Not Your Average hot guy : : a Romantic Comedy at the (Possible) end of the World

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Bond, Gwenda, Adult Book / Fiction / Romance / General / Bond, Gwenda
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Bond, Gwenda	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Romance / General / Bond, Gwenda	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"All Callie wanted was a quiet weekend with her best friend. She promised her mom she could handle running her family's escape room business while her mom is out of town. Instead a Satanic cult shows up, claiming that the prop spell book in one of the rooms is the real deal, and they need it to summon the right hand of the devil. Naturally they take Callie and her friend, Mag, along with them. But when the summoning reveals a handsome demon in a leather jacket named Luke who offers to help Callie stop the cult from destroying the world, her night goes from weird to completely strange. As the group tries to stay one step ahead of the cult, Callie finds herself drawn to the annoying (and annoyingly handsome) Luke. But what Callie doesn't know is that Luke is none other than Luke Morningstar, Prince of Hell and son of the Devil himself. Callie never had time for love, and with the apocalypse coming closer, is there room for romance when all hell's about to break loose?"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

An Unfortunately Average Book submitted by Meginator on July 25, 2022, 11:28am This romantic comedy does an excellent job with its supernatural elements, but I never really bought into the romance and had some difficulty with the significant lack of tension due to inconsistent and ineffective pacing. The setup is excellent, with an escape room accidentally housing a very real spellbook that, in the hands of a creepy cult, summons the son of Satan; naturally, he then teams up with the owner’s daughter (who, incidentally, was in charge of the business when the relevant theft and summoning occurred) and a romance occurs while they attempt to prevent an apocalypse that is heavily influenced by the Book of Revelation. Bond’s version of Hell is clever and achieves a good balance between depicting its inherent evilness and showing some nuances that keep its Prince, Luke, firmly in the Good Guy category; the theology, however, is distinctly Christian (despite some cameo appearances from Greek mythology), even as the characters gesture toward the possibility of all faiths holding some fundamental truths. The supernatural stakes move the plot along at a consistently satisfying clip and give the story an adventurous edge that keeps it worth reading despite the significant flaws in its character development.

Although this book is aimed at adults, the characters are obviously quite young and read fairly immature; in many ways, this is a book about finding yourself and figuring out how to embrace the unique qualities that make you *you*, but Bond doesn’t quite manage to pull of the necessary development and evolution over the course of the story. The romance, too, is a particularly disappointing and inexplicable example of insta-love; while the trope can be effective, all the reader has to go on is that both of the main characters find the other visually appealing, which is apparently enough to spur some intense sacrifices that feel completely out of proportion to their level of attraction (as expressed directly by each narrator) and to the amount of time they spend with each other. Even when they allude to aspects of the other’s personality that make them act in certain ways, it’s unconvincing given the compressed timeline, enough so that it pulled me right out of the narrative and prevented me from getting emotionally attached to the book.

The plot, too, suffers from some pacing problems, most notably and obviously in the way that the secondary characters are treated. They show up only when it is convenient, and all of the potential conflicts between them and the female lead are instantly resolved without any actual movement; they suddenly understand each others’ perspectives perfectly and everything is fine as they move on to fight the larger battle. This setup could theoretically work, but in the context of this particular book and these particular characters, it feels more like a vague gesture toward depth and emotional growth than like something that would actually happen. Unfortunately, in the end, no amount of clever tinkering with established notions of Hell and its management can overcome the book’s inability to deal realistically with relationships, and while the adventure is fun all of the emotional elements fall completely flat. This could be a nice breezy choice for the right reader, but I couldn’t get through a chapter without actively noticing the flaws in its craft, and this ultimately killed the book for me.