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evelynyle_88's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, and Panic attacks/disorders
frannook's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Ugh I'm so frustrated, I was so ready to love this one to bits and yet... too many shortcomings and things I just can't get over.
I'm dreading this but okay, I'm ready. Let's get down to business.
Jude is an agender Cupid (they/them) who is on probation because he fell in love with a boy and ended up kissing him - which, as you can imagine - is a pretty big nono in the Cupids community. But they took some more classes, paid their dues, and are now ready for their next assignment: bringing together trans boy Huy and his ex-best-friend-who-secretly-had-a-crush-on-him, Alice. They have one month to enroll in their high school, become their friend and figuring out how to make them talk to each other again and bring the spark back.
However, the more they get to know Huy, the more they are captivated by this beautiful, sweet, kind Vietnamese boy and they are dreading the moment the mission will be completed and they'll have to leave behind their new teenage, the boy they're falling for and their new best friends and forever forgotten.
I will say right off the bat one incredible positive thing about Mason Deaver's books: whether I love them with my whole heart (The feeling of falling in love) or I find them just okay (I wish you all the best), they're always so bingeable - you could easily read them in one sitting or in a couple of days because they flow so well and have an addictive sort of component to them that I can't quite explain but somehow works! Especially when they nail the audiobook narrator, which is the case with this one because my goodness Meyers Max was just incredible and totally deserves recognition.
HOWEVER. If you put aside for a moment the wonderfully done trans rep (and queer rep in general), the book is pretty average, eye-roll inducing and contains many YA tropes and elements I thought we would have left behind by now.
The first thing that annoyed me quite a bit is the same thing that made (or, better yet, was supposed to make) this book unique: the Cupids.
Mason Deaver decided to introduce a sort of magical/paranormal (??) element to the story by having Cupid characters but somehow forgot to give us any relevant information on them, no worldbuilding, no explanation as to why they exist or how they came to exist or even more generally how the whole Cupid business works.
All we know is that they're not human (and yet they live on Earth, do not have any specific magical powers/abilities and eat/sleep/walk like all human beings?!) and that they get assigned to couples to bring them together.
Uhm okay. Is that supposed to be sufficient?
- How about where do the assignment come from? What is the criteria for giving out these assignments? Is it believable that a teen Cupid gets assigned an adult couple? Mmm.
- Where do the Cupids come from? The only bit of information we're given about this is that Jude was taken by their family and they don't remember their parents. Does that mean you become a Cupid? Are you born a Cupid and can you be born from humans? Do those humans know or do Cupids make forget them all about their newborn child? Or, if the parents are also Cupids, then why are the newborn Cupids taken away from their parents?
- Where do they get the money from to live on Earth and pay rent? Are they angels and is there a bank in Heaven to which they can bill their expenses? Because Jude and Lia (their handler/fake sister/supervisor) live in an apartment in San Francisco and they're renting it from someone and they go to restaurants and eat food so there has to be money involved, right?
And so many many more questions that you can't but ask yourself and you get no answer to whatsoever throughout the novel and, I'm sorry, but that bothered me quite a bit because if you decide to not write just a contemporary novel but to add something different to it... well, then I want you to do it properly and in a way that can satisfy the suspension of disbelief and make it realistic and believable to me when I'm reading it.
The second thing that annoyed me to no end is something that is - very unfortunately - pretty common in young adult books but that I really was not expecting to find here is the cluelessness of the MC to their love interest's crush.
The synopsis reads (and I quote): "As a cupid, Jude thinks they understand love a little bit more than the average human. It makes sense -- Jude's been studying love their whole teen life", which makes sense, right?
And YET Jude is completely blind to the fact that Huy pretty much obviously only has eyes for them and Alice is developing a crush for someone else and thatCal was so clearly in love with them and that's why he was acting jealous and following them everywhere , like hello? Were you not supposed to be an expert at all things love related?!
