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Bezig met laden... Mischief Maker (Animal Lark)door Andi Lee
Geen Bezig met laden...
 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  Penumbra1 | Oct 11, 2022 |  geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
An Animal Lark Novel. What to expect when your pet rat is expecting, or how to fall in love at a pet show. Jamie Hewett rescues and breeds prize-winning fancy rats. While he is surrounded by supportive, animal-loving friends, his ex-boyfriend has never been one of them. One embarrassing breakup later, he definitely isn't looking for love again, but perhaps a rebound relationship might ease his broken heart. Liam Donnelly's quirky dating life is the subject of a popular vlog, and his viewers have interesting ideas on where he might find romance. When they suggest he take Mabel, his new rat, to a pet show, he's up for the adventure. Although they can't deny their growing interest in each other, neither Jamie nor Liam believes in love at first sight. They've both had bad luck with men, and Jamie isn't pleased that Liam makes a living as a serial dater. On top of that, others are conspiring to keep them apart, and Jamie is left holding the baby-or twenty-plus babies -- when their fur children have no trouble making a connection. Will a YouTube ukulele serenade convince Liam that Jamie's love for him -- and their unborn rat children -- is for real? Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-WaarderingGemiddelde: (4)
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1
The first thing I want to talk about is the cover. It is awesome. I love the black and white image and the playful fonts with the bright colors. They work well together and fit the story perfectly. This is probably one of the best covers I’ve seen this year.
Andi Lee is a new author to me and this book is a cute introduction to her writing. As with all books, there are things I liked about this story and things I didn’t. The blurb is accurate on what the plot is about, so I won’t rehash that, instead I’ll mention my likes and dislikes.
I don’t know if it was because the story was set in the UK, or it was the writing style, but the first couple of chapters confused me and had me wondering what I was reading. It starts with Liam’s pov and it seems he headed to a warehouse and it had something to do with zombies. It didn’t make any sense to me what was happening. He sat in a stall that was painted like zombies coming in; he ran out of the warehouse and ran into Jamie. It’s as if the reader is dumped into the middle of the event without a clue and the writing isn’t smooth and doesn’t transition well. All I could think was, ‘Uh-oh. Is the writing style going to be like this for the whole book?’ Thank goodness, it wasn’t, but the first chapters, rather than pulling me in, pushed me away. I didn’t start to figure out what was happening until Liam attended the rat show.
On to the characters. Liam was a jerk. He’s faked a personality for so long, he doesn’t know how to be real any more. At least he started that way. He used men to make comical videos of his dates to get hits on his video channel. He was attracted to Jaime when he ran into him but he has a plan to date him, which is purely selfish. Liam knows Jaime has just broken up so he decides to manipulate Jaime into trusting him enough to achieve Liam’s goal as a date. Jaime doesn’t like Liam at first and can’t believe Liam keeps pushing himself on him. There are a couple of breakups and reconciliations between the two men. The second conflict between Liam and Jaime, if you read closely, is a subtle reference to a situation that some people undergo. The apology had me misty eyed. It was how heart-felt apologies should be in stories. Too many books have instant forgiveness that aren’t convincing. The author did a good job of having the characters grow throughout this book. It’s not a whole monologue, but one-liners that slip in over time until their feelings and thoughts change.
The one thing I didn’t care for in the story, were Liam and Jaime’s names. I constantly got them confused. Even typing this review, I want to type one character and instead I use the other character’s name. Look at their names. The letters L and J are only two letters apart in the alphabet and visually could be flipped around. The letters in their names ‘a, i, m’, three same letters are in both their names and their names are short. It’s not as if their names are Liam and Joshua, or Liam and Jacob, or even Liam and James, which have enough of a difference as not to look visually the same. The names Liam and Jaime are almost twins. I dislike when authors have character names that either start with the same letters or are similar as is the case here. It interrupts the flow of my reading. I often was confused whose pov I was reading until further on, and then I had to go back and reread because I thought it was the other character’s pov. I wish authors thought more carefully about the names they chose and the editors and proofers would mention it to them.
The secondary characters are interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to them in future stories. The ex-best friend and ex-boyfriend situation was sad, but at the same time, they deserved what happened to them. They shouldn’t have crossed that line. I’m somewhat curious what happened to the ex-best friend. Did he just fade away from all future storylines?
Overall, I enjoyed this story even though I found the start of the book confusing and wasn’t able to get into it until the rat show. Mischief Maker continued to get better after that. I also didn’t care for how close in similarity the characters names were. It’s a shame no one mentioned the issue to the author when the book was looked over by the editors etc. The best parts are the story had good character growth, and the breakups and reunions were well done. I give this 4 Stars.
I received an ARC copy of this book for an honest and unbiased review. (