#3.0-3.4

Opinions going in/why I picked it up:

I was scrolling through Spotify trying out a few audiobooks with my remaining like 3hr of listening time for the month. I was picking a few, listening for the first chapter or so, and then moving on.

I picked up this book because I was starting to get into my usual Dark Academia Fall mood, though we still had a couple weeks of summer left. As such, I decided that this one, being a academic romance, would be a good transition between summer and fall.

I will note that this book does have a Student/Professor romance. I know a lot of people don't like those, but I eat them up (as long as everyone is of age)

Likes:

I will be 100% upfront and say that I have exactly zero experience with any terminal illnesses. Nor have I read many books with themes and direct depictions of terminal illneses. While I have been a fan of a YouTuber who eventually passed away from a terminal illness, I have known exactly zero people with a terminal illness on a personal level.

I have had a short period in my life (that lasted just a few hours) where a doctor had serious concerns that I likely had a terminal illness. As I sat by myself in the hospital, waiting on results that would eventually show to be negative, I had experienced just a fraction of what it was like to be told that you would die soon.

All that to say, please take everything I say with a massive heaping tablespoon of salt. Obviously a "highly likely you're terminal" is not the same as being terminally ill, but its the closest I've got and the reason I am going to say what I am next.

I really like how Jamie and his brothers cancer diagnoses and his brothers eventual death were talk about. In those scant few hours for me, yes it was scary, but also, in a weird way, a relief. Like when you finally learn how a story ends -- that is has an end. I'm not sure many would agree, and maybe it says more about me than I should admit in a review about a romance book, but I would have been happy to know how and when I die and, in that moment, I had a pretty good guess.

Now in the years since though few hours, I do not feel the same way, but if I *had* actually been diagnosed, I think I would have continued to feel about it in much the way Jamie and his brother did about their cancer diagnoses. As such this book hit very close to home.

And I do like how the 3rd act breakup was handled in this book as well as the way they came back together in the end. I could make an argument that Ella's decision to remain in England instead of returning to a thriving political career in the states is incredibly cliche and ultimately disappointing for her character, but I am just enough of a romantic at heart to let it slide.

Additionally, I did enjoy the dialogue and chemistry between Jamie and Ella. It was sufficiently fun and I did enjoy the reoccurring "Ella, from Ohio" use instead of the MMC trying to force a cutesy nickname

Dislikes:

As an enjoyer for Student/Professor romances, I was a little disappointed that that aspect was not played into much. It was more used as a way to have 'forced proximity' in the beginning rather than any fun dynamics with the taboo nature of it. There is even exchange of dialogue between the MC and the side characters that openly state that romance between a student and their teacher wasn't even that frowned upon. Similarly the academic setting I was hoping to use as a transition into my dark academia reading season was basically completely ditched. Not inherently a bad thing, but not what I wanted or expect out of a book with the name "Oxford" in the title.

There is so much millennial humor and the FMC occasionally acting ditsy in a way that I think the author meant to be endearing, but was honestly just annoying.

There were a lot of side character and their characters arcs slowed down the book a lot. I appreciated that they had their own lives, motives, and goals outside of the main couple, but there were just too many of them.

Rating Breakdown:

Characters: 8

Atmosphere: 5

Writing: 7

Plot: 7

Intrigue: 7

Logic: 7

Enjoyment: 6

Dialogue: 5

Opinions going in/why I picked it up:

I adored Sara Raasch's previous book in the series, Nightmare Before Kissmas, so of course I picked up the second one as soon as it was available.

I am desperate for an Iris romance, so I was a tiny bit sad that this romance centered Kris, but I liked him as a character so I still wanted to pick this one up.

(Also, to note, an account that I assume is actually Sara Raasch liked my review for the previous book in the series, Nightmare Before Kissmas. This is fine, she's free to read and engage with whatever she wants, it was just a bit odd for me lol)

Likes:

I do like both of our MMCs, but this book made me LOVE Kris.

His internal battle with himself over what he can be outside of a servant or subduing force for his brother is both wonderful and heartbreaking. The idea that 'your worth is only what you provide to others' is one that I and I think many other people struggle with. It was lovely to see him go through that journey and still struggle with it, but have the tools and the support system to heal and find his own *happy* ever after.

And speaking of support system, Coal and Iris were just so lovely yet again. I adore this little trio and the little family they've formed, especially when things got tough for Kris, both with his mom and with Loch.

And speaking of his mom, man I'm so glad he finally dealt with her. I thankfully don't have any personal experience dealing with a narcissistic family member so I can't speak to the accuracy of the representation of it, but man was it cathartic to finally be rid of her.

Dislikes:

It's not exactly accurate say I disliked the politics of this book, they just weren't as interesting as the first book. Most of my complaint of this nature was surrounding Malachy, Loch's Uncle and Regent King of St Patrick's Day.

This guy who's supposed to be our antagonist just isn't around? Malachy showing up at the end to be evil for a bit and throw a wrench into Loch and Kris's relationship was just kind of... Lackluster?

It felt like the confrontation between Loch and Malachy was supposed to be this big, climatic thing, similar to Coal's conflict with his father, but it just didn't hit the same. Maybe because it wasn't from Loch's perspective so we don't get to hear the history as much?

All of the St. Patrick family kept saying how bad a guy Malachy was, but he just wasn't around enough to make me not like him. So when he had his great fall, I didn't feel triumphant either. He wasn't even in the scene where Loch took ownership of St. Patricks day, only came to yell at Loch after. And he was also stripped of his power/access to joy off page?? Like what.

