B-
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, New Adult, Romance
Theme: Enemies to Lovers, Epistolary, Mistaken/False Identity
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists
Hold Me is both very ambitious and very uneven. We here at the Bitchery are unabashed Courtney Milan fans, to the point where I cannot possibly read a Milan book without both bias in its favor and very high expectations. As with all Milan books, I squeed repeatedly while reading, but the overall reading experience was not as enjoyable as I hoped it would be.
Hold Me involves Jay, a physicist, who is super duper busy and has no social life. However, he has an online friend, Em, whom he chats with several times a day. Em runs a blog in which she comes up with convoluted hypothetical apocalyptic scenarios and then explains how these scenarios can be avoided or altered (it involves a lot of science and math). Jay, a fan of the blog, has become online friends with Em, who knows Jay by the name “Actual Physicist.” They have a mutual agreement not to share identifying information other than pronouns.
When Jay meets his friend’s sister, Maria, he hates her on sight. She is tall, gorgeous, made up, and stylish. She likes Taylor Swift and the Twilight movies. Jay assumes that Maria is dumb and finding out that she’s very intelligent only makes him more annoyed, because Jay hates to be wrong. Naturally Maria can’t stand Jay, since he’s rude and makes assumptions about her without talking to her first. Every time Maria and Jay run into each other, their sniping war escalates. Meanwhile, Actual Physicist and Em, who are clearly Jay and Maria, find that their platonic chats are becoming significantly less platonic. Because this is Milan, there’s some funny stuff, but also because this is Milan, there’s all kinds of trauma and feels – it’s not a comedy.
I love the inclusivity of the book. It incorporates characters of different ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and classes. Much of the book takes place at University of California, Berkeley, which is where I got my Masters, and I can state from experience that if the book had not included this level of inclusivity it would have been ridiculously unrealistic. Maria is Latina, Jay is Chinese and Thai, and many of the supporting characters are non-white as well. Maria is a transgender woman, and the story avoids fetishizing her or reducing her to a coming out story. She does have a coming out story and some trauma associated with this story, but her being transgender isn’t the sum of her character — she’s into shoes, she’s into math, she’s smart, she loves her brother, she likes soup, etc.
There is SO MUCH GEEKERY in this book. I love that Actual Physicist and Em flirt using math. I loved the glow in the dark shark (named ‘Lisa’) that Maria’s ex-roommate kept in a tank in their apartment (very small shark, very big tank). I loved the reference to Douglas Adams. As an urban Californian, I also loved the reference to the fact that you can get soup here from four different ethnicities within a two-block radius.
The only part of the book that I didn’t like was the actual romance, largely because Jay was so triggery for me. Actual Physicist and Em’s messages back and forth often felt fake to me, like they had been practiced and rehearsed (which, to be fair, is in fact the kind of thing you can do with a written message). I felt like I was reading things that people wish they had said, not actual dialogue. When they are together in person, they unleash their worst qualities, especially Jay.
Jay has three personalities in the book and I didn’t believe in any of them. His “in person with Maria” personality is so obnoxious that I find it hard to believe that that anyone associates with him. Actually, not many people do, which he thinks is because they move away or are too busy. Maybe they just hate the guy. I certainly do.
His “online with Em/in person with Maria/I have changed” persona seems too good to be true and everything he says, whether in person or in type, seems artificial and stilted. His “I’m afraid to get into a relationship” crap with Em’s persona doesn’t seem to fit his backstory, not that it isn’t traumatic. And frankly it is unbelievable that his family would not have gotten both individual and family counseling after the tragedy that causes Jay so much intense brooding. It’s out of character for them.
Jay’s arc is that he is a sexist jerk who thinks that he is a feminist ally. He WANTS to be a feminist ally. He tries to change, and he does, and yet I never liked him. He goes from too awful to too perfect in a flash, and even his traumatic backstory can’t cover for that. As RedHeadedGirl said when we chatted about the book, “I think we’re supposed to read the resolution of the private manpain…
as how the public jerkass morphs into the perfect boyfriend. But… changing your habits and general behavior isn’t a switch you throw. You have to work at it.”
