to count calories yet is still pretty goddamn thin is—what? 120, 130? 140, tops. Add thirty pounds on a woman who’s taller than average at five-seven? Overweight, yes. Chubby, absolutely. Shake-the-ground-when-you-walk fat? No.
In that vein, you wanna know what really pisses me off? The cover. The woman is completely hidden. All you can see is her hand, jawline, and part of her shoulder, all of which look pretty damn slim to me. It’s just sad, a story that revolves around a self-love theme doesn’t even reflect that theme on the cover. Because thick women don’t sell, huh? No one wants to have to look at that in the bookstore. I mean, barf. *rolls eyes*
My advice to Lynne would be to study story: theme, setup and payoff, rule of three, arcs for both character and narrative. She’s a great writer, obviously talented, and she could become a wonderful novelist with some practice. It’s just unfortunate people are going to pay to read that practice. Also, get a different developmental editor. Or seek one out if you skipped it.
My advice to the publisher? Put a fucking plus-size woman on the cover of a book that’s about a fucking plus-size woman. Jesus Christ. Also, putting an ampersand in the title is really annoying for metadata. Just use the word “and.”
