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elenajohansen's review
1.0
What a mess.
There's no consistency to this, no romantic arc to follow. I'm not against our leads starting their relationship as a hookup that becomes more, but it stays in a weird, not-really-romantic place for a long time, where they keep having sex as boss/employee without becoming emotionally attached to each other. And then when they do form emotional attachments, it's more that they're both projecting their needs and insecurities onto Jasiri the elephant, whom they're both so invested in, rather than each other.
I was uncomfortable with their extended banter at the beginning, when both of them were dancing around the idea that sex was part of the hiring package that Nicky was/wasn't offering Peter. But I'm genuinely squicked out by the idea of them deliberately having sex near the elephant's enclosure to try to bond with her, or to show that life is still worth living? I think I understand what the point was, even though I'm having a hard time describing it, because by that point in the story all of their emotional development was tied to this elephant. And this happens more than once.
Their inability to bond to each other for most of the book seems to rely heavily on their traumatic backstories, but neither is well-developed. Peter's is an incredibly standard "I'm ex-military and I've seen some shit that damaged me," but Nicky's is... I don't really know? So their eventual happy ending feels forced, because I believe they have had lots of sex with each other, but I never once thought they were falling in love. (Also I'm not in love myself with the idea that they only get together once Jasiri has had her own happy ending, and that they get together because they succeeded with Jasiri. She's not your third wheel, guys, stop basing your personal life choices on her.)
I think the only good thing I can say about the "romance" here--which is incredibly minor--is that our leads did sometimes have bad sex when they weren't really in the right mood for it, which is something a lot of romance novels pretend never happens, because it spoils the fantasy. Yeah, not all sex is "starfire." (Which came up a lot as a descriptor here, and honestly if it had only been once, I think that's fine, but it showed up too often.)
The b-plot with the unscrupulous animal broker seemed thin overall, and it wandered in and out of the story at seemingly odd times. It felt both like an excuse to make this story novel-length without investing more in the actual romance, and an excuse to have Peter be in danger a lot so that Nicky could be upset about it.
Ultimately the problem with this novel is likely that the animals are more important characters in the story than the people, and that's not what I want from a romance.
There's no consistency to this, no romantic arc to follow. I'm not against our leads starting their relationship as a hookup that becomes more, but it stays in a weird, not-really-romantic place for a long time, where they keep having sex as boss/employee without becoming emotionally attached to each other. And then when they do form emotional attachments, it's more that they're both projecting their needs and insecurities onto Jasiri the elephant, whom they're both so invested in, rather than each other.
I was uncomfortable with their extended banter at the beginning, when both of them were dancing around the idea that sex was part of the hiring package that Nicky was/wasn't offering Peter. But I'm genuinely squicked out by the idea of them deliberately having sex near the elephant's enclosure to try to bond with her, or to show that life is still worth living? I think I understand what the point was, even though I'm having a hard time describing it, because by that point in the story all of their emotional development was tied to this elephant. And this happens more than once.
Their inability to bond to each other for most of the book seems to rely heavily on their traumatic backstories, but neither is well-developed. Peter's is an incredibly standard "I'm ex-military and I've seen some shit that damaged me," but Nicky's is... I don't really know? So their eventual happy ending feels forced, because I believe they have had lots of sex with each other, but I never once thought they were falling in love. (Also I'm not in love myself with the idea that they only get together once Jasiri has had her own happy ending, and that they get together because they succeeded with Jasiri. She's not your third wheel, guys, stop basing your personal life choices on her.)
I think the only good thing I can say about the "romance" here--which is incredibly minor--is that our leads did sometimes have bad sex when they weren't really in the right mood for it, which is something a lot of romance novels pretend never happens, because it spoils the fantasy. Yeah, not all sex is "starfire." (Which came up a lot as a descriptor here, and honestly if it had only been once, I think that's fine, but it showed up too often.)
The b-plot with the unscrupulous animal broker seemed thin overall, and it wandered in and out of the story at seemingly odd times. It felt both like an excuse to make this story novel-length without investing more in the actual romance, and an excuse to have Peter be in danger a lot so that Nicky could be upset about it.
Ultimately the problem with this novel is likely that the animals are more important characters in the story than the people, and that's not what I want from a romance.
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