That plus the oh so lovely (I'm being sarcastic) YA trope that you're a teenager, you've known someone for less than a month and you already know for sure you're in love and you might be together forever and you're willing to give up everything and everyone you know for that person... Yup, that too.
The last thing that sealed the "this Mason Deaver book wasn't really it for me" deal was the ending.
What kind of ending was that. In a way, it was coherent with the very few rules about the Cupids world that had been explained (aka:if you fall in love with a human and kiss them for a second time, they'll forget about you and you will forget you were ever a Cupid and thus Jude kissed Huy, Huy forgot Jude and Jude forgot they were a Cupid and that Cupids at all exist ), but at the same time it opened the door to so many more questions related to this alternate reality of our world that the author created and with a deus ex machina sort of twist it further compromised the precarious believability left in the story. It felt like an easy, unsatisfying - and perhaps the only one possible? - way out.
For those who have read (and finished) the book or don't care about spoilers →Jude forgot they were ever a Cupid and they're about to leave with Lia for Washington. They're now living the lie they had told at Hurst, that Lia was their sister and they were homeschooled after their parents' disappearance. Is this something Jude chose when they were kissing Huy or is it just the consequence of kissing a human for the second time? Yes, Cal (I'm guessing it was Cal) sends the letter to both Jude and Huy and they meet at the bench. Is it realistic to think that these two strangers meet for the first time when Jude is moving to another state and they'll somehow start a long distance relationship based on Idk what for Idk how long?! Even a hopeless romantic like me struggles to believe that.
Also, I've been noticing that all the characters in Mason Deaver's books kinda feel like one and the same? Personality-wise.
Of course, if you only pick up one book you won't notice and you'll just enjoy while you're along for the ride, but if you are a hardcore reader that reads anything and everything their favorite author writes, you'll have a hard time telling apart a Jude Ritchie from a Ben De Backer, or a Huy from a Nathan. Yes, their personal stories are different and the way they live and portray their transness and gender identity (clothes, make up, nail polish and so on), but when you exclusively focus on the personality... can you honestly tell me who's who? I'm not quite so sure about that.
I know it seems like I'm destroying this book: I'm not. I had a good time, I listened to it whenever I could and I was involved in the story and the characters' lives and I was rooting for them and so on and so forth.
I'm just speaking like someone who deeply believes this author can do and accomplish so much and had great expectations from this book but ultimately ended up being disappointed as a result. This felt like not one but 10 steps back from what they had done in The feeling of falling in love and that's what I wanted to find in here and didn't.
I'll keep reading whatever Mason Deaver comes out next and I hope they'll keep on growing as an author and publish so many more great queer stories but this one undoubtedly is my least favorite book by them.
I'm dreading this but okay, I'm ready. Let's get down to business.
Jude is an agender Cupid (they/them) who is on probation because he fell in love with a boy and ended up kissing him - which, as you can imagine - is a pretty big nono in the Cupids community. But they took some more classes, paid their dues, and are now ready for their next assignment: bringing together trans boy Huy and his ex-best-friend-who-secretly-had-a-crush-on-him, Alice. They have one month to enroll in their high school, become their friend and figuring out how to make them talk to each other again and bring the spark back.
However, the more they get to know Huy, the more they are captivated by this beautiful, sweet, kind Vietnamese boy and they are dreading the moment the mission will be completed and they'll have to leave behind their new teenage, the boy they're falling for and their new best friends and forever forgotten.
I will say right off the bat one incredible positive thing about Mason Deaver's books: whether I love them with my whole heart (The feeling of falling in love) or I find them just okay (I wish you all the best), they're always so bingeable - you could easily read them in one sitting or in a couple of days because they flow so well and have an addictive sort of component to them that I can't quite explain but somehow works! Especially when they nail the audiobook narrator, which is the case with this one because my goodness Meyers Max was just incredible and totally deserves recognition.
HOWEVER. If you put aside for a moment the wonderfully done trans rep (and queer rep in general), the book is pretty average, eye-roll inducing and contains many YA tropes and elements I thought we would have left behind by now.
