you know what? It is getting better.

That doesn’t mean it’s good, though. I’ve taken two notes about positive aspects of this story so far (one of them about Nils looking like my irl friend Nils and the other about the story being set in 2027), among dozens upon dozens of mistakes, logical fallacies, and things that crept/grossed me out. Not a good track record.

I still bemoan the utter lack of world building. The only grace I can give the book here is that /maybe/ it was all in the first book, but these are separate romance novels, and they should very well be readable out of order. But having to wait until almost halfway through to find out what year it is is absolutely silly. And again, I fail to find any suspense or excitement for the sports part of this sports romance, because we know so little about the rest of the grid, or, really, how the season is going, that everything just becomes a blur. There is too much focus on the races for this to be omitted without negative consequences, especially Johannes’ performance, but without a singular other driver to compare against, it all just falls incredibly flat. Just a quick word about the driver standings would be enough. I’m not even asking about the full grid, I’ve given up hope for that to be as fleshed out as I’d wished, but anything to make this whole plot feel less lifeless. Though I do like the decision to have it set in a future season, and changing up the race order/bringing races like France back. That’s fun. That’s some thought being put into it. I like that.

The romance is so meh as well. Maybe I’m just too lesbian and asexual to /get it/, but, ugh. The needlessly horny comments about every single little thing are just grossing me out. And I think this is just the author’s inability to write convincing dialogues, but for God’s sake, even a sentient rock and an awkward human dude have more chemistry than these two! (I’ve been reading PHM fanfictions to dull the pain, sue me)

Also, both of these characters are written the exact same. There is no difference in their thought processes or actions at all, and it all reads the same. When you write from one POV only, you at least have plausible deniability, but like this… it’s just so glaringly obvious. And it’s boring. Really, really boring.

But despite all this, I trek on bravely. About halfway still to go. I cannot wait to be done. It will be a happy day.

the last two chapters I read were the least offensive part so far, though I do very much dislike how we’re just thrown into this world without explanation. I’m still trying to make sense of who is who and in what team and what the teams are like. Knowing what kind of team (performance wise) RBF is would help a lot with the ridiculous standards they have set for Johannes. (Also, he talks about having his best F2 season five years ago, which meant he was in F2 at 24, so how great could he realistically have been??)

I also heavily dislike that everybody uses british phrasing and spelling, ESPECIALLY when it’s the American character. That makes absolutely no sense at all and it’s even one more thing taking me out of the story.

Aside from the extremely awkward phrasing at some points, I’ve once more found grammar errors as well. Isn’t that fun.

The character I like most so far is Nils, and only because I have an irl friend called Nils who also fits the physical description. I absolutely hate that Johannes keeps calling him “young one” though it’s so strange and awkward and weird. Also, is his full name supposed to be Nikolas Beck??? Where is the Nils coming from then, that’s not a nickname of that name in any world wtf.

The fact that the characters from the first book (whom I assume are british?) have main character name syndrome and now everybody has generic name #5 is extremely funny to me.

Also I find it very funny that Johannes is described like people describe Lewis.

Not looking forward to continuing as it seems the relationship is changing, but I see no chemistry between them and wish they would not talk to each other ever again :D (that’s too harsh but you gotta grant me some exaggeration for comedic effect)

reading this book is physically painful. Partly because everybody in this is immature and so fucking annoying but also because it’s so wishy-washy about the F1 aspect of it all. Like, I don’t expect the main reader base to all be statisticians and mega fans, but you only pick up an F1 romance if you know and like F1, right????

I still can’t get over the expectations this team seems to have. They’re worried about a P6, their first driver is talking about only having two wins not even halfway through the season with dread (10 podiums, though, mind you) and their second driver is happy to not be out in Q2??? Elated about consistent points, at least one of which only being P9??? Who the fuck are we. This is literally just Red Bull, but without the four championships to legitimize such huge expectations. This is really just silly.

Also, qualifying ‘race’? Cmon.

And the whole lap record thing. It’s like 0.004 faster than the actual lap record which is believable, but then we’re talking about the race?? He did not do a 1.16.anything in a race. That’s bullshit. Unless he had like 30 secs off P2 and they called him in for new softs in the second to last lap just for funsies this is just physically impossible. So why are we talking about the lap record at the same time as we’re talking about winning the race with a 7 second margin to P2?? At least I interpret like they meant it like that because everything else is once again impossible.

oh and Johannes Müller is a silly ass name and ruins any immersion for me because I constantly think of Thomas Müller. That is genuinely the worst german name ever it’s so generic holy shit

I—hm. I bought this book because I’m a massive F1 fan and currently writing my own F1 romance series (the romance is just an excuse to write a parallel world F1 grid tbh), and I thought it would be fun to see what the “competition” had to offer.

Now going into this, there were multiple things working against me: I very much dislike the trope-heavy, “spicy” contemporary new adult booksphere that has cropped up in recent years. I also hate first person perspective, though I have been forced to get used to it since most books I read are unfortunately written in it.

But I still went into this book open minded. It’s a little silly of a concept, but we all must have enough whimsy in our hearts to allow that kind of silliness every now and again.

However, getting faced with extremely clumsy writing (“the door” being said three times in a same sentence), what I can only assume are misplaced speech indicators and a missing comma in the first five pages did make me question quite a lot.

I shall persevere through this but I don’t know, is this the quality I should expect from these kind of books? Honest to god, I’d rather have a half-heartedly rewritten Lestappen or Landoscar (or even Sebmark or Brocedes if you know ball) fanfiction.