Observation Note 94: Finally! I didn’t feel that I could go a whole month of blogging daily and not have read a romance in that time. It took me eight whole days to finish reading a novel which twenty, ten, eight, and even five years ago would have taken maybe two days to fly through. I don’t know if it was the book (doubtful), the person I now am (probably), or the anxiety brought on by the current Sydney lockdown (most likely) but I could not bring myself to read more than a chapter at a time. My attention was scattered, and the story didn’t resonate with me. In actual fact, there were elements that I quite disliked. I realise that I am an outlier on this.

Reading Note 37: A Romance – likes. So first I will touch on the parts of Talia Hibbert’s Take a hint, Dani Brown that were good. Those parts that made me persist in my reading of the book. Firstly, I really liked the characters. Zafir, the ex-rugby player turned security guard moonlighting as a coach for a youth team while giving them mental health support was a stellar character. He read romance, he was quiet and contemplative, that he was a Muslim man that embraced the tenets of his faith (lying is haram), that he understood himself, and he had experienced deep grief which had changed the person he was.

I liked Danika, her self confidence, her strength of convictions and her need to control her own narrative. I like that she was a witch, drawing on the tendrils of knowledge passed down to her from her grandmother. Her PhD life was ideal and her own anxieties over conferences and symposiums was relatable (anyone else curl up in a ball screaming with a panic attack a day before a presentation??? Yeah. Not doing that again).

Like the emotional grappling that both Zafir and Danika have to go through to reach an understanding of their own self and the way they wanted to lead their lives. I loved the way that they each were able to connect through laughter and through desire. Their compatibility and connection was palpable. Electric even. But this was not enough to make me like this story.

Now I have left for last my liking of the premise, I guess you could say the romance trope, that underpins this romance. I adore a fake relationship turned real. It usually buzzes with fun. As this one should have but sadly, it didn’t.

Reading Note 38: A romance – dislikes. I feel like I am the only person who became totally squicked out with the execution of fake relationship plot premise? The thing is that Zafir and Danika pretend to be in their fake relationship so that they can entice people to donate money to his mental health for kids organisation “Tackle it”. Part of the fake relationship include becoming fuck buddies for the duration of the public social media fundraiser and I did not feel comfortable with this at all. For two people who are so in touch with their emotions, especially Zafir and his aim for honesty and truth, falsifying his relationship with Danika for public consumption and monetary gain was never resolved for me. There was no remorse or even conscientious grappling with the ethical issues that it raised (I mean – there was a bit of a tussle that was glossed over with a “the end justifies the means” thought.

Then there was the constant mention of dick and cock and pussy and vagina in contexts which jarred the flow of the story. It felt overused and just threw me out of story, wondering why it was even mentioned (this is the point that I am annoyed with myself for not keeping notes while I read just so I can show examples but I can’t even bring myself to browse through the book to find one). The thing is, that a metaphor (bleh!) would not be good either. In the sex scenes, in the build up to intimacy, sure. There is a time and place. I just think that there were too many in this story. I am more than happy to be accused of being puritanical and uptight and that it is my prissy-ness that makes me feel this way but I personally don’t think I am any of these.

There was a library scene that just got my librarian (well former librarian) back up. Zafir finds Danika in the library and they get all hot and heavy and he gets an erection and they are performing for their social media fake relationship and I just wanted to shout at them to stop and that their PDA was not acceptable. Having had to interrupt many a young couple being WAY TOO AMOROUS in public libraries, being WAY TOO HORIZONTAL, being WAY TOO HEAVY BREATHING, I wanted to tear this scene up and scream NOOOOOOOOO! Be adults! Have some respect for the poor library staff.

And then there was the length. This is an old bug bear of mine. At 9pm tonight I still had 50 pages to go. 50! And they had only just had their big break up. My eyes feel like they are bleeding. 50 pages of black moment and make up/love/self realisation to sit through. Ugh. Too long. And then there were about 10 pages of fricken epilogue. Noooo! I mean, I finished the book by 10:30ish. But the length is my perennial complaint with most fiction. TOO LONG! Make it shorter. This is not about my focus or my attention span. I have plenty of that. This is about the propensity for navel gazing, copious amounts of backstory, and excuciatingly detailed filler angst in just about all fiction. YA fiction – too fucking long. Literary fiction – too fucking long. Fantasy fiction – too fucking long. Let me be clear here – my only ONLY reason for not reading 50 Shades of Grey has nothing to do with the story, the public perception, the kink, or any other alarmist shit. It has everything to do with 500 page doorstoppers per volume. *deep breath*

So yes. I felt Take a Hint, Dani Brown was too too long. I got bored when I should have just loved the whole story.