This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by NoeRD. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Mid-Length Contemporary category.
The summary:
Brothers Jude and Ryan McAllister are inseparable. When Jude stepped in to raise Ryan after the death of their mother, it became the two of them against the world. But the scars it left were bone-deep. Then Lizzie Price comes along.
Lizzie hopes Ryan’s kindness can help heal her wounds from a toxic relationship. But when she meets Jude, their powerful attraction makes him difficult to resist. The problem is, Lizzie doesn’t realize Jude and Ryan are brothers, and they don’t know they’re falling for the same girl.
By the time the truth comes out, everyone is in too deep. Ryan is in love, Jude is in denial, and Lizzie wants both brothers. All of them agree that no one deserves to get hurt. But love and desire have a way of testing even the strongest bonds.
Here is NoeRD's review:
I think everybody who reads romance has one or twelve tropes that are not their cup of tea. For some it could be the unrequited love plot or the friends to lovers one. I only have two: spies and love triangles. Guess what? No James Bonds in this book. So, I was quite determined to start reading it.
For me, love triangles have only two outcomes: a polyamory situation or some character gets hurt. The former is something that doesn’t align with my personal tastes and I never read it outside of erotica (please, comment if you can recommend some non-erotic polyamory romance), and the latter just breaks my heart. I always pine for the one that doesn’t get chosen and it goes against the reason I read romance: the belief that there is a happy ending to everyone.
Tell Me How This Ends by Victoria De La O tries very hard to be mature and to give the trope a realistic culmination and, although it can be said the issue is kicked in the butt, it fails in other aspects.
First let’s start with character building. Jude and Ryan are brothers with a very sad story. Their mother died when they were young and Jude is a father figure to Ryan. Jude is deep, he is intense, and he didn’t have time to be a just a boy because RESPONSIBILITIES. He saw his mother die in his arms. Jude is kind of a dick for like 80% of the book.
On the other hand there is Ryan. He is the younger one, the sensitive aspiring writer. He has a little stutter and his only fault is that he is young and a little immature. He is adorbs.
And then, there is Elizabeth. The character that is a trope in itself, the most insufferable type ever: the perfect woman. She’s beautiful, smart, funny, sassy, naïve and etc. She is a semi-nurse, she LOVES old people, knows how to cook, dresses simply, doesn’t sleep around and doesn’t drink. She even smells fricking good, I tell you. I’m going to let you guess who Lizzie choose to be her little smooch toy.
There are also some secondary characters that are going to get their own books but my issue with them is that there seems to be a lack of diversity in the lot.
I don’t want to come across like grumpy and I do understand that this is a first book (at least from what I got from the author’s website) but its main problem is that it reads amateurish. The book is narrated in the first person (so you’re warned), and the point of view changes between the three main characters but no one seems to have a voice of their own.
Overall, I enjoyed Tell Me How This Ends, and there is potential. I just would have liked a little more polished narrative and more depth besides giving the characters a backstory.
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Thanks!
Good review – the meh ones are the hardest to write.
I have a couple poly recs, although I don’t know if they’ll be your cup of tea.
The Slipstream Con by Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore – m/m/f space opera / heist story. It’s kind of a poly Thomas Crowne Affair in space. There is almost no on page sex but there is a lot of UST. It ends with the three of them getting together so it doesn’t really explore how they make it work, but I thought it was fun. I think Carrie S reviewed here.
One Life to Lose by Kris Ripper – m/m/m contemporary. It’s 4th in a 5 book series with an overarching mystery. It’s pretty stand alone but it also contains a giant spoiler for the mystery. It does have on page sex but it’s not erotica (by my def – ymmv). The narrator becomes friends with a couple who invite him to be their third for light bdsm scenes and they all develop feelings. I say it’s not erotica because there’s quite a bit of plot and character development and that drives the story, not the sex. (As opposed to Kris Ripper’s queer, poly series, The Scientific Method, where the sex definitely drives the plot and character development).
comment if you can recommend some non-erotic polyamory romance
Do movies count? Decades before Jules et Jim there was Design for Living, which came out about five minutes before the Hays Code kicked into high gear.
This is an older book but it’s polyamorous, not erotic, and fantasy as well, plus the heroine is the one who marries all the different people, male and female: The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton.
If you’re into SF, Robert Heinlein had a lot of polyamorous relationships in his works. But be warned, some of those relationships are also incestuous.
Another SF non-erotic book is Donald Kingsbury’s Courtship Rite, pubbed 1982. The social systems are polyamorous. Caveat:they’re cannibals.
@Louise: I remember the first time I watched Design For Living & thinking how ever did *that* get made? Such a smart, witty movie, but hey, Noel Coward.
Jim C. Hines’ Librarian series has a polyamorous relationship in an urban fantasy context. Since one of the members has an unusual magical restriction placed on her life, the love triangle is actually the happiest solution for everyone involved.
@Sandra are we talking about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert level relatedness or siblings/close family?
@Lizzy
The protagonist travels back in time to bang his own mother.
@Erin:
Well, that escalated quickly. :-0
@Sandra and Erin – ugh Heinlein. I’m still traumatized by reading Friday. The heroine is part of a group marriage that includes a man who raped her earlier in the book.
The Compass Rose does sound good. Thanks for mentioning it, Sarah.
@Eric Oh. Yeah. I don’t think I’m interested in that. I’m not sure I could read that in any way without really being disgusted.
The Adaptation/Inheritance duology by Malinda Lo has healthy polyamory instead of love triangles. It’s YA though so your mileage for Teenage Angst may vary 🙂
Another poly rec: Lauren Gallagher’s Kneel, Mr. President. It has more than one explicit sex scene and a lot of lovely uncertain emotions.
I seem to recall Fiona Patton’s fantasies (The Stone Prince, etc) having some polyamory: each royal has a same-sex lover/bodyguard but the royals must also form hetero pairings for the sake of reproduction.
Also, the Hominids series by Robert J Sawyer features a society where everyone lives with their same-sex lover for 28 days of the month, and their other-sex lover for one long weekend, when the women are fertile.
By “not erotica” do you mean no sexytimes? Or just that there’s also a lot more going on? (Sorry if I should know that!)
Anyway, the Triad books – first one is Triad Blood, second is Triad Soul – by ‘Nathan Burgoine features an open m/m/m relationship that works well. Definitely polyamorous. There are sexytimes, but that isn’t the primary focus of the story. It’s a fantasy story of vampires, demons, and wizards. The first one is very fun with great world-building and a lot of heart; I’m looking forward to the second but haven’t read it yet.
Tanya Huff’s books! It’s been a while but from what I remember she treats sexuality as healthy, open and if that happens to include polyamory, so be it. Love her Blood series – what’s not to like about a romance writing vampire who’s the illegitimate bastard of Henry VIII!!?!? Her other books are great too.
Books that are not romances as the main focus, but do poly well:
Lifelode (with a main female middle-aged character! and good relationships! and good worldbuilding!)
The Jenny Casey series by Elizabeth Bear, mostly in the first book (Hammered). near-future (2060) urban sf/f. I am not a huge fan of her later writing, but I really liked this early trilogy.