Maria’s arc is that she has to learn to trust, and part of trust is expressing anger. These issues make sense given her past trauma. Before she can have a real relationship with Jay, she has to have several clear-the-air conversations with people in her life. Her arc was more plausible, and one thing I loved about it was the inclusion of medication as part of her self-care process. I also love the fact that for Maria, these are steps, not instant solutions. She is a work in progress. Jay checked off a couple of boxes and now he’s a super sensitive, supportive, invested-in-the-relationship guy. Maria checks off some boxes so that she can get herself on track and figure out her next moves.
There were so many things about this book that I loved. I loved the shark and Maria’s explanation for why she didn’t love it all. I loved the science stuff. I loved the constant tension between people who had been raised with a lot of money and those who hadn’t, and the tension between introverts and extroverts. I loved the relationship between Jay’s parents and I loved how Maria’s Catholic Latina grandmother breaks stereotypes about Catholic Latina grandmothers. The sex scenes are great examples of how consent, particularly explicit consent, can be incredibly erotic. Not to mention math. If they had convinced me in high school that math could be sexy maybe I would have stayed awake in class more often.
I always have to grade Courtney Milan books with a standard letter grade, and I’m giving this a B- compared to the romances I have read because the writing, the side characters, Maria, the sex, and the shark are all pretty amazing. But on our very special puppy cannon scale, which we reserve for Courtney Milan books, I’m only giving it one out of ten puppies – the puppy cannon is very demanding.
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Your puppy cannon is tough man. Meanwhile I’m sort of willing to overlook bad romance and go buy this book just to read about the glow in the dark shark.
I read the first book in this series and did not like it. Unfortunately if a favourite author writes a book I did not enjoy, I’m still going to call it. Her characters in these books just do not seem believable, in fact they are often quite unlikeable. Bit hard in a romance! I had hoped this one would be better but doesn’t sound like it. Too bad. Oh well, will wait for the next historical.
Darn. I adored the first book. But that’s ok. It’s Milan and it’s Maria, so, I think this one will still be great, if not perfect.
I’ve been waiting for this one forever and am fully prepared to give my entire tomorrow to surreptitious reading. I’ve liked almost all of the Milan books that I’ve read (the one exception being the Brothers Sinister book that’s about Violet) and I definitely liked the first one in this actual series, Trade Me, so I still have high hopes.
I’ll be reading this one with interest and am curious as to how my feelings will compare to yours. Thanks for the review, Carrie.
I’m really excited about this book. The actual romance was something that didn’t work for me in the first book, so it’s interesting that this is mentioned here as well.
I have to admit I am curious how the whole “sexist jerk” and “dating transgender woman” pieces fit together. Seems unusual, but maybe I’m just not that familiar with trans-friendly romance novels?
I am still tempted, even if it isn’t Milan’s best, because of the trans heroine, whose life doesn’t revolve around coming out or being trans. We definitely need more trans characters in romance. Any recs for a trans hero?
Wow. I think that you must have a special “Courtney Milan” grading scale! I’m a huge fan of Milan’s work, and I bought this at breakfast and went back to bed to read (pregnancy bedrest has some perks). I can take your point that Jay’s transformation is quick, but I think that the constraints of genre – we have to get our happy ending – and the fact that this is really Maria’s story balanced that out. Plus (spoiler ahead!) the whole writing-an-apology-letter thing made him a Darcy – and nobody ever complains that Darcy is unrealistic in his turnaround and then complete commitment to Elizabeth. I really enjoyed living in the world of these characters for a couple hours, and I liked the way Milan played with online vs. IRL relationships. Add to that excellent writing plus a cast of characters that actually got close to mirroring the world we live in, and I found it a really satisfying read.
I identified strongly with Jay, and I’m a woman. I’m very bright, I have issues, and I’m frequently a dick to people even when I care about them. I’ve triggered and hurt my friends and lovers. Frequently. It’s possible I’m more of an Anj than a Jay, but we see more of Jay here, and I identified with the self-dislike he feels.