The first thing that annoyed me quite a bit is the same thing that made (or, better yet, was supposed to make) this book unique: the Cupids.
Mason Deaver decided to introduce a sort of magical/paranormal (??) element to the story by having Cupid characters but somehow forgot to give us any relevant information on them, no worldbuilding, no explanation as to why they exist or how they came to exist or even more generally how the whole Cupid business works.
All we know is that they're not human (and yet they live on Earth, do not have any specific magical powers/abilities and eat/sleep/walk like all human beings?!) and that they get assigned to couples to bring them together.
Uhm okay. Is that supposed to be sufficient?
- How about where do the assignment come from? What is the criteria for giving out these assignments? Is it believable that a teen Cupid gets assigned an adult couple? Mmm.
- Where do the Cupids come from? The only bit of information we're given about this is that Jude was taken by their family and they don't remember their parents. Does that mean you become a Cupid? Are you born a Cupid and can you be born from humans? Do those humans know or do Cupids make forget them all about their newborn child? Or, if the parents are also Cupids, then why are the newborn Cupids taken away from their parents?
- Where do they get the money from to live on Earth and pay rent? Are they angels and is there a bank in Heaven to which they can bill their expenses? Because Jude and Lia (their handler/fake sister/supervisor) live in an apartment in San Francisco and they're renting it from someone and they go to restaurants and eat food so there has to be money involved, right?
And so many many more questions that you can't but ask yourself and you get no answer to whatsoever throughout the novel and, I'm sorry, but that bothered me quite a bit because if you decide to not write just a contemporary novel but to add something different to it... well, then I want you to do it properly and in a way that can satisfy the suspension of disbelief and make it realistic and believable to me when I'm reading it.
The second thing that annoyed me to no end is something that is - very unfortunately - pretty common in young adult books but that I really was not expecting to find here is the cluelessness of the MC to their love interest's crush.
The synopsis reads (and I quote): "As a cupid, Jude thinks they understand love a little bit more than the average human. It makes sense -- Jude's been studying love their whole teen life", which makes sense, right?
And YET Jude is completely blind to the fact that Huy pretty much obviously only has eyes for them and Alice is developing a crush for someone else and that
That plus the oh so lovely (I'm being sarcastic) YA trope that you're a teenager, you've known someone for less than a month and you already know for sure you're in love and you might be together forever and you're willing to give up everything and everyone you know for that person... Yup, that too.
The last thing that sealed the "this Mason Deaver book wasn't really it for me" deal was the ending.
What kind of ending was that. In a way, it was coherent with the very few rules about the Cupids world that had been explained (aka:
For those who have read (and finished) the book or don't care about spoilers →
Also, I've been noticing that all the characters in Mason Deaver's books kinda feel like one and the same? Personality-wise.
Of course, if you only pick up one book you won't notice and you'll just enjoy while you're along for the ride, but if you are a hardcore reader that reads anything and everything their favorite author writes, you'll have a hard time telling apart a Jude Ritchie from a Ben De Backer, or a Huy from a Nathan. Yes, their personal stories are different and the way they live and portray their transness and gender identity (clothes, make up, nail polish and so on), but when you exclusively focus on the personality... can you honestly tell me who's who? I'm not quite so sure about that.
I know it seems like I'm destroying this book: I'm not. I had a good time, I listened to it whenever I could and I was involved in the story and the characters' lives and I was rooting for them and so on and so forth.
I'm just speaking like someone who deeply believes this author can do and accomplish so much and had great expectations from this book but ultimately ended up being disappointed as a result. This felt like not one but 10 steps back from what they had done in The feeling of falling in love and that's what I wanted to find in here and didn't.
I'll keep reading whatever Mason Deaver comes out next and I hope they'll keep on growing as an author and publish so many more great queer stories but this one undoubtedly is my least favorite book by them.
Content Warnings
Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Panic attacks/disorders
krisalexcole's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Dysphoria, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
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