Alice Pate reviews Choices by Tessa Vidal

Choices by Tessa Vidal

Choices is fairly true to the stereotypes of its genre. As an erotic romance, its sex scenes are plentiful, overdramatic, and unrealistic. Unfortunately, it seems that these criticisms can be extended to the entire story.

Choices is a love story between the movie star, Caro Ballad and the celebrity dog trainer, Shell Tate. Both women had their start in a trailer park in Mississippi and managed to find their way to glamorous Los Angeles where they reconnected over Caro’s new adopted dog, Dickens.

Fame has always been a difficult writing subject, because so few people have actually experienced it. Tessa Vidal has fallen victim to writing about a subject she has little experience with and the result is a celebrity character who is just… boring. The movie star life is an attractive subject, but it takes a special touch to pull it off.

In general, I had a hard time getting invested in the romance. Perhaps my own personal bias against celebrity lifestyles and the world of dog breeding and dog shows, but I’m a little more likely to blame the uninspiring romance scenes. There was no tension or build-up to the relationship, and the tiny conflict the author tried to insert was too easy to overcome.

To risk a pun, this entire story was anticlimactic. Tessa Vidal included a side-story to run parallel the main couple. It follows Ryder, Shell’s twin brother, who is on the run from the FBI, and it’s hinted that he’s involved in something incredibly dangerous. This side plot was a nice rush of action for when the romantic plot fell flat, but in the end there was no big exciting peak to Ryder’s story.

Likewise, there’s a scene where Caro is being blackmailed by a private detective about her not-so-glamorous past, and this is never revisited. Caro claims she won’t pay him the money he demands to buy his silence. But he still has a hold of this information on her that she tries to keep covered up. Loose ends like this tend to point to rushed drafts and a lack of editing, and it could have potentially livened up the story where it dragged.

Overall, I was fairly unimpressed with Choices. The author has since released a few more erotica titles that appear to be set in the same creative universe, but I doubt I’ll ever pick them up.

Alice Pate reviews A Line In The Dark by Malinda Lo

A Line In the Dark by Malinda Lo cover

Trigger Warnings: drug use, underage drinking, referenced underage sex, adult/teenager relationship

Note: Not all trigger warnings are present in this review, but they are present in the book in question.

A Line In The Dark may be marketed as a YA thriller, but I personally believe all the best parts of the story have nothing to do with the mystery.

The author, Malinda Lo, really shines in her portrayal of relationships, both romantic and platonic. Perhaps this stood out so much to me because I’m reading her book immediately after slogging through some pretty mediocre writing, but the emotions shown in her characters felt so rich, and full, and satisfying. The main character, Jessica Wong (Jess), has a secret crush on her best friend Angie. Every word in the first few chapters about this crush felt like it was pulled straight out of my own closeted high school brain. So naturally, when Angie starts seeing this other girl, Margot, who goes to a nearby boarding school in town, I could feel my own heart breaking right along with Jess’s.

But this isn’t your typical love triangle. Remember how I mentioned this book is a thriller? About halfway through the book goes from a quiet and reflective piece about the main character and her internal struggles to a drama fueled “he-said-she-said.” The death of Margot’s best friend, Ryan, has the cast of characters trying to find the culprit and pointing fingers.

While this transition was a little rocky, Lo ties in all of those beautiful emotions and relationships she’d crafted in the first half of the story to form the puzzle pieces needed to solve the mystery. The tone may have shifted pretty dramatically, but the story is still intriguing enough to reel you back in to find out whodunnit.

Ultimately, A Line In The Dark was incredibly entertaining, and at a little over 300 pages, it’s a pretty fast read. I highly recommend picking it up if you have the time.

Alice Pate reviews The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde

The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde cover

Trigger Warnings: alcoholism, underage drinking, neglectful parenting, abusive relationship
Note: Not all trigger warnings are present in this review, but they are present in the book in question.

The Brightsiders has been on my to be read list for several months before I finally purchased a copy. The bright colors of the cover had really caught my eye, and turning it over to read the synopsis on the back had me practically buzzing to give it a read. The story of a bisexual teenager coming out to the world while also managing her place in the spotlight as the drummer in a teen punk band. At least, that’s what the back had me believe it was about.