I think that it could have been more interesting if Malachy were around a bit more to confuse Kris externally rather than it being left to Kris to confuse himself via overthinking. And to, y'know, *be* an antagonist.

And then, similar to the first book, it was odd to be teased with the whole "good boy" dialogue and have Loch being hinted at taking on a more "dom" role and then not actually including that in their spicy scenes. It kind of reminds me how Deep End by Ali Hazelwood used a ton of "more advanced" BDSM language but then proceeded to be the most basic form of a Dom/Sub relationship.

Hinting at more, but actually providing less. I'm sure it's enough for those who dont often read more kinky romances, but it just felt like an unfulfilled promise to me.

Other Notes:

I think for most people it's probably fine (this is just a me thing) but I was struggling to read Loch's dialogue. It's just an Irish accent, but that's not an accent I hear very often, so I don't really know what it's supposed to sound like. I got the hang of it by the end, but man was it a struggle at the start. (Tbf I struggle to read my OWN accent when it's written out in dialogue)

In a similar, but more humorous vein: just like I don't know Irish pronunciation of words, I also don't know Irish pronunciation of names.

It took me until the last like 30 pages of the book to realize that Malachy's name is pronounced the same as Malachi. In my head I was pronouncing it like "Mah - Lock - key" because it was spelled similar to the word Malarkey... My bad lmao

Rating Breakdown

Characters: 8

Atmosphere: 6

Writing: 7

Plot: 6

Intrigue:6

Logic: 7

Enjoyment: 7

Dialogue: 7

Opinions going in/why I picked it up:

I have read most of Ali Hazelwood's bibliography (with the exception of Love on the Brain and the STEMinist Novellas) and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Well. Except for one.

I absolutely *hated* Not in Love. I thought the MMC was awful, it depicted things like safe words as unnecessary, and I thought the way the FMCs struggle to form meaningful romantic relationships was written in a way that was vaguely arophobic. The only big plus it had was that is was short.

That said, Deep End was described to me as much more in line with Not in Love rather than her other works. So you know. Did not bode well for me. Add in the fact that I saw TON of people saying they were DNFing Deep End and I had rather low expectations going in.

Likes:

I liked the FMC, Scarlett (also goes by Vandy) overall. I think her rather absurd levels of imposter syndrome might annoy other readers, but I found her relatable. She was capable and witty and generally reasonably anxious about her abilities in a way that I related to from my own STEM-related insecurities.

The dialogue and prose was typical Hazelwood, which is a positive for me, but again, definitely could be annoying to others. It's fun, simply, and a little millennial-style cringe but I eat it up. They're were absolutely lines that made me laugh.

I think this book handled BDSM dynamics much better than Not in Love (the bar was very low, but we love improvement). I think the discussion around safe words was still a little iffy, but at least it wasn't completely dismissive. I don't imagine Hazelwood's main readership is super familiar with kink, so I'll take the positive representation.

[As an aside: BSDM and the larger kink community is something that I was involved with for a couple of years when I was figuring myself out. From that I became extremely passionate about safety and communication in kink. Aka I have a very high bar that Hazelwood will likely never reach, but her books are probably perfectly acceptable to those not involved in kink.]

Dislikes:

Way too long. Way, WAY too long. I guess Hazelwood was trying to take us through all the big competitions that a typical D1 diver would go to in a season, but something needed to be cut. Like why is this book 460 pages?? If you don't want to cut plot, cut the Olive and Adam cameo, or cut one or more of the sex scenes. And speaking of those...

A lot of the DNF reviews I saw said their big complaint was that there was so much sex and it all happened too fast and I..? They don't even kiss until like 150 pages in. They mention kink very early on so maybe that's what people were talking about? I have no idea if not.

And as for the amount of sex: I didn't mind it. It certainly was more than the 1-3 scenes we typically get from Hazelwood, but, again, the complaints of "too much sex" seemed unwarranted. All that's said, the sex scenes were kinda boring.

I don't go to Hazelwood when I'm looking for super well written smut, but I normally at least think it's fun. This time it was just kind of 'meh' and was the same thing over and over. Scarlett is like "oh no I don't know if I can take more" and Lukas(MMC) replies "You'll take what I give you" and then she does and that's it.

And speaking of Lukas... I don't know if he was originally two different characters that were merged into one, but it *feels* like he was. I would have a pretty solid understanding of what I thought he was like, but then he would say or do something that was felt so wildly out of character that I would pause and double check that he was the one speaking/doing whatever it was.

It happened enough times that he started feeling like he had two different personalities. I don't know if it was meant as 'I'm more myself when I'm with you' thing, but it didn't really work out that way. I did like both halves of Lukas, it was just odd.

Other Notes:

This book has a lot of miscommunication. It doesn't bother me that much, it's just a little boring as a plot device. It wasn't egregious enough to be annoying, so I left it out of the dislikes and put it here.

As for the plot outside of the romance? Well... It was there, I guess. I'm not gonna knock the rating too much for it, though, cause this is a romance book after all. The romance is the main plot. That said, I don't know if I love the climax? It was a little out of left field but it does make sense if you think about it.

Rating Breakdown

Overall the book was just kind of boring. I think if the book was cut to 300-350 pages it would have helped with the pacing.

Characters: 7

Atmosphere: 6

Writing: 6

Plot: 6

Intrigue:5

Logic: 6

Enjoyment: 6

Dialogue:8