His moment of realization–BEFORE talking to his mother and reading his dad’s book–that he’s not living up to his expectations of himself? That was pretty intense for me to read. P&P isn’t the only Austen book–do you know I’ve never been able to read Emma all the way through, because it hits too close to home, when she realizes that she needs to temper all her intelligence and good intentions with real empathy.
We jump over a lot of time in this book. The chapters are weeks and months apart. We see Jay self-correct several times, catching himself saying the wrong thing or about to say the wrong thing, and then doing better. That’s what it’s like in the in-between time when you’re trying not to be horrible.
I believe he’ll still say awful things sometimes by accident, and he’s not magically cured. But sexism does not automatically invalidate someone’s worth as a person, any more than any other flaw, especially since feminism is a learned skill you have to practice, and have to be given space to practice.
When Em tells A “you are enough, just as you are,” that’s not wrong or by accident. It’s a necessary starting place to loving yourself enough to set your own expectations, live up to your own standards, and, you know, be a decent human being.
I’m at least three people, too. Humans are complicated.
The pacing felt a little weird to me, but the tacked-on conflicts were there so we could see Jay grow and let Maria take time to unwind, and I understand why.
One commenter above asked about Jay being sexist but not transphobic. He’s unconsciously sexist, and because he doesn’t have social expectations for trans people the way he does for women, his bias against Maria is exclusively because of her gender, not her trans status. Queerness probably moves most people closer to his zone of respect, actually, not further.
Anyway this was exactly the book I needed to read this week.
I just finished and it was an A for me.
I just finished this book (thanks to some quietude in the nursery for a change) and did enjoy it. The math flirting was fun, the blog concept was great. I was interested to see the variety of characters, genders, ethnicities, etc. As the girl who dressed up and was “girly” all the way through med school in the 70s,I especially liked dealing with the concept that girly girls are not smart. Yes, this has been and continues to be a particularly irksome subset of sexism.
I found Jay’s character familiar and his character change was consistent with what I have seen a few (too few) very bright feminist allies do when confronted with some of their behavior. I liked that, even when he didn’t want to like Maria, he did hear her. AND he apologized to Rachel. Oh, and he is written as bi. His last relationship was with Dave.
It was also interesting seeing Tina from Maria’s point of view.
I would have no trouble recommending this and, though it is better if you read the first book first, you don’t really have to.
I confess that I loved it, even though it was hard to read at times (Jay really does start out almost an unbearable jerk). Also: I have a friend who is a Catholic trans woman, and I immediately recommended it to her. I’ll be fascinated to see what she thinks. 🙂
A- for me, not B-. This is my favorite Courtney Milan series, and I do get the point about Jay being a jerk. But this series doesn’t seem to me like typical romance — my pleasure in these books has nothing to do with finding the characters “attractive” in the romantic sense. Rather, I like these books because the characters are very well developed and their flaws addressed with a careful touch. There are no easy good guys or bad guys (or gals) here. There are complicated people who screw up, deal with it, and — at least sometimes — learn something from it. Another plus is that these books show multiple generations of families in an interesting light. Way too many romances seem to focus on the “romance” generation, and the older and younger people are mere caricatures. So, why an A- instead of an A? Well, because it wasn’t just Jay being an asshole. Both Jay’s and Maria’s ongoing antipathy led them to say really mean and nasty shit to each other for way too much of the book, and it was painful to read that part. It also seemed out of character for Maria, whose character is otherwise conflict-averse and risk-avoidant. Great news: Adam f—–g Reynolds is getting his own book in this series!
While I don’t gravitate toward NA romances, and I have an aversion to first place present tense narration, oh, my goodness I loved this novel! So, so much.
Thanks for the very thorough review! I’ll pass for now.
I really enjoyed this book. My main struggle (outside of Jay’s turnaround) was the whole actuarial science part because I used to be roommates with an actuarial science student so I was excited to see a female character studying it. There’s so much emphasis on all the work Jay and Gabe have to do, but Maria’s exams are glossed over. Becoming an actuary is hard. The exams are brutal, the prep materials and exams are expensive, and they require constant studying. It was a bummer to see the work dismissed as spreadsheets. I thought it was weird that there was clearly so much work done to get the physics right but the actuarial science was barely even an afterthought.