Contrary to the blurb summary of the book, The Brightsiders is not about our main character, Emmy King, telling her family, friends, and thousands of fans about her sexuality. In fact, by all definitions she’s already out and proud. She has a bisexual pride flag hanging in her parents’ house and tabloids report on her relationship with another girl, Jessie, regularly.

Okay, so then what is the plot of the story if not coming out? I honestly couldn’t tell you. The first half of the book is setting up characters and making sure to tell (not show) us that this punk band, Brightsiders is just so amazing. Then nearly halfway through the book (HALF!) the author blindsides us with a romance between Emmy and another band member, Alife, the super cool genderqueer guitarist complete with sexy smirk and arms covered in ink. Emmy, and thus the book, suddenly has a fixation on all things sex that I didn’t appreciate. If the entire book had been written like that right out of the gate, it would have been less jarring.

As for writing style, this book felt clunky. There are several moments in this story where the writer will detach themselves from the plot so that they can go on long-winded lectures or tangents about homophobia, slut-shaming, or even a three-page rant about what bad kisses are like all while the main character is supposed to be experiencing the best kiss of her life. And while, yes, homophobia and bad kisses are both things that need to be corrected, these tangents feel like they would be more at home in a preachy social media post than in first-person fiction.

And then there were the characters; if you can even call them characters, I’d liken them a little closer to props. As early on as chapter two I had the feeling that all of the characters existed to stand behind Emmy and nod their heads. To tell her she never does anything wrong and to coddle her. Little did I know, it was worse than that.

Not that you would know it from the way this book is written, but there are in fact three members of the Brightsiders band, not two. Nearly every character other than Emmy is underdeveloped (more on that in a bit) but Ryan really gets the worst of it. Between Ryan, Emmy, and Alfie, Ryan has the least amount of focus on him and he even gets left out of a lot the story. He’s a tagalong to Emmy and Alfie’s story and he’s treated like a tagalong in the band too, despite being the frontman.

It’s not even worth mentioning any of the other people in this story because my biggest problem here is that the characters exist solely for representation and diversity points. These characters are given labels the second we meet them. “Asian. Bi.”, “Black. Nonbinary.” While inclusion is a wonderful thing, these labels aren’t what makes a person who they are. We the readers are not given the opportunity to properly know these characters because “white and queer” is treated as an accurate description of who someone is.

The parents are nothing more than comical villains. They are given no reason or motive to be such (poorly written) bad guys. Perhaps they were written this way to give Emmy a tragic backstory and make you feel bad for her. It doesn’t work. The conflict between the need to love her parents and be loved back and the recognition that they aren’t a healthy part of her life isn’t really shown here. They’re just bad guys meant to be hated and the author gives them no real substance.

As for Emmy herself, I don’t like her. She doesn’t have to fight for anything. Her sexuality has no repercussion on her relationships or her career. As great as the world would be if being anything other than heterosexual wouldn’t matter, it’s not realistic. And frankly, it’s offensive to all real-life LGBT+ musicians who have had to fight against discrimination and homophobia in the music industry to be heard. Very very few people will be able to love and relate to a character who doesn’t experience the same roadblocks in her life due to sexuality and gender identity as them. The author also tried to work in Emmy as an alcoholic and runs into this same issue. If you don’t know how addiction works, and you aren’t willing to put in even the most minimal amount of effort to research what it’s like, don’t do it. Emmy manages to achieve sobriety without really having to think about it or try. No struggle.

In conclusion, I’m sure there are several people who would enjoy The Brightsiders, but I am not one of them. The characters are flat cardboard cutouts of representation, the “bad guys” are poorly written so that Emmy can cancel them while everybody cheers, and the plot bounces around so much that I began to wonder why I was even reading it anymore. From the feel of this book, I’m sure the author had a blast writing it and was able to sort through their own thoughts by writing them out through the lens of the fabulously famous Emmy King, but the execution of this book was so poor, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Alice is a Texas dwelling college student with a passion for stories. She hopes to one day spread her love of literature as a middle school English teacher. Find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Pillowfort, or read more of her personal reviews on lilacchildwrites.wordpress.com.