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A review by samanthamarie
Teddy Spenser Isn't Looking for Love by Kim Fielding
2.0
I have such conflicting feelings about this book. I wanted to love it so much but, ultimately, it just wasn't for me. At its core, romance is a fantasy genre. Because of this, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a lot so when these two characters had to do things for their job that I'd never even consider doing, I was perfectly ok with letting that ride to see where it goes. The same way I'm willing to read books about magic and mythical creatures, I'm willing to believe an investor in any company would be requiring any of these things of tech & design staff!
The story takes its time to get going but then once it does, it's like from 0 to 100. I was shocked by how how fast their relationship went. I love enemies to lovers but - they weren't really enemies. Ok, fine. Only one bed? Love it! Insta-love? Not for me but I can consider it. Insta-love + only one bed + forced to work together? Hard sell but I'm open! It's important to keep in mind that this entire story takes place in so little time, it's hard to really get a feel for these lovebirds and what they're going through internally or domestically.
I was really bugged by the lack of adult development of Romeo before the story even begins. We don’t learn much about Romeo until nearly 40% into the book and when we do, well, he’s incredibly dreamy. I can picture him so clearly in my head, I practically salivate. So what’s the problem? As I learned more about Romeo Blue, I felt that he was pretty underdeveloped. Not as a character but just as a man. Every time Romeo doesn’t know how to do something, he blames it on having grown up very poor or not having learned it as a kid (because they were poor). It's not rare or even shocking that someone has grown up poor in this country and it's completely understandable that these experiences shaped him. However, he’s not a kid anymore - he’s an actual adult, post-college, with a job that may not pay much but he’s certainly not poor anymore. Despite that, so much of him is frozen in place even to the point where he doesn't believe he's a capable of cooking something "good" despite being able to cook southern food (meaning he obviously has, at minimum, the fundamentals down). It became very clear to me early on in “knowing” him that he hasn’t branched out of his youth because he hasn’t wanted to and he often seems incredibly insecure (but not shameful) about every aspect of his life.
#TeddySpenserIsntLookingforLove #NetGalley
The story takes its time to get going but then once it does, it's like from 0 to 100. I was shocked by how how fast their relationship went. I love enemies to lovers but - they weren't really enemies. Ok, fine. Only one bed? Love it! Insta-love? Not for me but I can consider it. Insta-love + only one bed + forced to work together? Hard sell but I'm open! It's important to keep in mind that this entire story takes place in so little time, it's hard to really get a feel for these lovebirds and what they're going through internally or domestically.
I was really bugged by the lack of adult development of Romeo before the story even begins. We don’t learn much about Romeo until nearly 40% into the book and when we do, well, he’s incredibly dreamy. I can picture him so clearly in my head, I practically salivate. So what’s the problem? As I learned more about Romeo Blue, I felt that he was pretty underdeveloped. Not as a character but just as a man. Every time Romeo doesn’t know how to do something, he blames it on having grown up very poor or not having learned it as a kid (because they were poor). It's not rare or even shocking that someone has grown up poor in this country and it's completely understandable that these experiences shaped him. However, he’s not a kid anymore - he’s an actual adult, post-college, with a job that may not pay much but he’s certainly not poor anymore. Despite that, so much of him is frozen in place even to the point where he doesn't believe he's a capable of cooking something "good" despite being able to cook southern food (meaning he obviously has, at minimum, the fundamentals down). It became very clear to me early on in “knowing” him that he hasn’t branched out of his youth because he hasn’t wanted to and he often seems incredibly insecure (but not shameful) about every aspect of his life.
#TeddySpenserIsntLookingforLove #NetGalley