Really surprised by this low grade review! I finished this book contemplating if it might be my favorite from Milan yet! (her recent ‘once upon a marquess’ was particularly lackluster to me and it got an A?) I don’t think it quite surpasses sufragette scandel, though…
Things I loved:
the messaging. Maybe as a teen in the early aughts this just fires on all cylinders for me but that sense of intimacy that comes from messaging Milan does SO realistically and manages to amp up to carry a huge weight in this story… that takes serious chops! I would not even want to read a book by any other author that involves this much messaging, she really pulls it off. I particularly like that even when they are in person using written words is a failsafe or way of feeling protected. That struck me as very true to life
I also loved the supporting cast. One of the rewards of the sinister series is that the farther along you go the more rich the world and its characters feel. Milan has signaled that the Cyclone world is very real and developed to her so we only have up to go from here.
I really liked Maria and Jay and, like someone else said, the one I related to was Jay. With friends, family, lovers we all say and do things predicated on misunderstanding and ego and then wish we could just take it all back but you can’t take it back you can only change (see: every argument I’ve ever had with my spouse).
I also liked that their academic world felt very very real. The pressure to publish, work, do research, etc was very true to life and I also found Jay’s loneliness with the structure of academic life very realistic.
Flaws:
I get that you can only fit so many characters into a book but with both characters we see formative catalyzing events that happened 10-20 years in the past and then almost nothing in between. We get that middle school was hard for Maria but next to nothing about high school and her pre-college work and transition period. It’s a double edged sword because we don’t NEED to know that but her friend network also has that gap whereas we know Jay has an extensive (if far flung) network of friends.
Jay’s sexuality was glossed over for me. I cheer a hero who is bisexual but I feel like his exboyfriend exists almost entirely to tell us this and less to illustrate Jay’s commitment issues as being the more invested one in his relationship to Maria/Em. And I get that in an area like the bay area these aren’t like big “talk it out” issues but most people do have the “these are the past relationships you should know about” talk and if I were Maria I would want to know if Jay was interested in HER or if her being trans is something he objectifies. This is sort of solved by the bodily-less style of flirting they engage in before they ever meet but not totally.
Overall I thought this was a fantastic book and worth the wait. Ever since Milan signalled that this was going to be a bit of a Saga (and ultimately about AFR!) I have been excited about the installments and this did not disappoint.
I really loved the book. I don’t think it’s a “must/feel compelled to reread” though, because it was such an emotional journey for me. I completely identified with Maria’s anxiety and feel of things being good for too long and terror of being abandoned. I love Milan’s writing, and I highlighted so many quotes in this book that resonated with me.
I also agree with above commenters that Jay made total sense for me, and didn’t feel like three disparate people. We all wear masks, and so many smart male feminists I know would fuck up this way – and, once they were told what they were doing, would do everything possible to overcome their implicit bias.
The book did feel like it slowed down once they knew who each other were, but it was because they had hard work to do to make it a relationship, and I loved it.
Solid A- from me.
I hated Jay so, so much. Enough that I was sitting here thinking about it three months after reading the books, and decided to see if you guys reviewed it. Milan said about her Suffragette book that Free didn’t get an unenlightened alpha male hero to win over to feminism because the kind of man that requires someone to gently guide him to a baseline level of human decency is just not worth the heroine’s precious time.
I love Milan and I’ll read anything she writes, but Maria deserved someone who did not need to be wooed into treating her like a human being. A hero who had issues with categorizing beautiful women I might be okay with, but Jay isn’t restrained by common courtesy, professional behavior, or even his close friendship with Maria’s brother–he’s a go-for-the-jugular bastard from his first meeting with Maria. I just can’t reconcile that with a HEA. As someone else pointed out, Jay needs a long-term change in character, not just a “whoa, I was a bad ally!” moment.